Project: Punk Kitty AR Lens

Overview

The Punk Kitty Glam AR Lens is a custom Augmented Reality experience developed for Snapchat. This project reimagines a beloved pop-culture icon through a subversive, edgy lens. By blending kawaii aesthetics with heavy punk elements and digital cosmetics, the mask offers users a unique, expressive, and high-quality digital accessory.

Key Features:

Advanced Face Tracking: Utilizes Snapchat's underlying face mesh technology to ensure the 3D mask securely anchors to the user's head, adapting to movements and lighting seamlessly.

Custom 3D Modeling: Features a uniquely sculpted, helmet-like mask that combines recognizable feline ears and a signature pink bow with an aggressive, skull-inspired lower jawline.

Material & Texture Design: Incorporates realistic PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials for the metallic forehead spikes, nose cone, and heavy cheek chains, contrasting sharply with the soft matte white of the mask base.

AR Makeup Integration: Applies custom digital makeup directly to the user's eyes (visible through the mask's strategic cutouts), tying the edgy aesthetic together and ensuring a cohesive look regardless of the user's physical makeup.

Project Details:

Platform: Snapchat (Lens Studio) Project Type: 3D Augmented Reality Face Mask & Digital Cosmetics Aesthetic: Punk, Edgy, Kawaii-Goth

Development Process

The development pipeline involved conceptualizing the design, modeling the base mesh and hard-surface accessories in a standard 3D software suite, and importing the optimized assets into Lens Studio.

Special attention was paid to the lighting setup and environment maps to ensure the chrome spikes and chains accurately reflected light.

Finally, facial tracking components were layered to introduce custom eye makeup that tracks accurately with the user's blinks and expressions, anchoring both the 3D and 2D digital objects realistically into the user's physical environment.