The Serengeti - Wildlife Safari Using Augmented Reality

Our project aims to bring wildlife closer to the millions of daily active Snapchat users, through augmented reality. Taking inspiration from one of the best National Parks in Africa, the Serengeti.

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Our Inspiration

The great Albert Einstein once said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better”. Inspired by those fantastic words of wisdom, we created our project code-named “The Serengeti”. Our project aims to bring wildlife closer to the millions of daily active Snapchat users, through augmented reality. We took inspiration from one of the most visited National Parks in Africa, the Serengeti.

Our Goal

Bringing the Serengeti experience closer through our Snapchat Lens experience is one way we intend to show more of the wild to the world. We make sure to leave our users with a small glimpse of what to expect if they ever visit the real Serengeti in Africa. Our Snapchat Lens uses 3D modeled wild animals to bring the augmented reality experience to life. Straight to your mobile smartphone from anywhere in the world for free. We believe by showing how beautiful the wild and its inhabitants are, our project will curb the threats facing the Serengeti such as poaching of wildlife, poverty, and habitat destruction.

How we built our project

The great William Shakespeare once said, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”. With this in mind, having a realistic augmented reality experience was one of our main goals with the Serengeti project. The 3D wild animals were built, modeled, and animated using Blender Computer Software. Taking inspiration from photographs taken and posted on the internet, showing different angles of the various wildlife. The 3D environment surrounding the wildlife was also built and modeled through the Blender Computer Software. When the 3D models were ready for augmented reality, we exported the models, the materials surrounding them, and their respective textures to Lens Studio. Using Lens Studio, we used the Ground Segmentation feature to add short grass for the zebra to eat and long grass for the lion to hide in while it stalks its prey. After the 3D scene was made, adding the wildlife was the next step. But static 3D wild animals could not meet our augmented reality experience goal, we added animations to each of the wild animals and also added sound to make the experience wholesome.

Technologies used

  1. Blender Software Computer Software for 3D modeling and animation
  2. Lens Studio for Augmented Reality realization and segmentation
  3. Script code for audio addition to the environment
  4. Snapchat for user experience

What we learned

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”, these words said by Benjamin Franklin pushed us every day as we made the Serengeti project come to life one frame at a time. We learned a great deal about wild animals and their habitats, what challenges they and their environment are facing every day and how to help conserve their footprint on our planet. We also learned:

  1. Modelling in 3D using Blender Computer Software
  2. Animating 3D objects using Blender Computer Software
  3. Exporting Augmented Reality ready 3D objects
  4. Building an Augmented Reality environment using Lens Studio
  5. Using Script code for adding audio in Lens Studio
  6. Making a Snapchat Lens ready project for public use
  7. Using Markdown Syntax for HTML text formatting The experience has been a wild ride, to say the least, we are committed to improving the project and making it bigger, better, and more interactive as we continue to learn more about augmented reality.

Challenges we faced

In her quest to conquer the world of modern dance, Martha Graham once said, “Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men”. In our quest to conquer 3D modeling in augmented reality, we had our fair share of challenges. The challenges included:

  1. Time – 3D renders take time to complete and debug before exporting
  2. Learning curve - Although Lens Studio has sufficient tutorials online, learning about augmented reality online is not straightforward
  3. Funding – Having a zero-dollar budget limited our imagination on the overall project
  4. Team members – Lack of 3D modeling experts to recruit for the project

What's next for Interactive wildlife Experiences Using Augmented Reality (The Serengeti)

Our next step with the project is to make it bigger, better, and more interactive by using better 3D characters and a much better ground segmentation feature.

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