aeternitas | Devpost

Inspiration

I've always loved looking up at the stars and seeing images of space. I got into digital art to start creating my own scenes of the cosmos. For this lens I wanted to use my love of space to represent the limitless potential found within each of us.

What it does

This lens turns the user's own clothing into a window into the depths of space. Within this view you can see the planets orbiting around a galaxy. Not quite reality, but why should we constrain ourselves? As you move, you leave a trail of sparkling stars in your wake. You also emanate an aura that responds to the sounds around you.

How I built it

The trickiest part of this lens was getting the materials right. My first challenge was turning the user's own clothing into a portal. I didn't want to completely replace their clothing; I wanted to keep the silhouette and have it transition into the portal. The Body Normals texture came in super handy and was the key to creating that transition.

For the galaxy and the fractal aura behind the user I turned to the new Code Nodes in the material editor. I adapted a couple existing shaders and then used the audio analyzer script from the asset library to help drive the animation of the aura.

For the stars that come into existence when the user moves, I started with the optical flow VFX (once again from the asset library) and made some modifications to get just the right look.

From there it was a matter of layering everything together using various render targets and materials.

Challenges I ran into

Lens Studio is always receiving new features, some of which I needed for this lens, but unfortunately that also meant it brought along a few bugs. My biggest issues were actually getting the VFX components to update when I made changes and to get the blend modes of some of my materials to work.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

My favorite part was getting the clothing portal to work. I wanted to make sure the user's clothes were still recognizable, but I also wanted a clear enough portal to see into. I'm really happy with the result I got from combining the body normals and upper/lower garment segmentation textures.

What I learned

I learned to not be afraid to iterate. Originally I was also going to create an intro sequence for this lens, but it wasn't looking quite right and didn't flow as well as I'd hoped. Last minute I decided to leave it out and try out the audio-reactive aura. In the end I'm glad I went that route because the final lens ended up being much more cohesive.