The idea of augmenting reality (AR) has been around for decades, but it’s only recently becoming an increasingly mainstream technology with tangible uses, from entertainment to marketing. The tools for building AR experiences are constantly developing, and now platforms such as Spark AR Studio are bringing easy-to-create AR to the social media generation.
What is Spark AR Studio?
Spark AR is a studio tool from Facebook that allows users to create their own AR effects for mobile. First launched in 2017, Facebook continues to add capabilities to the platform – most recently, adding in analytics for Instagram and Facebook campaigns. Compatible for Mac and Windows, the AR platform is comparable to tools such as Sketch or Photoshop – only this is for augmented reality.
Prior to this summer, anyone could use Spark AR Studio to create custom AR effects, but if you wanted them to go live on platforms such as Instagram, you had to belong to the beta programme. However, now everyone can have a go at creating their own AR effects and publishing them online.
What can Spark AR do?
Spark AR enables you to create your own AR effects for mobile using a suite of tools – from patching to animation. What’s more, you don’t have to be a technical genius to be able to use it. It allows you to:
Create your own AR effects, with or without a technical background
Import your own 3D files and sounds
Build with or without code
With a host of features and learning guides, it’s a good tool for professional creators (such as studios like ours), as well as personal users. For example, Spark AR enables you to insert your own 3D objects into a project, change their properties and add interactivity, logic and animation. However, if you don’t have your own 3D models, Spark AR provides a vast range of ready-made 3D objects in the AR library.
Why is this important?
Platforms like Spark AR demonstrate how mixed-reality technology is becoming more mainstream – more accessible, useful and fun. Spark AR enables you to create anything from a face filter to interactive AR games, and social media gives it a wide-ranging audience. Meanwhile, the importance of marketing via social media goes without saying. Instagram has over 500 million daily users and is ever-growing in popularity, with advertisers reporting four times as much engagement on Instagram as Facebook.
Spark AR enables brands to be both more creative and more engaging, while taking advantage of detailed metrics, including total impressions, captures and shares – giving insights into how their audience responds to AR.
At Maru Studio, we’ve been creating AR experiences for clients for over four years now and tools like Spark are both significant and exciting in that they are bringing AR quickly and easily to the mass market. It shows how the technology is evolving – both in terms of ease and capability, as well as audience and user demographic – meaning AR is naturally becoming more widespread.
Spark AR is an efficient and versatile way to create AR experiences and it widens the playing field – allowing anyone with an interest in AR to access essential functions. For us as a business, it gives us more tools for our arsenal. For those interested in visual effects and 3D experiences, it gives you a platform to explore for yourself.