#MixedRealities Week 1: Face decoration

(Image of my filter in the Spark AR program)

For my Des241 mixed realities, week one project, I used Facebook's Spark AR application, a free code less AR effects tool, and created my own Facebook filter.

Inspired by the course itself, this simple filter adds a pair of 3D VR goggles, with the model downloaded from SketchFab, onto the users face when they use the Facebook app camera on their smartphone device. This was primarily achieved by following both the in-class tutorials/examples using Spark-AR, as well as this video by YouTube channel Black Mixture, which showed off the various features of the program in slightly more detail then we covered in class.

While this is only my first week using the software, I feel as though I am slowly getting the hang of it, and have since created several other filters, including one that changes the color of the background, while leaving the users face (foreground) intact. Personally, the hardest part about creating this test project, was resizing the goggles to where they still fit with the face even if the user moves their head from side to side or rocks back and forth. Luckily Spark AR provides a extremely simple, and easy to use set of tools to resize, scale and rotate 3D objects. These tools are called "Manipulators" and can be accessed by clicking on the three icons at the very top of the Viewport, the main area on the application where you can view a preview of your filter in action, on one of the many human models provided by the app.

(An image of the "Manipulators" icons, these tools allow the user to change the proprieties of an object by using their mouse)

Thanks to these tools, this problem is mostly fixed, however the goggles do still sometimes clip the users head, although this issue is rather hard to notice if specific attention is not drawn to it. As I become more familiar with this software, this problem will hopefully no longer be as much of an issue for me as it has, simply due to being more familiar with using the "Manipulators" .

In addition to the viewpoint screen, there is also three other main screens/panels in the application that I used to create my first filter. The first, the scenes panel, located on the left of the screen (to the left of the Viewport) allows the user to see objects/assets that can be added into the project while the second panel, the Assets panel, located directly below, allows the user to see all of the assets as well as all of their children (assets related to the models e.g their mesh as well as any textures that are applied to this object). Objects can be quickly added to the scene by dragging them from the Scene panel (in this case my VR glasses).

(An image of both the Scene panel, and the asset panel)

The final panel I would like to mention is the proprieties panel, located to the very right of the screen. This panel shows all the proprieties of an object, when it is clicked on in the Viewport. This allows the user to quickly change certain attributes about the object, including it's mesh, and by using the Transformations panel located directly below, it's scale, rotation and position . Note that this only applies to the specific object in the Viewport, not the master version of the object that can be found in the scene panel. I primarily used this panel in addition to the Manipulators in order to scale my VR glasses down so it would fit on my face.

(screenshot of the Proprieties and Transformations panels, found to the right of the Viewport)

Below is a short video of me trying out my filter on the Facebook camera for the first time:

I chose to post about Spark AR primarily because it really intrigued me, I honestly had no idea about how easy it had become to create AR filters. I am extremely excited to continue using the app, and am looking forward to what else I can create with it as my skills in using it improve. While I have so far primarily focused on the visual sense, I would in future love to add sound effects to my filters, to enrich the experience further.

References:

1. Black Mixture (2020, January 11 ) Make Your Own 3D Instagram Filters │Spark AR Basics Tutorial . YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIt2fdjExy0