SnapChat is opening up its Lens Studio so that you can make your own weird and wonderful AR creations in the desktop app.
The new tools support basic 2D illustrations to more snazzy and sophisticated fare, aimed at users of all skill levels.
You can browse user-created lenses in Lens Explorer, or with their Snapcodes, and with the Lens Creator Profiles feature, you can follow your favourite creators, although this is limited to SnapChat’s “Official Lens Creators,” which presumably doesn’t encompass any old bugger who’s having a dabble with AR filters.
SnapChat is expanding on its existing library of almost 40 lens templates with six new ones:
- Face In Video: Track your face onto a video.
- Portrait Particles: Jazz things up with customized particles that segment behind the user’s head ” decorate with headers, footers and post-effects. Perfect for your next party!
- Countdown: Ready, set, customise! Create Lenses that count down to specific dates and add celebratory 3D hats and glasses.
- Skeletal: Track 2D images to heads, necks, shoulders, elbows, and hands to create sweet joint collaborations.
- Hair colour: Modify your hair colour with fresh styles and tones from root to tip.
- Make-up: Put your face on the easy way with AR lip gloss, blush, eyeshadow and more.
So you can nuts with those too now. Additional Landmarks are also being rolled out – the AR lenses that pop up at landmarks all over the world. Previous filters have included Big Ben without his scaffolding on and Pride flags at Buckingham Palace. The 14 new ones include:
- Arc de Triomphe – Paris, France
- Astronomical Clock – Prague, Czech Republic
- Brandenburg Gate – Berlin, Germany
- El Castillo – Chichen Itza, Mexico
- Galata Tower – Istanbul, Turkey
- Gateway of India – Mumbai, India
- Leaning Tower of Pisa – Pisa, Italy
- Natural History Museum – London, UK
- Neues Rathaus – Munich, Germany
- Qasr Al-Farid – Mada’in Saleh, Saudi Arabia
- Great Sphinx of Giza – Giza, Egypt
- Statue of Liberty – United States
- Taj Mahal – Agra, India
- Tower Bridge – London, UK
It seems that making your own lenses is exactly what you lot want to be doing, with over 500,000 of the things rustled up so far, and an increase of 20 per cent in users submitting their creations compared to last quarter.
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.