Pokemon GO may technically be a mobile AR game, but from the start the AR side of things has always felt like a bit of a second thought in terms of the game's visuals. When the title launched the AR features were very limited and also incredibly brutal on cell phone batteries. A lot of changes have been made in the following years and the AR side of the game is becoming more of a natural part of the experience than ever before.
Many Pokemon GO tasks and story lines include incentive to take snapshots of Pokemon in AR spaces or to play with your buddy Pokemon in the AR environment. These features can be a lot of fun and definitely help crossover the game's characters and the real world. According to the latest update from the development team, even more improvements are coming to the AR side of the experience in the near future.
The upcoming features are going to be limited to select Android devices when they initially roll out, but will hopefully be available to everyone soon enough. Reality Blending looks very cool and will make it so that Pokemon more organically interact with their surrounding environment by doing things like disappearing behind a tree or other physical obstacles.
Reality Blending
Trainers have always dreamed of having their Pokémon by their side in the real world. As Pokémon GO has grown throughout the years, Trainers have been able to walk, play, and take snapshots with their Buddy Pokémon.
We are now introducing a new way for your buddy to become part of your world like never before. By taking advantage of the latest AR functionality on devices like the Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung Galaxy S10, Google Pixel 3, and Google Pixel 4, we are developing ways your buddy can appear more realistically within the world around you. We are excited to announce that we are testing the new Reality Blending feature in snapshots for Pokémon GO.
Help us map the world in AR
At Niantic, we are working to develop a dynamic 3-D map of existing PokéStops and Gyms so we can continue to develop and refine AR features in the future. To help in this mission, we are bringing an opt-in feature to the Pokémon GO community called PokéStop Scan, which will be first available to level 40 Trainers in early June before rolling out to more players by level.
An adaptation of a feature released in Ingress, this feature will let Trainers upload videos of real-life PokéStop and Gym locations to Pokémon GO, which can help us on this mapping journey. If you opt in, you’ll be asked to record video of a PokéStop or Gym’s real-life location from as many angles as possible, up to a maximum of 10 seconds per video.
These videos will allow us to generate dynamic 3-D maps of PokéStop locations. This can give us a better understanding of how virtual objects persist and where they are in relation to one another, which will help us improve the game’s overall AR experiences. In addition, the 3-D objects allow our devices to further understand what they are looking at in order to augment reality in real time.
Pokémon Trainers will be able to contribute to building 3D maps of their favorite PokéStops and Gyms by walking around their favorite public places and recording a stream of images with their phone. Techniques such as blurring potentially recognizable objects like faces or license plates are automatically applied to information that Trainers choose to send to Niantic. Niantic does not collect or store any personal data in connection with this information and it is not tied to specific player accounts. For more information, please read our privacy policy.
For now, players may want to keep hunting down the best Unova Pokemon in the game if improving their Battle Raid rosters is their primary goal. Be sure to check back in the near future for more Pokemon GO strategy guides, news, and updates. Until then, good luck out there, trainers!
Pokemon GO is available now in select regions on Android and iOS devices.
Source: Pokemon GO Live