Creating AR Galleries on Spark AR Studio
Bring paintings and sculptures right into your living room! With Spark AR Studio you can curate your own galleries and view them anywhere.
We brought these Roman Emperors to our nearest park!
Create your own gallery by following these steps:
1.The very first thing to do is to check out sketchfab.com for open access 3D models. Museums like the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the Harvard Museum have many free models you can use to create your own galleries. Download whichever ones you like, preferably in .obj format.
2. Next, you need to download two applications to your PC/ Mac. The Spark AR Studio by Facebook and another app called Blender. You will also need to download the Spark AR Studio Toolkit for Blender. This is used to optimize the 3D models you download from Sketchfab into a size workable on Spark AR Studio.
These are the links to the downloads and the guides to install them.
Spark AR Studio
Blender
Spark AR Studio Toolkit
3. Once you have the apps downloaded and installed, open Blender and install the toolkit. Click here to learn how to install: https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/articles/creating-and-prepping-assets/toolkit-for-blender/
- Once the toolkit is installed on Blender, select a mesh to get started. It will then be listed in Spark AR Toolkit, under Mesh.
- Then check the Triangle Count. A checkmark to the right of the count will let you know that the triangle count is in line with the Spark AR Technical Guidelines.
- If you see a white exclamation point instead, the triangle count meets requirements, but the mesh will perform better if reduced. A red exclamation point indicates that the triangle count is too high and you’ll need to reduce it.
- Use the Reduce Triangles section to make your mesh as lightweight as possible. Try reducing the triangle count by different percentages.
- Next, under Clean Up Mesh click Apply.
- Scale and positioning display your 3D object’s height and lets you adjust both the height and pivot position. If you see a white exclamation point instead, the height meets requirements, but the mesh will perform better if reduced.
- To set the height: In the Scale section, enter a value in the box below Height.
- Click Center or Bottom to shift your mesh’s pivot point to the desired position.
- When you’re happy with the results, click Export Mesh to save your 3D object to your computer.
4. Next, go to Spark AR Studio and open a new Blank Project. Click on Add Object and introduce a Plane Tracker to your scene.
5. Right-click on Plane Tracker and then select Add> Null Object.
6. Click Add asset and select the optimised model you made on Blender. Drag the asset over to the Null Object. This will place the asset on the screen.
7. Move, Rotate or Scale the object to your preference using the three options on top. Your screen should look something like this.
8. Select your object on the screen and click Interactions in the right side column and click on Create> Object Tap.
Repeat steps 5 to 8 for each model you want to add.
9. You can try out your AR effect using the Test on Device option on the bottom left of your screen. If you connect your phone to your PC/Mac, you can send your AR effect to the Spark AR Player on your phone.
10. Once you are happy with your effect, head over to https://www.facebook.com/sparkarhub and upload your effect. You will then need to choose a name for the effect, choose the platforms you want to publish it on, select categories and keywords, add a demo video and icon. You can then submit your AR effect. It will take a maximum of 5 days to be accepted. You’ll be notified on Facebook and in Spark AR Hub. It will then be available on all the chosen platforms.
