Lens Fest 2020 Recap
Lens Fest 2020 was a blast! Of course, it was an online conference, but at least it was nice seeing familiar names in the live chat window; Noland Chaliha, Clay Weishaar, Ben Knutson, Sarah Mayer, and Luke Hurd, to name a few. It spanned three days and featured a ton of new product updates, inspiring stories, tutorials, and some seriously phat beats (chat really enjoyed the music selection).
Lens Studio v3.3
The event was unofficially kicked off with the release of Lens Studio version 3.3. Everyone in the live chat was downloading it as the countdown started for the first LensFest video, myself included. I’m just starting my journey into Lens Studio, but this update seems massive! It’s a smorgasbord of digital treats — texture compression tooling, visual scripting, tutorials, templates, and more!
Visual Scripting
Snap has added visual scripting to the IDE, which enables creators to define lens logic without needing to bother with the typical inconveniences of writing scripts. It’s similar to the material node editor — everything is drag and drop, and it’s easy to understand the flow of events. If your head is screwed on correctly, you’ll be able to pick up this feature and add logic to your lenses in no time!
I’m really happy to see this addition to LS because it goes along with the whole “codeless” mindset that Snap is always talking about. I don’t think they really nailed it before now. Basically anything mildly complex required adding scripts to your project. Granted, you didn’t necessarily need to edit the scripts (just configure them), but they were scripts nonetheless. Now designers can add completely custom logic without needing to learn about boring topics like variable scopes and prototypal inheritance! Hoo-wee!
Here are a few highlights:
- Create custom nodes with script
- Use for-loops to iterate through collections
- Search for specific node instances in the graph
- Print log statements from the node graph
New templates
Snap loves templates, so of course this release comes with a handful of them. It’s mostly utility stuff, but the face morph template looks like it will be a lot of fun. Get ready for a flood of Animorph lenses!
AR Scavenger Hunt Course
In addition to the templates, there’s the new AR Scavenger Hunt Course! It comes with a template, but it goes more in depth into the “why” and “how” of the project.
Building Blocks
Building blocks are a new concept in the world of Lens Studio. They are collections of assets meant to help speed up your creation process. It’s similar to the library feature in Spark AR, but in this case you need to download all of the files at once. To me, it feels like a digital junk drawer, but I’ll definitely be using this junk more often than the junk in my actual kitchen drawer.
The building blocks are bundled into packs. For now there are two of them: the prototype pack and the refinement pack. Each contain “prefab” objects (Unity, anyone?) that you can drag and drop into your scene.
The prototype pack has 3D primitives, glasses, particles, hints, fonts, sounds, test videos, and a few other things.
The refinement pack is much slimmer, but contains prefabs that will add some extra zing to your lenses:
- Object Layout
- Countdown Object
- Zoom Post Effects
- Move Along Path
- Trail Effect
- Material Instanced Spawner
- Navigation UI
- Object Spawner 2D & 3D
- Offscreen Locator
- Collision Manager
Partner Spotlights
If you’re an artist looking for partnerships, Snap has 3 upcoming projects that might interest you. For now it seems to be limited to filling out an interest form, but check out the short video presentations.
LACMA
Art and technology initiative to develop a “new type of monument” to celebrate history using augmented reality. Interest form
5G Innovation Lab
Creator’s lab for AR developers with a focus on 5G tech. Interest form
Snap x iD Tech mentorship
Snap and iD Tech have partnered to build a Lens Studio course for those who are aged 13+, through iD Tech’s 1-to-1 Online Private Lessons offerings. Learn more about our special inclusion of 75 Snap Scholars, students from underserved communities who will have access to the classes free of charge. Interest form
Sessions
With AR growing in popularity, brands and businesses are starting to invest in Lenses that help drive their business objectives. Snap’s role has been to connect Creators to these opportunities allowing Creators to monetize their talent. Hear from a panel of Creators on how they were able to tap into these opportunities.
Unfamiliar with Lens Studio? Here’s an introduction to one of the most powerful AR tools on the market. From Material Editor to Visual Scripting, learn more about the features that help you design and develop compelling AR experiences.
Snap is fully invested in the potential of augmented reality. Our ecosystem is fast growing and there is so much to look forward to. Learn about our products, programs and partners, and join us in celebrating the success of our growing community of Lens Creators.
Our community not only creates AR experiences to help people express themselves, but they also use their Lens creation skills to make a social impact in their communities worldwide. Hear from a panel of Creators from around the globe on how they are using AR for good.
Machine Learning is a leap into the future of Lenses. SnapML has powered some of our most viral Lenses as well as some of the most useful, from a playful Lens that turns your face into an Anime character to a Lens that teaches you Hindi. Learn how to get started building Lenses using SnapML with help from our ML platform partners.
Here are links to the ML authoring platforms that were mentioned:
What makes a great Lens? Hear from our Lens team and some of the best Lens creators in the world on how to take advantage of the features in Lens Studio to push boundaries and shatter expectations. Get tips and tricks and learn new hacks you can apply instantly to up-level your AR experiences.
The future of AR looks bright! Over the past 5 years Snap has been a catalyst for innovation in the AR space by growing our capabilities and distribution channels. Here is a look at capabilities that are coming to Lens Studio and opportunities to build experiences that come to life in the real world.
I’m super psyched about the upcoming audio processing capabilities, but they didn’t go too deep into the specifics of that. Something to look forward to, at least. Thanks for the carrot, Snap!
Pretty soon, you won’t need an iPhone 12 to get depth data! I’m happy about that partially because I don’t have an iPhone, but also because it means we can make some cool depth effects and have more users experience them.
Local lenses are the next iteration of landmarkers, where physical spaces are scanned and integrated into effects. They are local in the sense that you have to be in an exact physical location to use them, and because users share the same virtual space. Neat!
Now that you have learned more about Lens Studio’s features and gathered some best practices on how to design and develop groundbreaking Lenses, it’s time to dive into the possibilities. AR games, educational tools, scavenger hunts, location-based AR, and more!
Reimagined Q&A Sessions
Follow Lauren Halsey and a group of her closest friends through a full day of collaboration as they construct a portal to a brand new world in this Spectacles Screening. Then hear more about Lauren’s perspective in the following Q&A.
Learn the story of Viktoria Modesta’s personal journey of self-love and reconnection with nature through dance & AR in this Spectacles Screening. Then hear more about Viktoria’s and Design Studio PITCH STUDIOS’ perspectives in the following Q&A
See the Reed + Rader family bring their daughter, Enceladus’s, craft monster friends to life through AR. Then hear more of the family of directors’ and 3D Design Studio Velvet Spectrum’s perspectives at the following Q&A.
Workflows, Techniques, and Demos
Visual Scripting lets you add logic to your Lenses using a node-based graphical interface, like Material Editor does for materials. Learn no-code AR and how to create custom nodes, making it easy to re-use and share complex logic, which will save you time in the future when building more Lenses.
Watch 3D Artist Jerome demo how to make a realistic animated 3D character from a single photo with new tools based on AI, and how you can integrate that avatar into Lens Studio.
The Material Editor in Lens Studio is an amazing tool to lift your Lenses to a higher level. In this demo, AR Developer Max will illustrate how you can enrich a scene and improve Lens performance through the creation of custom materials with Lens Studio’s Material Editor.
Spectacles 3 is the latest version of Spectacles with dual cameras that capture the world in 3D. When building for Spectacles, a depth map of the scene as well as the path which the video travels through is available for use in your Lenses. In this demo, you will learn how to build Lenses with Spectacles 3 depth data in mind.
Learn how you can incorporate depth data from LiDAR and ARCore using Lens Studio templates. Whether you look to occlude content with physical objects, understand surfaces the camera sees, or create amazing effects that respond to depth, you will definitely be pushing your Lenses to the next level.
