Snapchat Opens New Lens Studio Tools For Region’s Creatives

Today Snap announces new tools for any Lens Studio creator, including seven all new face templates, integrated Gif stickers, and additional creator support designed to boost community Lens discoverability and engagement.

Lens Studio is a free Mac and Windows desktop app which gives developers, creators, and brands the tools to create and distribute their very own Snapchat AR experiences. The Lens Studio includes templates, guides and scripting API to help anyone from 2D designers to 3D modellers and animators to get started with augmented reality.

Improving the templates and tools is foundational to removing the friction around the creative process, so that everyone can continue to use Snapchat to create and express themselves. The update today includes:

New face templates in Lens Studio

Seven all-new templates supporting face Lens creation will be launching in Lens Studio (more details below). Prior to this, community creators were only able to make World Lenses with Lens Studio.

GIPHY Integration

Now Lens Studio creators have access to GIPHY’s library of animated GIF stickers. Creators can now actively search through GIPHY’s endless library right in Lens Studio to seamlessly add GIPHY Stickers into their World or Face Lens creations.

Community Lens Stories in Discover

A new type of Story, just for Lenses! Each Story will be a collection of public Snaps submitted to Our Story highlighting a community Lens. Snapchatters watching the Story can simply swipe up on a Snap they see in these Stories to unlock the Lens for themselves.

Official Creator Program

In the two months since launch in December 2017, over 30,000 Lenses had been submitted by creators, viewed by Snapchatters globally over 1 billion times (as shared during our 2017 Q4 earnings call). To continue to foster and learn from this community, we’re launching an “Official Creator Program” through which the team will highlight and partner with select creators in the community. These creators will receive support such as visibility on our Lens Studio website, more direct support from the Lens Studio team and early access to features and templates.

New Template Details

• Face Paint: Focuses on face substitution, mapping a face to create art tied to facial features/structure i.e. eyes, nose, mouth, etc.; perfect for Lenses that show off makeup, costumes, and accessories.
• Photo: This template is similar to Face Paint, but only requires the creator to have a single, head-on photo of their face creation. Import that image into Lens Studio and our “Detect Face” functionality will align the image to a face Lens.
• Distort: Everything you need to give your friends a wacky new look – stretch a face in all directions, make your eyes bulge, and more. No assets required.
• Trigger: Create experiences based off of facial movements — like raising your eyebrows, blinking, opening/closing your mouth, and smile; scripting and 3D experience helpful
• 2D Objects: Attach 2D images to your head! With 2D illustration experience, users can apply sprites to build Lenses much like our favorite dog eared Lens.
• 3D Objects: Attach 3D objects to a face or multiple faces. For multiple faces, the 3D objects for each face can be the same or different. This template also includes a helper script to play looping animation on the 3D objects.
• Baseball Cap: Make simple adjustments to the 3D baseball cap to change the color, brim style and add a single image to make it your own in seconds.