In the past few months, Facebook has been plagued filled with 3D photos. If you have not had the chance to see one, 3D photos are images inside a post which gently change perspective as you scroll the page, or as you move your mouse over them.
A few months prior to their introduction, Facebook had been testing a similar feature with 3D models. While it is easy to understand how Facebook can render 3D models and rotates them according to the mouse position, the same might not be as intuitive for 3D photos.
The techniques that Facebook is using to create the illusion of three-dimensionality on two-dimensional pictures is sometimes known as height map displacement, and it relies on an optical phenomenon called parallax.
This is a two-part series. You can read all the posts here:
- Part 1. Inside Facebook 3D Photos
- Part 2. Parallax Shaders & Depth Maps
A link to the complete Unity package is available at the end of the tutorial.