Happy Mail

Try Lens

1st Place Winner

Snap U.S. Lens Challenge
April 2022

Timeline
2 Weeks

TOOLS USED
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe AfterEffects, Lens Studio

SKILLS DEVELOPED
3D Modeling, Illustration, Animation

Project Challenge

Brief

We know that this world needs positive energy: love and light to get us through the hours, days, months, and years. This year, we want you to design a lens to send love and light to your Snapchat friends.

Solution

I created an AR Lens using 3D models, scripting, and templates to allow the user to send and receive love and light through positive messages.

Snap Lens Code

The Idea

The Inspiration

I found inspiration in the act of sending.

My dad’s a mailman, so my nephew loves to send us letters.

Dad and Nephew

Every letter he sends our way brings immense amounts of joy.

Letters from Nephew

Brainstorming

I explored scenes with mailboxes, catching mail, mail coming out of the user's mouth, and e-mail.

The Assets

3D Models

I created a mailbox in Blender for the back camera and animated the flag to use on the side of the face.

Mailbox in Blender
Mailbox Flag Animation in Blender

Spreading Positivity

Sending and receiving thoughtful messages is a way that people spread love. So I created letters using Illustrator that individually display a positive message for the users to receive.

Letters of Positivity

The Lens

Front Camera

I placed a cycling array of positive letters on the forehead.

A smile stops the cycle so the user can receive a letter. An eyebrow raise starts the process again.

The moving mailbox flag signals that the user is constantly getting mail.

What I used:

  • Head Binding
  • Face Liquify to make the eyes slightly larger
  • Behavior scripts to trigger face events
  • Random Image script from YouTube Template
Front Camera: Smile to stop

Back Camera

Mailbox streaming a constant flow of letters.
Take a picture to see the letter you received.

What I used:

  • World Object Controller for to place the assets
  • Particle Template for the mail
Back Camera
Try Lens

Reflection

What Worked?

The interaction with the letter on the forehead works well. I'm glad that I included an eyebrow raise trigger to restart the lens so that users can try again for another result. I'm also proud of the particle effect in the back camera. I'm happy that the perspective of the letters coming out of the mailbox looks believable.

What didn't?

If the user moves the elements in the back camera setting, another set of segments appears that shouldn't exist. I'm still working to understand why this happens, but I feel it might be the camera labeling.

What will I do next time?

I wish it were more exciting when the user smiles and the array stops in the front camera version. Next time, I would indicate that the array stopped—a particle effect behind the user and a sound to celebrate their received letter. As for the back camera, I would like to add another interaction with the larger letter that cycles. A touch-trigger set on a delay that zooms the image closer to the view and stops the array.

Vianey Garcia

2022 Vianey Garcia| created with Webflow and Freepik