Follow Theverge, Facebook says these group effects are currently available on Messenger video calls as well as Messenger Rooms – the Zoom-like video conferencing feature and coming to Instagram soon.
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Messenger group video calls come to life with AR |
There are more than 70 group effects available at launch, including a game in which players will create a virtual sandwich together, while another appears a virtual orange cat that can affect each other. affect the call. It’s a change from the service’s existing AR features, which only apply to one participant at a time. Facebook says developers will be able to build more group effects using the company’s Spark AR API from later this month.
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Along with shared group AR experiences, Facebook also announced a smaller collection of features coming to its chat services this month. That includes a new “word effect” that allows Messenger users on iOS to trigger an animation in the conversation when a specific phrase is used. This feature will be rolled out to the Messenger app on Android in the future.
The new feature addition could help Facebook compete with Snapchat and other competitors that have had AR games for a while. More importantly, this could help Facebook shift its focus to the metaverse they’re aiming for. As group video chats play an important role even as the Covid-19 pandemic cools down, sharing an AR experience will help people stay in touch with distant friends more effectively than other types of chats. current basics.
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