For the past couple months I've been working on an iOS app that brings voxel art to the Augmented Reality face filter party. Degerhan Deger came up with the idea for VoxelCam, an Animoji competitor, and he has been hard at work developing the program using XCode's ARKit
After I saw his demo on Reddit, we started chatting about how to build better faces and improve the rendering with lighting effects. In order to export models that worked best with ARKit, I had to break out of my comfort zone with MagicaVoxel, and design the faces in Qubicle, a totally new program for me.
Degerhan already had a bunch of designs ready, but he asked for me to revamp them. Some were already good, and only needed some touching-up. Others got total redesigns for a slightly more organic feel.
In these two examples above, the pirate got a more textured beard and a fancier hat. The cat remodeled from scratch for a fluffier look. I've also been able to create a bunch of my own designs.
One of our first tests was this bunny head. Some changes were made to fix Z-fighting on the eyebrows (overlapping geometry that confuses the render so they flicker). The floating jaw was given some limits so it stays attached. And new lighting was added to give some nice shadows.
If you have an iPhoneX (or newer), I hope you'll give our FREE app a try! You can record videos and take pictures to share on social media or talk to friends. Be sure to use #voxelcam if you post on social media so we can find and share what you make.
Even more masks are unlockable for only $1.99 and we have plans for lots more masks and features, and would love your feedback for the kinds of stuff you'd like to see. Your request might be in the next update!
