Creator Spotlight: Vit Haratek
Creator from 🇨🇿 Czech republic
Hi, Vit! Please, tell us something about yourself.
Hey, my name is Vit Haratek and you can find me on Instagram under the nickname @YeahWowCool. I’m based in Czechia and I consider myself a smart creative. What does it mean? I don’t like to be pigeonholed. I don’t need an official ‘job title’ per se. I love to think about myself as a problem solver with a variety of skills and quite deep knowledge in multiple domains. I’m not only a graphics/designer generalist, but I have also acquired profound knowledge in some technical fields and business, and I have interest in molecular biology and physics.
I started coding at the age of 12. I was a game developer, low-level game & render engine programmer who was not afraid of getting his hands dirty with SIMDs & ASM. As a teenager, I used to develop games for Sony PSP. On the other hand, I am also an award holder for music video direction (e.g. MTV award and Czech Academy awards), I worked for years on commercials, VFX, 3D, VR, had my work featured in galleries and big automotive events.
A very interesting period was the time when I created motion designs & concepts for Kanye West and Madonna. Nowadays I spend most of my time pursuing a dream of my own, well-designed apps & tech – and occasionally working as a freelancer. I love to bring technologically challenging or artistically distinctive ideas to life.
How many effects have you created so far and for which platforms?
I have created a few dozens of filters with SparkAR – although I have published only a handful of them on my own profile so far. The ones that I did I consider polished, very reusable, and first of their kind* (*at the time of release). Others were created for clients or unreleased – created just for my pleasure or my friends. Besides Spark, I also briefly tested other platforms. The one I am potentially intrigued by the most is ARkit.
Name the best three effects you created and briefly describe them.
My main effects could be seen as ‘quite simple’ postprocessing video effects – but I see them as aesthetically complete. Infra, Neat Colors, Soft – I would say all of them are polished with a high degree of variability and customization, focused on color-grading and mood of the video. I like to see them as mini-apps. All postprocessing code is my own and optimized for performance and better precision. Color-grades were all handcrafted (with the help of tools like Processing, DaVinci Resolve, After Effects) by me through the process of rigorous testing. I spent weeks making them & exploring various possible ideas, purposefully omitting many of them, trying to bring the highest quality possible given the present limitations. I believe I did quite a good job since each of them has billions and billions of impressions.
Which platform for creating AR filters is your favourite and why?
It doesn’t really matter that much to me – since all platforms are based on the same underlying principles and knowledge of 2D/3D rendering, shaders, math, animation principles, programming experience… and years of practice. From the technical standpoint – I really enjoy SparkAR as a prototyping tool – where raw ideas can be tested quickly & one can focus on artistic qualities.
What in your opinion makes an AR effect successful?
Depends on what you define as success. For me, it is not creating a mere fad but to bring some persisting value and quality that is being continuously delivered over a longer period of time – months and years.
If there is anything else you would like to share please do it here.
More of my stuff and artistic style could be seen here 🙂