Snapchat lens portals are racking up the views.
Back in December, Snapchat released a new tool that let anyone create their own custom lenses. Similar to the internal app that Snap uses to build lenses for Snapchat, Lens Studio gives the rest of us the same power to design and build AR experiences ourselves.
Considering there are some 70 million users a day who interact with lenses, it was only a matter of time before we started seeing some really creative uses of AR lenses. One of those uses is the ability to create portal lenses.
Now immersive content search engine, SVRF, is leading the charge to teleport us to new realities with a Starman portal on Snapchat. You can enter the space portal, walk through, say hi to Starman, and walk right back out to the real world. Here’s a video of a user testing it in New York’s Grand Central Terminal:
Since its release on Thursday, Elon Musk’s Tesla and pilot Starman have garnered hundreds of thousands of views on the platform. SVRF’s inspiration to make the portal came from the breathtaking images of Elon Musk’s Starman circling the earth in his Tesla Roadster. “We wanted to be Starman, to see and feel that beautiful immersive view of Earth and space,” said SVRF CEO, Sophia Dominguez. “So, we got as close as we could to actually being there by creating a VR world and AR portal to this world.”
AR lenses, especially portals like this, can be truly powerful at letting you feel like you’re “inside” the experience without putting on a headset.
Previous SVRF had turned their VR experiences featuring Pickle Rick of Rick & Morty and Oscar nominated Shape of Water into portals as well.
https://twitter.com/svrf/status/958414286136774657
There are two ways to unlock a lens: you can unlock a Snapcode by clicking a hyperlink on your phone. You can also use the Snapcode to unlock a lens. To do so, open your rear facing camera on Snapchat and point it at the Snapcode. Long-press on the Snapcode on the camera screen until Snapchat recognizes the code, then you’ll be prompted to unlock the lens, making it available on your phone for 24 hours.
User-created lenses on Snap have been limited to effects captured using the rear-facing Snapchat camera. But on Thursday, Snap opened up even more options to create filters and lenses, which opens up even more creative potential in how this generation will connect and communicate. We can’t wait to see what gets cooked up in the future.
