Snapchat just introduced “Lens Studio”. The platform that will allow developers to create AR lenses for Snapchat. The company is announcing new features for Lens Studio, including seven brand new templates for the creation of face lenses on Snapchat. Now developers can create “Face Lenses”, with seven different templates from which to choose. Snapchat previously had only World Lens creation available to everyone within Lens Studio, meaning developers could create 3D AR objects but not overlay AR experiences over faces, but now they can.
New templates for “Face Lenses”:
- 3D Objects: same as 2D Objects, but with 3D objects now and this template also includes a helper script to play looping animation on the 3D objects.
- Face Paint: This feature focuses on mapping the face to let developers create art tied to facial features like the lips or nose, this will be great for makeup or accessories.
- Trigger: With the “Trigger” feature, developers can create a trigger (blinking, raising eyebrows, open/close mouth) to execute a lens.
- 2D Objects: This template works the same way as Snap’s famous dog ears filter works and it allows developers to create 2D objects that can be overlaid on a picture or a video.
- Baseball Cap: Developers can now use a 3D baseball cap to change color, add an image, and brim style.
- Photo: This feature is much like Face Paint, it lets developers overlay lenses onto a single static (head-on) photo.
- Distort: This feature lets creators stretch or shrink facial features.
Snapchat has introduced all of these new features to open up to third-party developers and creators, with the launch of “Community Lens Stories”. This feature will allow the Snap team to partner with selective creators to offer support, including visibility on the Lens Studio website and direct support from the Lens Studio team as you can see in the video below. This means better selfies with new filters to play with on Snapchat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkgA_8YQZHQ
To promote this feature, Snapchat will allow the developers’ handiwork created using the lens to be viewed for all public snaps. So if the next dancing hot dog meme is started by a Snapchat user, you will be able to browse all public snaps posted to the Our Story feature over the past 24 hours using that specific lens.
The community lenses will be highlighted in the Discover tab, and you can unlock the lens by swiping up on the story. The official developers or creators will also get early access to features and templates.
