Jacobs AR masks
Devices: every one where the Facebook app is installed
New Year’s Eve
The beginning of December 2019. The whole world is filled with New Year’s mood. People start New Year’s shopping races, sweeping all before them. Companies start the last race of the year, trying to catch up with everything they wanted to do throughout the year and do all things they put aside. Cities are covered with lights, New Year songs sound on the radio. Joyful mood for no reason and the whole world seems sweet and welcoming. It was at this time that we received a task from Be It Agency to create two masks in augmented reality on Facebook for the Jacobs Ukraine campaign.
Two great New Year ideas
The task we received was to create two masks for Facebook. One mask with the parallax effect, thanks to which everyone could take a selfie on the background of the fireplace, New Year tree and Jacobs, which magically raises from the brand cup. And if this task was clear, then with the second mask we had many questions. We had to create a 3D cup for the second mask that could be placed on any flat surface. The cup should have been filled with New Year’s gifts in accordance with the reference provided, and the cup should have been covered with snow, evoking pleasant childhood memories.
Magic cup and a lot of snow
The first attempts to create snow around the cup confused mobile devices. In addition to using a huge amount of RAM to run augmented reality and finding a flat surface, we generated thousands of small particles of snow, which led to a complete stop of the phones. Having solved the problem with snow using particles, we were faced with a new challenge. Only part of the room was visible through the open door in the reference image of the cup. But augmented reality is notable for the freedom of action of its users. And knowing from experience the curiosity of people, we were sure that everyone would look into the room through the open door. We chose an interior with New Year’s attributes and agreed on this set on the second meeting. A Christmas tree, a fireplace, two New Year’s socks, gifts, candles, an armchair, a soft toy, a door, a cup, a Christmas wreath, a snow platform, windows and night lights – everything was done as separate 3D objects and combined into one scene. Of course, we did not fit into the 4 MB limit for the Facebook mask.
Optimization, a lot of optimization
Optimization. This is the word that was heard on the New Year Eve in our company more often than the song Happy New Year was played on the radio. Each element of the mask was changed to reduce weight while maintaining primary beauty. After long hours of hard work, we reached 4 MB of weight and breathed a sigh of relief. But the problems remained. For some unknown reason, the snow began to fall not from top to bottom, but as it wished – from the left, inside, outside the cup. Congratulations texts randomly changed their sizes, aroma simply did not rise from the cup. After a two-day working marathon until 1 a.m. and one Saturday run until 12 a.m., we nevertheless resolved all the problems that arose and sent New Year masks for release.
New Year under control
Usually, the moderation of new masks and filters with augmented reality takes Facebook from 3 to 5 working days. Our masks were released a day after sending for verification and we really want to believe that Facebook experts understood what we had to do a lot of work that everyone could enjoy a cup of perfect Jacobs coffee and send New Year greetings to their relatives using our masks.
Project work list
- Development of the parallax effect
- Creation of all 3D models for the project
- Optimization of 3D models
- Development of congratulations structure
- Scene assembly, VFx setting up, sounds implementation
- Release on Facebook
