In the beginning of the pandemic, we were stuck in our houses trying to figure out OBS and other software to make video chat more interesting. Setting up these solutions wasn’t easy or intuitive, and took more work than we wanted.
We created a camera that works for everyone. Galactic Camera gives anyone access to all the fun effects and visuals that our streamer and Twitch friends are used to, without the complicated setup.
Along with the camera software, we built simple, cool, and useful apps that work with the camera, including an easy way to display your NFTs and crypto assets on your video.
You can get started by visiting galactic.camera. We are excited for you to try it out.
We think it’s awesome!
What We Did
We started building a solution to a small problem: video chat was boring. This evolved into a much larger solution than we expected. These are some of the key tenets and goals that drove our thinking when building Galactic Camera:
Small and Performant
Many software cameras are resource intensive—our computer fans freaked out and our video streams lagged. We kept the app small, in the menu bar, and optimized around efficient performance of the camera.
Simple for anyone to use
Getting everything wired together is complicated.We designed Galactic Camera so users go straight from download to enjoying awesome video, without a ton of work or a complicated set up..
Video Platform Agnostic
Everyone has a primary video conferencing platform, but also often have to use additional platforms outside of their ‘daily driver’, too. We intentionally built software that works across all video solutions (instead of another new conferencing platform). Galactic Camera users have a consistent look, feel, and experience anywhere they use live video. .
Second Screen & Web Based Controls
We knew our camera required a companion application for controls, but weren’t sure at first what form those controls would take. Browser-based camera controls turned out to be the perfect solution. Working in-browser gave our engineering team the ability to iterate quickly and our users the freedom to control their camera from any device—phone, tablet, or computer.
Mac & Windows Clients
It doesn’t matter which operating system you’re using, video meetings can drag for everyone.
Apps & the Galactic Camera App Store
Everything you use inside Galactic Camera is an app. More specifically, each visual shown on a user’s screen during a video call is its own app with its own controls. For example, Name Badge has several styles and colors, Reactions lets a user search and favorite GIFs, and Big Words can be spiced up with confetti or puppies. In each of these cases, the developer gets to determine the set of interactions they want to allow in their app. Speaking of developers…
Developers, Developers, Developers
We love building apps, but don’t want to lock our users into the features, designs, and preferences we like. Instead, we wanted to empower people to treat video as their canvas. We built a developer platform so that anyone with web skills (HTML, CSS, & Javascript) can easily make an app for others to use and enjoy.
The Experiment
We are excited for you to try it out. Let us know how it works for you.
To get started, go to galactic.camera and download the camera. You will be walked through an onboarding process and then you will quickly experience the magic that is Galactic Camera!
If you have questions, or need help, join our discord. We are there and would love to answer any questions or feedback you have. You can also hit us up on twitter. If you want, send us an email at support@galactic.io.
We can’t wait to hear what you think!