All content in this course uses:

Configure your AR face filter project for face detection, tracking, and testing using the provided assets.

Set up a face tracking project

The first step in developing an AR face filter app is setting up your project for face tracking. 

In this tutorial you'll do the following: 

Set up your project for face detection and tracking. 

Build and test your app’s face tracking functionality. 

In this learning experience, you'll learn to create your own AR face filter apps. The first app you’ll make is a simple filter that applies materials and 3D models to the user’s face. 

In this tutorial, you’ll take the first step in developing an AR face filter app. You’ll set up your project to detect and track the user’s facial features and visualize the tracking functionality with a green material overlay.

Overview

As you prepare to begin your AR development work, it might be helpful to hear what other creators experience in their day-to-day work. In the video below, a few experienced AR creators discuss their personal development process and what it means to work professionally in XR.

Hear from some established creators

tutorials. In those tutorials, you complete the following setup tasks:

Make sure your mobile device and computer are set up for AR development.

Create a new Unity project using the Mobile AR Template. Deploy a simple AR app to your mobile device that displays a spinning cube in your physical environment. 

If you have already successfully built and run the spinning cube app on your device, you’ are ready to continue with this tutorial.

Before you begin

Let’s get started by setting up your project: 

If your AR project is not already open, open it now.

, then save the scene as “Basic_Face_Filter” inside the 

  In Unity, go to the main menu and select 

 Navigate to the location of the unzipped folder, select the 

  In the Import Unity Package window, check that all the assets are selected and then select 

Take a little time to explore the assets that you have just imported before you continue.

Import the project assets

Augmented reality experiences that overlay digital content on your face require face tracking ability. 

 tells your mobile device where your face is when a camera sees it. The good news is that there’s already computer code packaged up for you that makes this work! You’ve already imported some of that code, but now you need to set up your scene to make that code work and to visualize the faces that are tracked in your application.  

You’ll use the 

 GameObject to visualize the tracking of your face. In order to see the 

 when you test, you'll create a prefab that will be activated when the camera sees your face. You'll also need to apply a material to that 

 GameObject so that it shows up. A special material is provided as part of the project. 

 is a GameObject you can customize to make your own creative face filters. 

will show up when a face is detected by your phone’s camera. In the 

 window to set the material. You can check if the material has been set by navigating to the 

. Here, you should see the Face Debug MAT (Material).

The GameObject icon and name should now be displayed in light blue in the 

 act as templates so that you can reuse GameObjects configured in a specific way. 

Create an AR Default Face prefab

 which GameObject you want to display over a face when it’s detected. You’ll do this using a new component called the AR Face Manager.

 GameObject – it is only there for testing. 

 and then search for and add the AR Face Manager component. This component will 

manage the addition, updating, and removal of GameObjects to represent faces

 go to the AR Face Manager component and locate the 

 GameObject. When a face is detected by your app, AR Foundation will generate an 

 GameObject from the prefab that you have just created.

Configure the AR Face Manager

The app you built with the spinning cube used the camera on the back of your handheld device. However, this new app involves face tracking, so it makes more sense to use the camera on the front of your device. 

Follow these instructions to configure the app to use the front camera:

 GameObject to expand all of its child GameObjects. Parent and child GameObjects are a way to organize the different GameObjects in a scene.

, find the AR Camera Manager (Script) component. 

Update the camera’s facing direction 

It’s time to test your project! The video below demonstrates how the app should function on your device.

To test the project in its current state, follow these instructions to build to your device: 

to add the current scene to the build. Clear any previous scenes to make sure that they are not included in your new build.

  Make sure that your device is plugged in, and then select 

 For a reminder of how to build to your device, you can review the process for 

 The application will open automatically on your device. When a face is detected, the application should cover the face with a simple green face filter.

 If you're developing for iOS and the application is still using the world-facing camera instead of the user-facing one, it may be that Face Tracking is not enabled in your project settings. From the main menu, select 

Build and test

If you want to further develop your skills, explore new concepts, or improve your project, check out some of the optional activities below. Each one is tagged as either Easy, or Medium, so you can choose the level of challenge. 

These activities are entirely optional, so if you’re not interested, no problem — just skip this step. We do recommend attempting at least one of them in order to get the most out of this learning experience. Good luck!

While the debug material is a fantastic shade of green, you might like to make the material a different color. One way to change the color would be to open the debug material and change the color using a color picker. Another way to change the face debug material color is to make a new material and apply that to the face. 

For more information on how to work with materials, you can explore the 

Medium: Create screen recordings of the application to share

Sharing what you have done with others is a great way to show off your accomplishments and learning. One of the easiest ways to share the progress that you're making on your AR journey is to record your screen as the application runs. 

There are different processes for recording on 

. Once you’ve made a recording, share it with your friends, family, and the world! 

More things to try

In this tutorial you created a basic face tracking application that overlays the default AR face model over your face — great job! In the next tutorial, you'll make things a little more exciting by adding custom materials to the face model.

Next steps

Absolute Beginner AR Development

Zu-UnityLearn

Desarrollo de AR para novatos

Hammad_N

Develop AR experiences that use trackable targets in the environment

Desarrollar experiencias de AR con objetivos que se puedan rastrear en el entorno.

Unity Version 2022.3