AR Face Stretching & bouncing effect — Instagram Filter Review

Published on Apr 12, 2019 | Filter name: "Face Bounce"

Filter creator: Hannah Schilsky (@dr_hanz_)

Today I came across an Instagram face effect called "Face Bounce" by Hannah Schilsky (@dr_hanz). This effect definitely caught my attention the moment I tried it. I've seen some various face deformation AR effects, and most of them used a digital image enlargement or cut off and replacement to deliver unique and I might say, kind of creepy results.

The same developer, Hannah Schilsky, have done an incredible job with her face structure deformation filter called "Illusionist". There she made the face appeared like it is deformed only by positioning some curved lines that gave an illusion that the face structure changed. The high-contrast depth cues changed the way the new structure of the face. She did the same with the amazing Tubular filter as well.

Hannah went on to make another unique face deformation filter, which is the one that I am reviewing here. This one, however, uses a 2D elasticity image stretching effect. This effect, once applied when you opened your mouth, makes your face drop down with a rubbery stretching effect. This of course completely deforms the face and produce a creepy yet captivating visual effect.  The facial expressions are still being retrieved by that manipulated video stream layer. 

This effect actually looks like belly fat applied to the face. So if we have a fat layer behind our face, this what would probably happen—luckily we don't.

Just make sure you have your mouth open at all times because closing your mouth will reset the effect, showing you your beautiful original face. I am saying beautiful because once you are going to see your distorted face, you probably have wished that you looked like Sméagol from the movie The Hobbit.

The stretching effect does create some heavy distortion and pixelation of the face. Although the effect doesn't look sharp, it does look quite authentic because the real texture of your face is being used, rather than using maybe a color average for the top stretched part. This could have been done quite differently, with the stretched part being of an average color of the face and then use a sharp crop and relocation of the face into the bottom area. I still need to see how it looks like in practice, but overall, this one did look quite convincing because of the use of the actual face visuals.

If you try it out, you can see that even part of your hair, especially on the sides, is stretched and thus create a visual continuum that makes the stretching looks quite authentic even if you rotate your head a bit and look at it from the side.

It seems that Hannah is trying to focus on unique face deformation filters, and she is able to come up with original ideas that translate to fun and artistic experimental AR experiences.

This Instagram face filter isn't called "Face Bounce" for nothing. One the face is dropped, there is that bouncing effect that makes the face bounce up and down once it reaches its longest stretch distance. It reminds me of the stretch effect using jQuery Easing Javascript library to manipulate HTML content like images and text.

One of the things that were missing for me is having the same effect with real-time physics, so when I move my head to different sides, adding physics effect would be applied to it as well, like stretching to the left, maybe seeing my face move upwards when I move my head fast upwards.  Right now, if I am not wrong, the effect is pre-programmed to work on that face layer and this is why there is no effect applied when I move my head from side to side.

Overall, a fun and unique filter to experiment with and one that I personally enjoyed using.

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