Da Car

Inspiration

This lens was inspired by the 'DaBaby Car' meme. See this video for reference.

What it does

This lens lets you drive around a bald version of your head, either through toon-styled streets or through your own environment via the back camera.

How we built it

I first started by attaching some wheels to a head mesh with the user's face projected on it. After I was satisfied with how that looked, I then proceeded to refine the look of the user's face and the head on the car by adding the Bald ML and smoothing the transition between the face and head 'skin'. Once the 'car' was completed, I added in some sky and a tileable city that scrolls indefinitely. Finally, for the front camera effect, I adjusted how the camera should move around the user to reflect the movement of the user's camera in real life - as well as adding some smoothing and limits to that movement. Once the front camera effect was done. I added surface tracking on the back camera and added a joystick that the user can use to control their car in their own environment.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest issue was matching up the camera movements and perspective of the scene to the user's camera and the relative head position in camera. Another issue that I ran into was trying to get a smooth colour transition from the face mesh into the head mesh so it looked like one seamless object.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I am very proud of the overall appearance and quality of the lens. I am also proud of the experiences that can be created with this lens. People seem to have a lot of fun with it. The lens went pretty viral within the first 24 hours of it being public, getting around 5 million views!

What's next for Car Baby

I could add a more animated/dynamic scrolling city. This could include things like moving cars, changing building colours, and dynamic billboards that use the user's details and face. I could add an option where the user can select an image of a face from their camera to project onto the car. I could also add a second car into the scene for when someone is using the lens with friends.