Introduction
We were introduced to yet another software called Spark AR by Meta and were asked to make an artifact on it. The objective of this artifact was to make a realistic Snapchat-like filter. I can’t say getting introduced to new softwares every week was fun, but by now I was used to it. Seeing how we had only 3 weeks to finish the filter, it didn’t seem like enough time but if we had requested to remove this artifact like we had done for projection mapping, I feel like the teachers would have failed us entirely as a batch. We had a single session on Spark AR and Pierre showed us how to create a face tracker and helped us add glasses and a phone outline to the display to make it look more believable. That class gave a nice understanding and basics of how the software worked.
Using the Spark AR library present, I experimented with multiple objects and saw multiple youtube videos on how to add them to my image. I found this very useful youtuber called DJS CREATES and used many of his videos to complete my filter.
As soon as we were introduced to it, the first thing that crossed my mind was to create a filter as closely identical as possible to a Valorant character, which is a game I have spent half my life playing and still surprisingly am not very good at, and then realised that no amount of Youtube videos in such a short amount of time would enable me to make such a complex filter. I then decided to make a futuristic looking character after taking inspiration from an NFT project I found online and tried to replicate it as it seemed the closest to what my character in my virtual world would look like. I created the holo glasses and a charging port on the head using Adobe Illustrator and imported it as a material on Spark. I also used the Spark AR library and downloaded a Halo and added a glowing effect on the face.
Moodboard
Final Look