Building a Better Bee Beard
Building a Better Bee Beard
I’m Lahna 🤠
I’m primarily an AR lens programmer here at BTM, but I also help out with illustrations.
The decline in honey bee health is a very important issue all around the world. So for National Honey Bee Day we wanted to contribute our skills as a company to help the honey bee gain more attention.
The goal was to create Snapchat augmented reality lens that gave you a beard made of bees that flew off when you shook your head. This concept was an attempt to debunk the idea that a swarm of honey bees is a dangerous entity. Swarming honey bees are when they are most calm and passive since they have no home to defend. Which is why beekeepers have no fear when they show off a beard of bees! Also, it looks cool.
We thought of two ways we could go about it:
- Position so many bee objects around the face that it looks like they have conglomerated there into a natural beard shape
- Create a static, textured mass that resembled a beard and then cover it in actual moving bees to save on tri count.
We decided to start with plan A just so we could work on the head-shaking and bee navigation while our technical artist expertly modeled, rigged, and animated a bee for us to work with. We used spheres of the approximate size of what the bee object would be until she was finished.
We whipped up a script to detect when a user was shaking their head and partnered it up with a system that monitored all bees and their states. This triggered random bees to fly off the face every time the user shook their head a certain number of times.
I was then sent the bee proxy to more properly craft the shape of the beard until the full textures and animations were complete. Substituting them back in took a long time because of a weakness of Snapchat’s AR engine that we didn’t understand — but would come to terms with later.
In order for the bees to appear more realistic when they are flying, we wanted to add a little flying loop as the come back to the face. So, we added a looping state in there as well.
Eventually, the animations were finished and it was time to replace all proxy bees with proper bee objects. This took an even longer time and we didn’t yet know why; each bee was just taking forever to select.
After trying to put a certain amount of bees on the face, the engine kept crashing. To the point where the project was un-openable.
We had well exceeded the suggested tri count for the engine, but it hadn’t stopped anything before. Other lenses were ten times over the allowed tris but worked fine.
We realized, however, the engine was worse when it came to an overload of the number of objects in the scene hierarchy. The engine could select an object on its own, but an object with dozens of children took a very long time to select…and because of the nature of the engine each imported bee was broken up joint by joint into their own objects.
So it was time for plan B. We made up a beard-shaped object but no matter how hard we tweaked it it just couldn’t look right because the surface needed to be covered in bees for it to be believable anyway. We remade the scene from scratch, using the old scripts. There were three kinds of bee objects:
- Static bees with very few tris, to make up the bulk of the beard
- Idly animating bees that never leave the face
- Bees with animations built in that let them take off, fly, and land
This set of solutions worked surprisingly well! And after that, we put an overlay filter and some sparkles on it and called it a day!
Check out the finished result for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/beardofbees
Decrypting the Emoji Code
In the modern mobile world, everyone knows what an emoji is. There’s a “standard set” of emojis we’re all familiar with that are available whether you’re using your iPhone, Android, or computer device, with new ones rolling in and even personalized-to-app emojis.
However, do you ever stop to think about how new emojis are added, or who even came up with the old canon? They’re just there; one day they weren’t, and the next day they were! Read onwards and have the mystery of the Emoji Code unraveled!
The Set Canon
Designer Shigetaka Kurita invented the emoji in 1999 to circumvent NTT DoCoMo’s message-character limit (at the time, 250, a la early Twitter). He drew inspiration from picture-based Chinese “Kanji” characters and, armed with a 12x12 grid, created the first set of emojis using common expressions and thoughts he felt were relatable and cute (and would save textual space!). This set was immediately introduced into most of Japan’s mobile products, but their competitors soon took artistic license and released emojis of their own; copying Kurita’s expressions but rendering them in a different style.
Shigetaka Kurita, NTT DOCOMO. Emoji (original set of 176). 1998–99. Software and digital image files.
Gift of NTT DOCOMO Inc., Japan
Initially, this caused quite a bit of chaos and miscommunication because a user of one company’s emoji could not see any other another company’s emoji. However, in 2005 carriers began to match incoming signals with their emoji sets and switch them over, and after Apple’s 2007 iPhone globalized them, the Unicode Standard was created so that your poop emoji will send to any device.
New Emojis
New emojis introduced into the existing canon are decided by the Unicode Consortium, which sounds like a bona-fide secret society right out of a sci-fi novel but is an actual, real-life organization whose goal it is to enable everyone to be able to use a computer and express themselves with pictures! However, the individual designs for the emojis are left at the discretion of the companies making them; the biggest players being Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Google. As a result of this, each of these big-name platforms (and other smaller-name ones) has their own emoji for the same expression.
The Gun Emoji
Take for example, the gun emoji, which was one of the most controversial emojis out there at the time of its creation and is still interesting today because of the fluctuating gun climate in the USA. Upon its inception, none of the platforms had the same one, and some even went as far as to use squirt guns instead of actual guns. There were also companies that started with real guns but changed them to squirt guns at a later date (and in Microsoft’s case, vice-versa). See the chart below:
Source: Emojipedia / Emojipedia
Obviously, squirt gun to lethal gun emojis can totally change the tone of a message and actually cause confusion if two users were receiving different images.
It’s worth noting that Apple was the forerunner in changing their gun emoji to the squirt gun we see now. After Apple changed theirs, most companies followed suit partly due to personal value but also because they are trying to create an emoji culture where there is as little confusion as possible, a mission that as designers ourselves we can absolutely appreciate.
Facebook has also announced that they will be removing their gun emoji and replacing it with a squirt gun, although that change hasn’t happened yet. This means every major platform has changed from a real gun to a squirt gun.
Sources:
https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2016/10/the-surprising-history-of-emojis/
Six Reasons Stickers & GIFs are Effective for Marketing
Marketing is constantly evolving around the consumer, and during the Age of Technology it’s evolving at a more rapid pace ever; it can be difficult for marketers to know whether or not they’re on the uptake or being left behind. Perhaps the most underrated game-changing tool for marketers are animated stickers and GIFs. Although many still use video, this format is frankly out of date for the modern internet user. According to a survey conducted by Harris Poll, a whopping 71% of Americans would rather send a digital sticker over a block of text. With such a large user base, it’s no surprise more and more companies have been seizing the opportunity to make branded stickers and GIFs to seamlessly integrate their brand into their consumer’s daily life. We partner with these companies to make their brand come alive within mobile conversations. However, not all companies are aware of the wide gamut of opportunities afforded to them across platforms or the sheer flexibility stickers and GIFs inherently have.
1. Custom Twitter Emojis that create trending hashtags:
Companies can pay Twitter to attach a custom emoji to a Twitter hashtag for a period of time. Then, whenever someone uses their hashtag the emoji automatically comes with it! The brand’s hashtag instantly stands out with its unique emoji and helps create a community around the product.
Recently, we collaborated with Disney on a campaign for Christopher Robin and other upcoming titles, including creating a range of twitter emojis to promote the film and make the hashtags appealing, relevant, and most importantly create the cute Pooh-bear association to the Christopher Robin movie in people’s minds. We managed the storyboarding, sketching, and illustration for these emojis.
2. Clickable Branded Stickers:
A branded sticker campaign’s main objective is to organically increase brand awareness and engagement. To that end, stickers are a revolutionary tool because it enables marketers to have their brand present in their customers everyday conversations across mobile. In other words, their brand becomes a permanent part of their customer’s life.
A good example of this is Lovate Health’s MuscleTech stickers, promoting their MuscleTech brand of products. These stickers are centered around and cater directly to the consumer base that uses MuscleTech products; as a result, they end up using them a lot because the sentiments and in-jokes are relevant to them. This entrenches MuscleTech further into the community in a feedback loop that keeps both the company and the consumer happy, and helps new initiates to the community naturally find their product in a sea of competitors.
Lovate Health has taken it even further by making their stickers clickable. These stickers, when sent, allow the receiver or sender to click the sticker and be redirected to a website, the app, or the app store. This is brilliant because users are able to interact with the images being received and has quick access to the company’s brand. They also allow people to send links to products they enjoy in a fun way!
3. Sticker Markets on Messengers:
Stickers and messengers go hand-in-hand, creating a demand for sticker marketplaces, which offer a wide variety of branded emojis and keyboard and almost functions as an advertising playground.
In 2016, around 50% of all mobile users used at least one form of mobile messenger, according to Stastia. The fact that since then, messenger apps continue to add free features like video calls, encryption and social media means that usage has only been increasing. Sticker marketplaces have also grown in kind, and many of mobile messengers have created their own sticker markets that draw users to their specific platform.
Apple and Facebook are leaders in this industry with their respective iMessage and Messenger platforms; in total, over 1 billion stickers sent on them. We’ve has observed the intense popularity of stickers it created for the mobile game Plants Vs. Zombies, which had 1 million downloads 4 days, and 2.5 million downloads in a week with over 100 million impressions.
4. Everyone is a Brand Ambassador:
This was touched upon briefly in point number two, but one of a branded sticker’s major selling points is the seamless integration into a consumer’s life: in other words, converting that customer into a brand ambassador.
This is one of the most effective ways of creating brand ambassadors because people are sending these stickers to their friends organically; they love the content and they are spreading the brand to all of their friends in a win-win scenario. Furthermore, people who are friends tend to be in similar target markets, which means having stickers so your customers can share your brand with their friends is the ideal way to spread your brand.
5. They Can Reach New Audiences
Stickers are an important bridge that connects companies to a younger audience in a charmingly appealing way. In an age where this younger audience has been collectively groomed to ignore the millions of ads they see every day, stickers appeal as authentic and fun, leading more of this audience to be attracted to and spread your brand (in the form of stickers). Sometimes you even get people who were previously unaware of your brand but will buy sticker packs because of artistic appeal or funny witticisms, which could convert them into customers. If not, they’ll at the very least be creating more brand awareness for your brand.
6. They Have Potential for Going Viral
Some of these sticker apps/packs go viral and have millions of downloads. Although not a guarantee, the possibility is always there and because stickers are created to be spread on the internet, where the phenomenon of “going viral” first appeared and retains the farthest reach, it is a direct line to the culture that facilities going viral.
Overall, the existence of stickers as a marketing tool has opened a completely new avenue for brands and consumers to communicate through. Instead of having their message get “lost in textlation”, customers can augment their thoughts with your brand, without losing what they want to say.
Most importantly, they can do it in a way that feels fun and cool and makes them feel good, which will push them to keep doing it. People can show who they are by sending stickers of TV shows, music, or quotes they like from pop culture that curate their personality by showcasing the communities they’re a part of and appealing to others like them. In layman’s terms, stickers/GIFs are great for showing some personality!
Behind the scenes of the Christopher Robin Film's iMessage Stickers
Once upon a time in the hundred acre wood, the classic characters we all know and love needed a new look for their very own set of iMessage stickers. In anticipation of the new Christopher Robin movie, Disney approached us to create of set of stickers in line with the stuffed animal character designs of the movie.
We drew inspiration from children’s books and developed a style that resembled cut paper with distinct texture shading. We then illustrated all nine characters that were going to be in the sticker pack: Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo. This tested the style’s flexibility in rendering human characters, stuffed animals, and realistic computer generated animals.
Sketch Phase:
Once style direction was determined, the next step was sketching out all the stickers.
Color & Texture Phase:
Upon sketch approval, all stickers were colored and textured.
Animation Phase:
The art was then sent over to our animation team. Many were animated in After Effects but a few required special attention. Those got frame by frame treatment. Rough animation was completed to get direction approval before final rendering.
It was pleasure to work with the team at Disney and an honor to work on characters we all adore. The team looks forward to seeing the movie this Friday, August 3rd!
Check out the full sticker pack and download for your iPhone!
Happy World Emoji Day 2018
It is 2018, and Emojis have taken over. The once perceived “silly, childish” messaging stickers have become completely integrated into our daily conversations. Snapchat filters even let us turn ourselves into our very own Bitmoji. Emojis allow us to demonstrate feelings and emotions to a greater specificity than our words. Here at Bare Tree Media, we pride ourselves on being the original and the longest-standing emoji designer. Day in and day out, we work to give everyone the ability to say just what they want (with OR without words 😉). It seems with each new day more emojis are created by designers across the globe providing each of us with unique ways to express ourselves or just have fun!
Apple’s Custom Emojis: Memoji
World Emoji Day calls for big news, and companies have delivered. Apple Inc. announced they will be releasing Emoji 11.0 for iOS and MacOS, an emoji pack including 66 new emojis for Apple fans to enjoy in late 2018. Along with these new emojis Apple is also releasing their Bitmoji counter, Memoji. The 3D emoji will be available with iOS 12 this fall. Memoji’s are to follow-up Apple’s animated stickers that use facial recognition to overlay animal filters, Animojis. Memoji’s take the next step and allow users to create and use their custom Emoji stickers to express themselves in a unique audio-visual hybrid. With innovations like these, developers are reimagining where and how emojis can exist, proving the only way is up.
Facebook's Emoji Keyboard Stays Strong
Facebook and their messenger are one of the leaders in the emoji space, having adopted all 2,800 Unicode Emojis. Unicode is a consortium of the biggest tech companies and a few countries, who decide on what should or should not be an emoji. Facebook once again proudly released their annual Emoji statistics, demonstrating significant increases in emoji use and engagement. Here are just some of the numbers:
- Over 5 billion emojis are sent everyday in Messenger
- 900 million emojis are sent on Messenger that don’t even have text
- 700 million emojis are used in Facebook posts everyday
- The 😂emoji is the most popular around the world
- The ❤️emoji has doubled in usage in the past year
Twitter Branded Emojis
Emojis have made their mark on our society, and now large companies are working towards making their own mark through branded emoji stickers.
Recently, Twitter teamed up with Disney to release custom emojis of the upcoming movie Christopher Robin and chose us to create them! Each of core 100 Acre Woods characters got their own little emoji to accompany their hashtag. Tweets including #ChristopherRobin, #Pooh, #Tigger, #Eeyore and #ItsPiglet grew in number. Twitter users that might not have engaged with tweets involving the Christopher Robin movie in a normal situation began tweeting about the movie. Some solely so that they could have the emojis on their feed!
Emoji Merchandise
There are now emoji clothing, pillows, an Emoji Movie, and now premiering tonight in New York City, “EmojiLand: The Musical” on Broadway just a couple theaters down from The Lion King. Many companies have realized the power of emojis, and how developing new emojis allows for each company to integrate themselves in a language rapidly growing in popularity. No one truly knows the future of emojis, but we do know it’s bright. 🌟
Join Us and Share Your Favorite Emoji with Bare Tree Media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!
Garfield Celebrates His 40th with Augmented Reality and Mobile Messaging Stickers
Boston, MA — June 19, 2018 — Today marks a major milestone for the world’s most beloved and lazy cat, Garfield. He turns 40 and still looks great whether napping, snacking, or driving Odie and Jon crazy. To celebrate, Bare Tree Media collaborated with Paws Inc to create a special 40th anniversary series of mobile messaging stickers and augmented reality effects.
“We are excited to be part of Garfield’s 40th celebration and offer fans our digital options to join the party.” — Robert Ferrari, President of Bare Tree Media
iOS fans can find the 40th sticker series on iTunes for use within iMessage and as a new sticker pack added to the Garfield StickerTap app. Android fans can find the stickers in the emojiTap app and the Garfield StickerTap app on the Google Play store.
Fans active within Snapchat and Facebook can add Garfield augmented reality effects altering their identity and sharing 40th greetings using the Garfield Snapchat Lens and Garfield Facebook AR Camera Filter.
“This is a special milestone for Garfield and I am thrilled fans can have fun celebrating all month and all year long with stickers and AR.” — Jim Davis, Creator of Garfield
About Bare Tree Media
As a pioneer in the digital creative and technology sector, Bare Tree Media enables brands to reach, engage, and entertain consumers through the creation and digital publishing of branded emojis, messaging stickers, GIFs, digital collectibles, metaverse virtual goods, and augmented reality experiences within popular messaging platforms. Interested brands can learn more at www.baretreemedia.com or contact Bare Tree Media at info@baretreemedia.com.
About GARFIELD
GARFIELD was born on the comics pages on June 19, 1978. The creation of cartoonist Jim Davis, GARFIELD is a humorous strip centered on the lives of a quick-witted orange cat who loves lasagna, coffee, and his remote control; Jon Arbuckle, his owner; and Odie, a sweet but dumb dog. Follow Garfield and Odie, along with nearly 19 million other fans, on Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram.
BTM Marches for the Ocean
Washington, DC – June 08, 2018 — Bare Tree Media is working with March for the Ocean to drive awareness and digital engagement to the global crisis facing our oceans today. On June 9, 2018, thousands of people will March for the Ocean (M4O) in Washington, DC and participate in events including clean-ups, marches, and rallies around the country and the world to ensure a healthy ocean and clean water for future generations.
Bare Tree Media has created a variety of digital engagement offers available to supporters before and during the event. An augmented reality Snapchat Lens will expose supporters to ocean debris that plagues our oceans. A Facebook Profile Frame can be selected to show their support and amplify M4O’s #WearBlue initiative. Mobile messaging stickers available on iMessage and emojiTap will allow supporters to add messaging stickers to their text messages and photos from the event.
“We are proud to support a great cause to heighten awareness of ocean pollution and solutions through popular digital marketing platforms. Supporters will be mobile while at the events and easily go viral to share their message and show their support.” — Robert Ferrari, president of Bare Tree Media
“Bare Tree Media took serious messages and worked with us to create and publish digital stickers, Snapchat Lens, and Facebook Frames that everyone can relate to. We have the solutions to oil, plastic and carbon pollution. This march is about building the political will to enact them now and in the next election.” — David Helvarg, executive director of Blue Frontier Campaign, chair of March for the Ocean Steering Committee
Read the original article here.
About Bare Tree Media
As a pioneer in the digital creative and technology sector, Bare Tree Media enables brands to reach, engage, and entertain consumers through the creation and digital publishing of branded emojis, messaging stickers, GIFs, digital collectibles, metaverse virtual goods, and augmented reality experiences within popular messaging platforms. Interested brands can learn more at www.baretreemedia.com or contact Bare Tree Media at info@baretreemedia.com.
About March for the Ocean
March for the Ocean is an event rising out of shared concern and passion from young people, organizations, and committed citizens about the threats to our oceans and waterways. On Saturday, June 9th, World Oceans Weekend, thousands of people will wear blue, march, and participate in events in Washington, DC, across the US, and in more than 23 countries around the world.
Mastering the Art of Adulting
Whether you are moving into a new home, adopting your first pet or figuring out how to create a monthly budget, adulthood is full of milestones big and small. A huge part of becoming an adult is learning how to clean up after yourself – and others – and maybe realizing you actually get excited about having...
Emoji and Sticker Marketing: How Gronk Became Gronkmoji
In 2016, more than 6 billion emojis and stickers were sent every day on mobile messaging apps. Between 2015 and 2016, there was a 609% year-over-year growth of branded campaigns using emojis and stickers. It’s no wonder major brands including the NFL have jumped on the opportunity to engage with their audience through custom branded emojis and stickers. According to Jana Gauthier, director of digital media for the New England Patriots, “It’s not always the best idea to force consumers to go to your owned and operated platforms; it helps more to be where they are.”
From Gronk to Gronkmoji
Bare Tree Media’s designer, Jessica Lindsay, had the chance to work with the NFL Players Association team when designing Gronkmoji.
“When designing the Gronk stickers it was very important to capture his likeness and personality. Gronk is a very fun loving guy so we wanted that to come across in his stickers. That especially is prominent in the series of “Spike!” stickers that we did, referencing his willingness to “Gronk” (or spike) anything for charity. It was fun to incorporate that in his stickers by animating him “Gronk-spiking” all sorts of things including a football, watermelon, beach ball, and a pizza. The pizza spike is definitely my favorite.” — Jessica Lindsay, Designer at Bare Tree Media
Current Trends in Emoji and Sticker Marketing
1. Relatable & Emotional Message
The most successful sticker designs are often those that convey a very relatable emotion or message. It’s important when designing a sticker to think about what emotion or message the sticker will be conveying.
2. Variety of Use
The more variety of use cases you can think of the better. It shows that there are more opportunities for people to use your sticker and it will be more relatable to a greater number of people.
3. Animation
Animation is all the rage right now. If a sticker pack isn’t animated, users are often disappointed. For branded characters, a lot of companies are choosing to go in a heavily stylized depiction of their characters with flat shading and lighter colors. This direction is an attempt to broaden the appeal to more users.