5 XR Creators You Should Follow | February 2023

I decided to start creating AR filters because I was already a generalist 3D artist, and I found the opportunity to bring to life my 3D creations in AR. All of the 3D assets in my filters are modeled and textured by me, and that’s an important part of the creative process for me. I want the narrative of my filters to be centered in a 3D that I’ve created. On top of that, I’m also a Fashion Designer, and sometimes I like to merge all of my skills in creating 3D garments and try-on experiences.

Jester Mask by Matheus Gramacho

I got to know Virtual Reality and especially Augmented Reality when I started studying for my master’s degree in neuro-engineering. It was a more health-oriented area of Augmented Reality, aimed at improving clinical environments and clinical recovery using AR/VR, but it was there that I realized the power of AR and that I was completely enchanted, and I started to go deeper.

Future trips
by flaviaffreirec

coding
by flaviaffreirec

My major in university was related to interactive new media, so I was already familiar with tools like Unity3d, a nice tool for making AR/VR.

However, I started working on AR because of my master’s thesis. My topic was to research the aesthetics of AR’s visual representation, so I started creating a series of AR works, each related to a performance I wanted to study. You can see this experimental series on my YouTube channel.

These works were initially mostly done with Unity. During my studies, I also took on some part-time AR-related jobs and came across Meta Spark while working at one company. That’s when I started to explore the world of social filters. After starting to work on community filters, several of the works received decent feedback, and I also had some educational cooperation with Meta in Taiwan. Recently I’ve actually been less active in creating works and more focused on teaching.

When working as an architect, I was always disappointed with how boring the application of virtual reality was in this field, constantly being perceived only as a preview tool. What I craved was to use VR as a creative tool and to be able to make, test, and change designs live in the headset. I decided to chase this dream and experiment with different programs to take architectural design to a new, different level and make the most out of the potential of VR.

Galactic Opera
by kuba_hyperliving

Interstellar Dunes
by kuba_hyperliving

Hello. My name is Yuliia, and in the past, I was a dancer and circus performer. For a long time, I worked in circuses in Europe and traveled a lot. However, as much as I love performing, I have always been drawn to technology and innovation.

Then the pandemic hit, and all the circuses were forced to close, and I found myself out of a job. It was a difficult time, but I saw it as an opportunity to gain new knowledge and master a new profession. I immersed myself in learning augmented reality and developing new skills. At first, it was extremely difficult for me, because before that I opened my computer only to watch movies and had no experience in any programs. Basically, my training took place on YouTube videos, so I began to create my first effects in Spark AR.

AR for me is a bridge between the physical and digital worlds, where the boundaries between reality and imagination are blurred, offering limitless possibilities to improve our perception and interaction with the world around us.
When we look through the lens of Augmented Reality, the world turns into a magical place where everything is possible.
The 2022 year turned out to be very difficult for my country because of the war. And it was mentally difficult for me to work and create new AR experiences, but creativity should not die even in such times.

What are the best AR/VR works you created?

I think all of my filters have similar workflows. When I have an idea in my head, I start my process in Blender, with the modeling of the main asset that is going to be the center of the narrative. After that, I head over to Substance Painter, where I do the texturing and prepare the baked textures to use on the AR software.

I had a lot of fun creating Thing Wednesday Lens. It was an idea that came out of nowhere. I was watching the series and saw the hand (Thing) walking back and forth, I thought how much fun it would be to have it in my environment too and then I thought: I can do this with AR. The workflow was basically preparing the 3D asset of the hand: modeling, texture, rig, and animations (Idle and walking) in Blender and exporting this to Lens Studio (Also made a version in Spark AR). After that, I had to work with the animations and the follow-path template in the Lens Studio.

Thing Wednesday
by flaviaffreirec

Spring eye
by flaviaffreirec

In my thesis research, I think a good AR must combine physical objects or space. After all, being able to integrate with reality is the most special characteristic of AR. So I think my best work should be the Snowflakes Lab an AR pop-up book that combines AR and paper art. This book is also related to a master’s thesis created by my paper artist friend Ken. The original concept came from Ken. He wanted to experiment with combining paper structures with mobile devices. The entire process was a series of trials and errors. Each time we made a demo, Ken’s paper structure may have to be slightly modified, or my programming visuals may need to be justified. It took around a year to complete this book. The book was published on a crowdfunding platform in Taiwan in 2019 and raised about 20,000 USD. It was not much, but just enough to produce the book, considered a decent small accomplishment. Later, based on the experience of this work, I participated in the 2020 DevCircle Community Challenge and designed a series of AR pop-up card tutorials, winning the Global Prize of that year. This series of tutorials is open to the public.

One of my best works is ADE Synth’tower available on Ravel and Galactic Opera available on Spatial. The first one was a location for the digital layer of one of the biggest electronic music festivals – Amsterdam Dance Event was built together with Christian Venables. It was dropped as a free digital souvenir in a limited amount of 100 pieces. The second one is my favorite piece until now, using organic design forms to encapsulate a great gathering space and highlight the new features of Spatial.io. It is also part of the Hyperspaces collection and is available as a 1/1 piece on Metamundo.

My favorite effects are world objects with the addition of 3D objects, animations, and coding.

Ukraine
by yuliia_mask

Installation
by yuliia_mask

What is your plan for the future? What do you want to work on or what kind of skills would you like to develop?

The future for me is still a little bit uncertain. I have a lot of skills that I would want to develop, both in the 3D and AR fields. At the moment I’m trying to balance all of that in a generalist kind of way, and that’s why I’m always concerned in creating every asset possible in my filters. That way I can practice both my 3D and AR skills in one single project.

JESTER MASK
by gramashoo

HAUNTED DOLL
by gramashoo

I would like to continue exploring the paths of AR and also start exploring more of the Virtual Reality world. I want to dig deeper and discover more features and keep watching everything new as it comes. I feel like I still have a world of things to discover, but I’m really excited about it.

In my thesis research, I think a good AR must combine physical objects or space. After all, being able to integrate with reality is the most special characteristic of AR. So I think my best work should be the “Snowflakes Lab,” an AR pop-up book that combines AR and paper art. This book is also related to a master’s thesis created by my paper artist friend Ken. The original concept came from Ken. He wanted to experiment with combining paper structures with mobile devices. The entire process was a series of trials and errors. Each time we made a demo, Ken’s paper structure may have to be slightly modified, or my programming visuals may need to be justified. It took around a year to complete this book. The book was published on a crowdfunding platform in Taiwan in 2019 and raised about 20,000 USD. It was not much, but just enough to produce the book, considered a decent small accomplishment. Later, based on the experience of this work, I participated in the 2020 DevCircle Community Challenge and designed a series of AR pop-up card tutorials, winning the Global Prize of that year. This series of tutorials is open to the public.

The goal for the future is to form a collective of creatives, working together on various XR and metaverse projects, constantly pushing each other further. My plan is to utilize the power coming from AI in the best way possible in the design process and to use it as a superpower, making things faster, more fun, and more surprising.

It is very interesting for me to observe the rapid development of technology. Everyday I try to learn something new and gain new knowledge in 3D modeling, coding, drawing, using neural networks, etc. In the near future, I would like to combine AR technologies with dance performance. I really want to create AR experiences that will benefit people or wow effect.

What is your dream project or collaboration?

It would be a dream for me to work with some music artists that I like in a marketing promo of an album or something like that, and also with other Brazilian Creators that I find amazing.

I think I have a project in mind that’s been my dream for a while now, which is to use AR with children for education. I believe that AR has a very great potential to enhance learning and change the way we learn, which I believe has a very overdue method. So I think it would be amazing to be in a classroom and be able to, for example, see the periodic table in front of you and create interactions with the elements using your hand.

I’ve also been doing NFTs lately, especially Generative Arts. Actually, as I stepped into the NFT field, I was thinking about how to use AR in my NFT projects, but I have yet to find a suitable form. So I don’t have any further plans for now. But it would be interesting if there were projects combining these two!

My dream project is to create a musical metaverse with one of my favorite artists that turns an audio album into a multi-sensory experience that reacts to the audience and creates unique memories. Putting it out there – artists, labels, hit me up, and let’s make it real together!