Celebrating The Sakura Festival Using AR

Overview

In this project I created an AR filter in celebration of a holiday/event- in which I chose the Sakura/Cherry Blossom Festival. Not only did the filter need to align with the event’s style and meaning, but it also had to include animation and a physical user interaction.

Skills Used

  • Research
  • Graphic Design
  • Analytics

Tools Used

  • Meta Spark (AR)
  • Meta Spark Hub
  • Krita (drawing program)
  • Photoshop

Scope & Constraints

  • 4 week time limit
  • Learning how to implement AR from scratch

Understanding The Importance Of The Cherry Blossom Festival And AR Interaction

Rationale

The Cherry Blossom Festival (also called Sakura Festival) is a festival of Japanese origin that celebrates the beginning of spring and is a symbol of renewal and hope.

The Cherry Blossom Festival has begun to spread around the world- being celebrated in other parts of Asia, the United States, and Canada.

As the festival begins to spread and become known, it has become a quiet and peaceful event that celebrates unity and new beginnings- symbolized by the beautiful flowers of the cherry trees blooming and falling to make room for the fruit.

Research: 5 Human Factors

When doing the research for 5 human factors I did a mix of how people used their phones and interacted with filters, as well as my goals for the Cherry Blossom Festival filter and how I want people to feel and how I will achieve it.

I concluded that I wanted people to be put into a setting (background filter) and have them experience the joy of the falling cherry blossoms that signify the visual appeal of the festival.

Researching The Visuals

Sakura Festival

These photos depict the environment of the festival itself, inspiring the colours of the filter, as well as its content.

Japanese Art

Although I wanted to put in different environment backgrounds, I made them stylized like traditional Japanese art not only to show the culture in which the festival originated from, but also because I feel realistic backgrounds would be unappealing to users.

AR Examples

DJS CREATES is a huge inspiration of many elements implemented into the final filter. Not only did their tutorials help me, but I became more inspired with what all I can do- later on also making more interactions and environments people can themselves in.

Concept Sketches And Interaction Ideation

Concept Sketches

The original Sketches were inspired just by the Sakura Festival Photos whilst the Interaction Ideas had to do with events at the festival- though this would change to be just how the festival feels as a whole for the filter.

Layout Sketches

  • Cherry blossom trees with a city and river in the background
  • A tree overtop of the user and Mt. Fuji in the distance
  • User being encased in the trees and bushes as if they were a photo frame, with festival lanterns included
  • Japanese temple in the background surrounded by the cherry trees

Interaction Ideation

  • If user blows a kiss:

    Petals falling from mouth
  • If users hold out their hand:

    Randomly selected food would show up
  • If user smiles:

    Petals fall around them
  • If users tap:

    Spinning umbrella
  • If users wave:
    Petals fall from their hands

Chosen Interactions

Falling Petals

I have decided one end interaction would include falling petals that are animated and almost look 3D. This animation would be triggered by the users smiling to the camera, showing serenity of the scene. The reason it is triggered my a smile is because it is the most natural “interaction” a user can have when taking photos.

The hardest part to implement about this interaction was making the petals the right side, speed and make them look 3d.

Scenery Change

Another interaction that I have implemented was having the users be able to change the time of day of the scene by tapping on the screen. I implemented this because during the Cherry Blossom Festival there are many activities that take place throughout the entire day, including night markets and more.

Final Layout/ Layers

I had a total of 4 background layers and 1 foreground layer which displayed the banner for the 2023 Cherry Blossom Festival. When working with Meta Spark I was able to make the illusion of putting a user in a more "3d" environment using the z parameter to make the illusion of  perspective.

Conclusion

Were My Goals Achieved?

By the end of this project I was able to achieve my goal and more of creating a filter for the Cherry Blossom Festival using AR that included animation and unique user interactions. I was also able to learn Meta Spark within 4 weeks, as well as tested various limits the technology had and elevated them.
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What Can I Improve On Next Time?

Throughout the course of making the filter I learned a few key things that I never thought would have been relevant until the end of the project. A major issue I ran into and which I plan to improve on the next time is making sure I create images with proper resolution- seeing as when making filters and backgrounds all phones have different screen sizes and I need to create backgrounds accordingly. In the final filter the only glaring issue was the background being a bit squished due to screen resolution.
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What Was The End Result?

The end filter had users taken to the festival itself, where they could toggle the time of day by the tap of their fingers anywhere on the screen. If they are to smile, it would showcase the animated cherry blossoms gently falling around them.

Overall, this project was fun work on and I was able to try out new applications such as Meta Spark AR as well as the Meta Spark Hub for analytics and submissions. The users I tested out the filter with also enjoyed it immensely and became more aware of the holiday!

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