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AR is new - WebAR is even a newer concept. Adopting WebAR will not change a business outcome overnight. Because for lots of people, it's still a new concept and it takes time for them to understand how to leverage the experience while buying online. But if you target a niche audience, the effect can be quite visible quickly.
Audience between 18-33 are considered most tech savvy generations. Target WebAR based campaigns to target this customer segment. The result will be more promising. For AR adopting companies, it is still a challenge to produce 3D models in large volume with correct precisions which can elevate the WebAR experience.
In today's newsletter, I'll describe how to optimize the performance of 3D models in WebAR campaigns which is much quite critical for a successful campaign launch.
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9 Best Practices For Converting & Optimizing 3D Models
Finding the right 3D artist who can produce optimized 3D models for WebAR is hard. But if you carry the guidelines of how to build them in a correct way, you can train 3D artists quickly and onboard them for delivering bigger projects. The below 9 best practies can be used as a thorough guide for your next WebAR project.
✅ 1. Reduce materials and surfacing
People use PBR (physically based rendering) system.
PBR controls colors, roughness and bumpiness.
Asset without PBR can reduce its size.
It leaves out extra textures.
✅ 2. Reduce textures
Decrease roughness map to increase performance.
Reduces resolution and amount of textures.
Reduces memory consumption and file size.
Reduce textures based on visual impact.
✅ 3. Remove hidden and unused data
Remove any data that’s not required for 3D models.
Extra nodes, meshes, materials, and textures.
Removing any hidden parts lowers chance of triangle count & simplifies hierarchy.
✅ 4. Reduce triangles
High triangle or vertex counts can hinder performance.
You can make triangle reduction choices.
Focus reduction on less important areas with high mesh density.
✅ 5. Reduce draw calls
Draw calls refers to the number of graphical instructions per frame.
Reducing materials on object helps reduce draw calls.
Most common runtime performance bottlenecks for 3D often attributed to large number of draw calls.
✅ 6. Reduce hierarchy complexity
Grouping, parenting, and large numbers of nodes such as nulls, locators, raw curves, meshes, and joints.
They can contribute to poor runtime performance of the 3D models.
Simplify your hierarchy and quick loading time.
✅ 7. Increase distance between geometry faces
Flickering can occur when geometry faces are coplanar.
Especially when the model is animated or moving.
Increase distance between geometry faces by a small amount resolves the flickering issues.
✅ 8. Flip inverted face normal
Inverted face normal can cause 3D to be shaded incorrectly.
Flip the normal of the incorrectly shaded faces.
✅ 9. Conflicting tangent basis
Conflicting tangent basis causes normal maps to appear inverted.
Export your model with tangents if you are baking tangent space normal maps in a left-handed setup.
Alternatively, invert the green channel (Y axis) of the model.
Remember that the key to a successful WebAR experience lies in the 3D model. If the size of 3D model is low, compacted and converted to the lightweight formats (e.g. GLB/GLTF), it is easier to get loaded over browsers.
Users will experience quick loading, fast AR launch, stable 3D models and enjoy the experience altogether.
Happy Users = Better Business
