World Effects
World effects in Spark AR are effects that are stationary using the smartphone’s gyroscope to stay in place and calculate how the effect should change and react. If an object is in world space, you can set it to be in a fixed location in someone’s environment. The difference between having an effect in the camera space as opposed to the world space is that the effect does not stay in front of the camera. When an object is no longer a child of the Camera, it’s in what’s known as world space.
Target tracking seems to be the most exciting application for AR effects when it comes to real world usage. This is when you can programa certain effect to occur only when you show a specific object in the viewfinder and from there it allows you to see an augmented effect project from the object or around it like a hologram. This can lead to dynamic ads with “holographic” animations that happen in real time. But for example this can also lead to possible virtual menus that show 3D models of the food that the restaurant serves; with this COVID pandemic many restaurants switched to QR codes or Paper disposable menus for their menus, but with this you can have another level of modernity to these everyday interactions.
Plane tracking is similar to target tracking but it is not as specific. A plane tracker will find a horizontal surface in the real world, like a floor to table. Objects that are children of the plane tracker will then appear when the surface is detected.
There are good and not so good ways to making sure a target tracking effect works properly. Some ot the things that can impact how well the filter works are high contrast, high resolution, sharp details, asymmetrical patterns and compositions complex images, flat surfaces, clear target shapes, avoiding blank space or transparency, and good target placement. All these things will impact how well a target effect works and if the viewer will even be able to interact with the target effectively. It is also important to let the user know exactly what object they are looking for with a Target Marker. These are an easy way to let the user understand what they are trying to scan and that way they aren’t left confused or just lost trying to scan every little object around them.
