The GymDogs Experience logo combines the iconic “G” logo with two rings. The “G” reinforces the distinct brand of Georgia Athletics and represents the GymDogs, while the rings signify the goals of our AR experiences. The outer ring represents unity, as our AR experiences aim to bring together the GymDog family, while the inner ring represents innovation, taking advantage of engaging AR technology to reach potential recruits from a distance.
The GymDogs Experience Logo will only be used on the website but otherwise used to represent the filters on Instagram in the variant without title text.
The GymDogs Experience logo combines the iconic “G” logo with two rings. The “G” reinforces the distinct brand of Georgia Athletics and represents the GymDogs, while the rings signify the goals of our AR experiences. The outer ring represents unity, as our AR experiences aim to bring together the GymDog family, while the inner ring represents innovation, taking advantage of engaging AR technology to reach potential recruits from a distance.
The GymDogs Experience Logo will only be used on the website but otherwise used to represent the filters on Instagram in the variant without title text.
The GymDogs Experience logo combines the iconic “G” logo with two rings. The “G” reinforces the distinct brand of Georgia Athletics and represents the GymDogs, while the rings signify the goals of our AR experiences. The outer ring represents unity, as our AR experiences aim to bring together the GymDog family, while the inner ring represents innovation, taking advantage of engaging AR technology to reach potential recruits from a distance.
The GymDogs Experience Logo will only be used on the website but otherwise used to represent the filters on Instagram in the variant without title text.
The GymDog Experience also follows similar typography guidelines to the UGA Athletics brand guide, using United as the primary font for all projects. For script fonts, we follow the standard set by the Gymdogs Creative team and use Amithen and Photograph Signature.
The style of the GymDogs Experience AR filters imitate the style exemplified by the UGA Gymnastics Instagram. Generally, the Instagram account maintains a modern, cool aesthetic, aiming to represent the true spirit of the GymDogs with grungy or vintage textures, grayscale gradients, glittery detail, and bold lettering. They mostly work on personifying the individual gymnasts and showing off the legacy of the team, and strongly avoid boiling the girls down to their femininity alone.
Because the Savage Confetti Bucket is a prominent part of the UGA Gymnastics brand, the bucket is also often utilized in various graphics, along with red, black, or reflective gold confetti.
The graphics feature a decent mix of both United and a mix of Amithen and Photograph Signature fonts.
3D Assets are a vital part of AR technology. We used a variety of 3D assets to help bring our SparkAR filters to life. From our Gymdogs bucket to the NCAA trophy, these 3D models help connect the virtual and real world.
To create our augmented reality tool, we used SparkAR, a development tool that allows creatives to create a host AR filters within the Facebook ecosystem. At first, we found SparkAR unfamiliar. It truly is unlike any development environment we had encountered before. That being said, once you learn the underlying logic, the rest of the platform is fairly easy to comprehend.
Our success was not without help. There exists tons of useful documentation and tutorials that help guide our way through implementing these AR filters. We've broken down each one below along with what filters they helped us to accomplish.
Random Card Shuffle Tutorial - https://youtu.be/_BHo-QcQbgU
This tutorial offered excellent guidance on the logic that powers the random card shuffle effects. We used a similar process to bring our "Which Gymdog Are You?" filter to life. It's essentially a step by step tutorial. You will just need your own .PNG images to use as cards for the effect.
Magazine Background - https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/tutorials/replacing-the-background/
This is one of the built in SparkAR tutorials, provided by Facebook. It offers good insight into face occlusion to remove the background and import your own image. This is fairly cut and dry to follow. Simply have your own images prepared to drop into the background.
Power G Face Tattoo - https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/tutorials/creating-a-face-tracking-effect
The face tracking filter is one of the simplest implementations of SparkAR, yet it provides amazing results when done well. Simply open up the face mesh PNG (see below) in Photoshop and add your effects in the intended places. Important note: there is some slight distortion that exists when adding elements around tha natural curve of the face, so keep that in mind as you build with school logos and other important brand marks.
Face Meshes for Face Tracker - https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/articles/people-tracking/face-mesh
Kira Kira Glitter Filter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqzDe6E5rQM
This tutorial is what shaped the glitter effect that is featured on the magazine filter. You'll find it as a good source for some of the cool things you can create when using some of the built in logic that powers SparkAR.
Basic Blender Tutorial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4
Blender operates seamlessly with SparkAR to allow the importation and editing of 3D objects. Blender can seem intimidating at first, but this tutorial helps you to become more acquainted with its capabilities.
Blender Integration - https://sparkar.facebook.com/blog/new-spark-ar-studio-integrations-arrive-in-blender/
Here's a bit of light reading on some of the cool integrations that exist between Blender and SparkAR.
Virtual Bubble Filter - https://youtu.be/7ZxO4CtkZ74
This tutorial was the foundation for the Virtual World Bubble filter. Bradley had fun trying to decipher the meaning of each of these steps in Spanish, but ultimately the tutorial is super helpful and creates an incredibly cool effect.
A couple more quick tutorials we found generally helpful:
https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/tutorials/target-ar-effect#getting-started
https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/tutorials/bunny-mask#testing-target-tracking
https://sparkar.facebook.com/ar-studio/learn/tutorials/particle-world-effect