The Adobe Aero iOS app is a great way to create directly in augmented reality. In 2020 we released a desktop version of the app for Mac and Windows, to help you work with the power and speed of your laptop or desktop computer. In this article you'll learn 6 tips for how to make the best of both the desktop and mobile apps to accelerate your AR creative process!

Aero on mobile uses the phone's camera to show you augmented reality, so your iPhone or iPad are the best devices to use when you need to see your digital content overlaid on the real world.

By trying your experience with the mobile app, you'll quickly notice if objects feel too big or too small. Maybe a doorway you designed feels too tall. Or perhaps the door's proximity trigger doesn't playback a sound effect at the right moment when you walk through. Adjust your scene as needed, then switch back to desktop.

While the mobile app is great for quickly sketching ideas in context, using a keyboard and mouse/trackpad on the desktop give you control and speed that unlock a whole new level of complex possibilities. Use the camera keyboard shortcuts (1,2,3) to comfortably look around your scene as you assemble the elements. The spacious behavior panel and always visible behavior settings speeds up the creation of interactive or animated elements. And the scene graph gives you quick access to object selection, visibility and locking to efficiently manage your assets.

While building out a scene on the desktop is fast, it doesn't give you a good feel for how the experience will feel in AR, so be sure to test often with your iPhone or iPad. Aero saves to the cloud automatically as you work, so testing is as simple as opening your project on your phone, and placing it in the real world.

When your scene is ready to record, jump over to your mobile device and go to Preview mode to see it come to life and to record videos or photos. Try turning your device and recording a different orientation. Tapping the camera icon takes a still image, which can be great for custom thumbnails when sharing. Or take your Aero videos to the next level by using a phone gimbal for super smooth captures!

Whether you're creating your assets in Photoshop, Illustrator, Dimension, or Blender, getting your files into Aero desktop is as easy as drag and dropping from your folder into the app. Look here to learn more about supported assets and how to get them ready for use in Aero.

It's important to remember that when you build scenes on Aero desktop, the final destination will be on an iPhone or iPad. So keep the size of your assets as small as possible, avoid using images that are really high resolution or 3d models with too many polygons or massive textures. You can get an estimate of the project size by going to the share panel and noting the total size - try to keep it under 50mb for fast loading and speedy rendering! And as mentioned in tip 3, test frequently on mobile! Check the Adobe Aero help documentation for more details on optimizing for Aero