Anti facial recognitionglassesAmazon

Though the glasses look like regular eyewear IRL, they don’t on camera. For instance, the owner of Urban’s local bar told Urban that his head became a “halo of light” on the bar’s video feeds and asked that he stop wearing them when inside. Urban complied because he’d rather not get into a fight (he’s already been thrown out several times for other misdeeds). However, when asked whether people would be banned if they went in wearing Reflectacles, the owner couldn’t give a definitive answer.

Do you have a message you want to convey? A situation that needs simulating, or an audience that needs reaching? Whatever your challenge – we have the ideas, the experience, and the equipment to help.

Camera blocking glassesamazon

It’s not clear how anyone would be able to ban Reflectacles—they’re really just sunglasses, after all. The FDA already requires Category 3 sunglass lenses (the standard dark lenses) to block light with wavelengths smaller than 400 nm, which is about the borderline on the spectrum between visible and ultraviolet light. Reflectacles are doing a similar thing, just on the other side of the line, something that hasn’t been regulated. To do so, there would need to be a definitive distinction made between a traditional (and acceptable) sunglass lens and one that prevents biometric data from being collected.

Reflectacles Ghostglasses

A later—and splashier—model called the Ghost, on the other hand, reflects both visible and infrared light, maintaining the wearer’s privacy in flash photos or videos. Urban now also offers clip-on and wraparound versions of the Phantom, as well as the IR-Shield, a pair of frameless goggles with IR-blocking lenses. This is the model Urban wears himself.

These are generally considered to be friendly as they have no sharp or dangerous corners. Characters composed of predominantly rounded shapes tend to be more likeable, more trustworthy and unthreatening.

Reflectaclesglasses

Concept art is a crucial part of the creative process when creating 3D environments and characters for VR or AR applications – from your characters to the worlds you are creating. There are many aspects to consider when illustrating your concepts, but in this piece we’re going to focus on the language of shapes with specific regard to characters. What story can your concept art visually tell about your character? Robin Fuller, Artistic Director, explains.

The meaning that we ascribe to signifiers depends largely on our own culture, but our characters also exist in relation to each other and their own world. By careful design, we can create a unique context in which the characters exist, allowing us to strengthen or redefine what a signifier might mean. Subtle design choices can be amplified to seem more significant when viewed against a counterpoint. For example, the protagonist and antagonist can be designed to oppose one another through use of colour and shape. You might base your concept around dark triangular shapes for the villain and squarer, or rounder, brighter shapes for your protagonist.

Working towards a three dimensional design means thinking about shape language from all angles. Whether you’re sketching up 2D designs or sculpting in 3D, keep thinking about how the shapes will read from different angles. Turn the design around and check the silhouette to make sure that the shapes still read. Pay attention to the negative space as well – think about how you can use the space around and between elements of your character to enhance the design.

Straight lines often denote strength and stability. Square-shapes can be large and impressive, supportive and comforting, or even clumsy and goofy.

Reflectacles come with either light or dark IR lenses. They range from $48 to $188, depending on the model, and prescription lenses can also be ordered.

Bestcamera blocking glasses

These are sharper, more angular, more dynamic. You’ll often find the villains of a piece are based around triangular concepts – they can appear more unpredictable and aggressive.

Infraredblockinglenses and reflective frames

Urban has registered Reflectacles with the FDA, which currently classifies sunglasses and other spectacles as medical devices; this means people don’t have to take them off when requested to do so. Urban notes that wearers tend to remove them at airport security anyway because it’s just easier to follow authority. “It’s sad,” he says, “but that is the reality.”

Appearance is a crucial part of characterisation – and understanding what your character design may symbolise is crucial. Not only can your concept signpost your character’s personality, history and background, but it can also serve as a useful way to create ambiguity – for example, leading the audience to think a certain way about a character and then turning that assumption on its head!

Urban is the creator of Reflectacles, which look like regular sunglasses but are designed to protect the wearer’s identity from prying digital eyes. The glasses address a primary problem of anti-surveillance “wearables”—that they often look odd or unattractive (like these T-shirts that render the wearer invisible to artificial intelligence surveillance technologies) and can themselves draw unwanted attention.

The other model, the Phantom, features the same IR lenses but also has a layer of reflective material applied to its frame. These reflect available infrared light back at technologies using infrared for mapping or illumination, distorting the heat signature of the wearer’s face. The Phantom remains innocuous-looking because its frame isn’t obviously reflective. Visible light can’t penetrate its outer infrared-permeable layer to reach the reflective layer underneath, so to human eyes the Phantom looks like an ordinary pair of black-framed sunglasses.

Camera blocking glassesreddit

He doesn’t view Reflectacles as being some sort of radical protest against government or big tech. “We have already signed the rights to our privacy away,” he says.

Firstly, it’s important to have an understanding of semiotics. This is the study of meaning-making – the theory of signs and symbols. Essentially, our brains are pattern-finding machines that quickly interpret meaning from the world around us via the things that we interact with and sense through sight, hearing, touch, etc. Through semiotics we can examine and gain a better knowledge of the relationship between the things that we sense and the meanings that we ascribe to them – which is invaluable when it comes to conceptualising characters.

Urban began designing eyewear in 2005, handcrafting custom frames out of wood. After a decade he was ready to move on. “It came down to time, mostly,” he says. He was also getting interested in the idea of making glasses that would confuse surveillance cameras.

How to makecamera blocking glasses

Urban’s initial Kickstarter campaign featured two models of sunglasses. The more basic model, the IR-Pair, has lenses that block infrared radiation, making the wearer’s eyes unreadable to infrared cameras and facial recognition technologies that convert infrared data, or heat signatures, into electronic images. (It’s now available in two shades of tortoiseshell as well as in black.)

That said, once you’re familiar with the rules you can break them. You can play around with visual language – toying with people’s perceptions to add twists and intrigue to a narrative or experience. Likewise you can make a protagonist more ambiguous in appearance to cast doubts over their character. But the most important thing is to understand how you can conceptualise your characters to tell a visual story before they’ve even played their part. With a good grounding in semiotics, designing characters for 3D worlds becomes a lot of fun.

Shape is a universal language derived from nature, for example, we learn to be wary of sharp, pointed shapes and more trustful of soft, rounded ones. This translates into how we interpret shapes elsewhere. So consider what you want to say about your character and then consider the language of these key shapes:

These days, many of us are more careful than we used to be about protecting our online privacy: refusing to allow tracking cookies, browsing in private mode or with a VPN, locking down our social media accounts (or deleting them altogether). Fewer of us are taking steps to counter how we are surveilled in real life, but Scott Urban is one of them. (He asked to be interviewed via email—specifically, via ProtonMail, the email service of choice for the security-focused—rather than by phone or video conferencing, so he couldn’t be recorded.)