The Lenscape

In honor of Black History Month, Snapchat partnered with Black AR creators from the Snap Lens Network to build a Lens Collection exploring and celebrating the rich history of Black culture.

Congratulations to our worldwide community of Lens Creators for making the 2022 Build the Future Lensathon our biggest yet! The competition kicked off at Lens Fest, Snap AR’s annual global developer conference, and was followed up by a month of virtual workshops to help participants hone their skills and learn how to harness the power of Lens Studio’s latest capabilities. 

In all, more than 3,000 developers from across the globe competed for $200,000 in prizes, building groundbreaking AR experiences that not only wowed our judges, but captivated Snapchatters around the world. With so much creativity on display, our judging panel had their work cut out for them. After much deliberation, we’re excited to announce the winners of the 2022 Build the Future Lensathon!

With the release of Lens Studio 4.40, Snap AR is excited to announce Ray Tracing is now available for all Lenses built in Lens Studio. Snap is the first company to bring real-time Ray Tracing capabilities to mobile at scale, across Android and iOS. This is the first time Ray Tracing has been offered as a real-time capability for mobile experiences, and we’re thrilled to see what our community creates with this technology. Along with Ray Tracing, we’re excited to introduce support for Version Control for better project collaboration and a new Learn Tab within Lens Studio to better surface new learning opportunities.

Snapchat Unveils Immersive Scannable AR Commercial

The Lens Fest Awards celebrate developers and creators from around the globe who use the Snap AR platform to create groundbreaking augmented reality experiences. The second annual Lens Fest Awards Show recognizes the year’s best-in-class Lenses across five categories: Play, Fashion, Education, Wellness, and Moonshot. After much deliberation from our judging panel comprised of various Snap teams, we’re excited to announce the 2022 Lens of the Year recipients.

Today, Snap AR kicked off our fifth annual Lens Fest AR developer conference with a day of virtual and in-person events designed to educate, inspire, and celebrate our global community of creators and developers. Attendees learned best practices for building and monetizing AR experiences directly from Snap leaders, industry experts, brand professionals, and their peers in the Snap AR ecosystem. Participants also got a sneak peek at new monetization opportunities for AR Lenses on Snapchat, a look back at some of the top Snap AR-powered experiences, and exciting new product updates across Lens Studio, Camera Kit, and more.

We partnered with Allure to transform their Best of Beauty Awards with augmented reality. Learn more about this exciting new partnership and how AR is elevating the beauty industry for both brands and consumers alike.