News hardware Snapchat cracks and mistakes your smartphone for a PC gamer
Published on 04/29/2022 at 19:05
The social network Snapchat never ceases to amaze: during its Snap Partner Summit held on Thursday, it announced many additions in approach within its application. One of them is none other than ray tracing, which is entering augmented reality filters.
Ray tracing is a technology well known to PC and console gamers: it allows you to enjoy a very realistic rendering of light on virtual objects and environments. This reinforces realism in games, but also elsewhere: the proof, with the arrival on ray tracing within Lens Studio, which is none other than the tool for enjoying Snapchat’s augmented reality experiences. The application hopes to make its filters involving objects in AR even more immersive. What open new uses, and especially new partnerships.
Ray tracing in Snapchat, what for?
Among the first partnerships using ray tracing within Snapchat is the jewelry brand Tiffany & Co. which proposes to discover a truer-than-life jewel, which technology allows to shine with a thousand lights. A Buzz Lightyear filter has also been unveiled : it allows the user of the application to equip himself with the space suit of the character, and to take advantage of very pretty reflections on the helmet and elsewhere.
If this seems a bit gimmicky to you, it’s normal: Snapchat is promoting ray tracing in an entertaining way right now. But the service very clearly hopes to attract new partners, who want to offer a premium experience to the application community, which brings together 250 million members.
Augmented reality at the heart of the experience
The addition of ray tracing is primarily intended to enhancing the augmented reality experience within Snapchat. The platform took advantage of its conference to highlight the potential of trying on clothes via its application, with la fonction Dress Up.
The first presentation videos are really amazing regarding the potential of this feature, which should arrive very soon within Snapchat. If the service has already signed some partnerships of this type in the past, in particular with Adidas, here, the promise is more concrete and might concern thousands of clothes, pairs of shoes or even pairs of glasses, if fashion companies follow. And according to the many announcements posted by Snapchat on Twitter, it’s already the case.
With our new AR Image Processing tech, YOU become the model! @AEO used this capability to instantly overlay products onto shoppers’ photos, so they can try on any product from their catalog and go from “this looks good” to “this looks good on me.” #SnapPartnerSummit pic.twitter.com/jScwGc4MIt
— Snapchat for Business (@SnapForBusiness) April 28, 2022
We understand better why adding small touches of realism via technologies such as ray tracing is important for Snapchat: fun filters are good, but useful filters are even better. And incidentally, this undoubtedly guarantees a good return on investment if users, seduced by the outfits tried on virtually, go to checkout. A brilliant idea!
Par akazanWriting jeuxvideo.com
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