Over 8 years in Snapchat, I’ve created more than 300 AR Lenses with characters that have custom hairstyles and fur.
Create hairstyles and fur for characters in Snapchat AR Lenses that look good and run smoothly on mobile devices.
I started by creating the hairstyles and hair textures in Maya with XGen and rendering them with Arnold. Then I adapted them for Lens Studio, either by converting them into planes or by using a custom mesh I made.
I handled the simulation, the placement on the head, the lighting and the final look directly in the Lens Studio material settings. Throughout, I worked within Lens Studio's technical constraints and the FPS limits of users' phones, and kept the quality of the Lenses as high as possible.
The lenses were a hit with users and celebrities, which brought millions of new users to the platform.