You Can Now Build Your Own Face Filter For Snapchat

Ever felt you don’t like the photo filter on your Snapchat and you wish you want a better one or want to create your own if luck shines on you. Hey, you wish is about to come through, as the photos sharing platform is in to give its users a special treat as the platform is expanding its developer platform to let creators build face filters for the first time.

Earlier this month, Snapchat introduced a new feature that allows you to group video chat with friends. Now roughly four months after introducing its Lens Studio platform, which allowed creators to build the augmented reality objects that Snap calls “world lenses,” Snapchat is now releasing seven new templates into Lens Studio to let creators build digital masks. The templates, which range in complexity, include virtual baseball hats, face paint, and even attach 2D and 3D images to a user’s head. In addition to new templates, the Lens Studio is also getting Giphy integration starting today. In February, Snapchat added the ability to insert Giphy’s library of animated GIFs into snaps; now, they can feature in lenses as well.

Eitan Pilipski, who runs the camera platform at Snap, in an interview explained that:

“More than 30,000 lenses were created in the first two months, Snap says, earning more than 1 billion views. “We’re blown away by the participation, the level of engagement, and the type of creativity that has happened,”

The studio, lets creators build face filters in as little as five minutes, according to a beta tester who explained that after uploading it to your Snap, the company generates a Snapcode and deep link that, when tapped, opens it within Snapchat for 24 hours.

The code itself remains live for over a year after creation, so you can unlock it multiple times. You can send the code to friends with a couple taps, whether you created it yourself or received it from someone else as simple as that.

As a way of promote creators’ handiwork, Snapchat will generate a story for all public snaps created using the lens. user will be able to browse all public snaps posted to the ‘Our Story feature’ over the past 24 hours using that lens. However, the community lenses will be highlighted in the Discover tab, and you can unlock the lens by swiping up on the story.

Snap is also announcing the Official Creator Program, which will reward top creators with extra promotion, technical support, and early access to new features and templates.