Step aside, Snapchat face swaps, because a little something more fun has claimed the pedestal.
In Snapchat’s latest update, the app rolled out a new augmented reality feature for video snaps. You can now add one or more 3D emoji to them!
How can you get it to work? All you need to do is video your snap, then hit the emoji icon, push and hold your chosen emoji to pin it to an object or location in your video, and you’re done. But that’s not where the real magic takes place.
The 3D emoji will stick to wherever you pinned it no matter how the object/location or your camera moves. It will automatically move, rotate, and scale with the said object/location the same way Snapchat’s face-swapping and filters do.
So imagine the wonders the feature can do if you decide to video snap your pet cat/dog/hamster. You’d be able to stick a funny emoji face to your pet or give your pet a pair of glasses.
The latest augmented reality feature comes after Snapchat hired Eitan Pilipski, according to TechCrunch.
Mr Pilipski was the VP of engineering at Vuforia, an augmented reality technology that has “the power to connect experiences to specific things in the environment”. Snapchat uses “machine vision to recognise distinct objects in a video” so the app “can track them as they move and keep the stickers in sync”.
What can we say? Snapchat sure does have a lot of tricks up its sleeve. And we’re not complaining 🙂 The feature should roll out to Android users today and iOS users are expected to get it soon.
Source: TechCrunch.
