# A facehugger tribute with MediaPipe face tracking

> A cinematic space scene inspired by Alien: Romulus, with lens flares and shallow depth of field, plus a live AR facehugger filter on your own face.

Canonical page: https://andersonmancini.dev/blog/alien-romulus-facehugger

Published: 2026-09-08 · 1 min read · Tags: three.js, webgl, ar, mediapipe, launch

This is a small tribute to Alien: Romulus, made for the browser. It has two parts: a set piece you look at, and a filter you wear.

![The facehugger floating in space](https://andersonmancini.dev/images/alien.webp)

## The scene

A facehugger floats in deep space, under starlight. The camera work is borrowed from film: lens flares and a shallow depth of field, so the frame feels like a still from the movie and not a 3D model on a stage.

## The filter

The second part is the one that makes people laugh. With **MediaPipe face tracking**, the page can turn on a live facehugger filter: the creature locks onto your face through the camera and follows it. It is an interactive layer on top of a render, and it is also a small demonstration of real-time tracking and lighting in a web page.

## Behind it

- Three.js and WebGL for the scene, with cinematic lighting,
- MediaPipe for the face landmarks,
- lens flares and depth of field to get the film look.

## Videos

I recorded the project in three short videos: [the website with the trailers in 3D](https://andersonmancini.dev/videos/alien-romulus-inspired-website-watch-trailers-in-3d.md), [the first look](https://andersonmancini.dev/videos/alien-romulus-threejs-website.md) and [a source code review](https://andersonmancini.dev/videos/threejs-alien-romulus-facehugger-project-source-code-review).

## Try it

The scene is live at [alien-facehugger.vercel.app](https://alien-facehugger.vercel.app/), and the details are on the [project page](https://andersonmancini.dev/projects/alien-romulus.md).

## Related projects

- [Alien Romulus](https://andersonmancini.dev/projects/alien-romulus.md) — Space scene with MediaPipe facehugger filter