dev design darren

We didn't see eye to eye much, because we were on zoom, but we managed to have a good time anyways.

Because Chloe and I had experience in multiple programs, we got to jump back and forth and wear multiple hats at the same time. It was such a fun time to put together everything we've learned into one lens.

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WORKING KNOWLEDGE

Scan this code using Snapchat and make sure you have room to explore the lens!

mailto:darrlau@gmail.com

CONTACT

Getting to model and texturize everything in one environment.

I think we both consider ourselves as design generalists, and seeing every feature we are capable of using was gratifying to see all the work in tandem with each other.

Gong Gong's House

Tasked with Education, my partner Chloe and I were the only two-person team in the entire cohort so we had even more responsibilities to shoulder. We decided to dive into our own personal history and culture and thus began the start of our project.

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We tested different hand interactions over and over again, trying to figure out the right combination of gestures and playfulness. We had a mission to make this a uniquely AR Experience and iterated constantly. It took us a while to figure out the exact mechanism for a fun and engaging gameplay, but we landed on something that felt right.

SNAPCHAT

We believe that Immersive Education is where this is all going and we want to leverage Augmented Reality for interactive learning. Imagine seeing a fully interactive experience like this in a classroom, museum, or cultural center. Interactivity with education is the future.

I have so many takeaways from this project. I'm so proud of the work we've done: it was a big moment for me to realize there are solutions at every corner. All you have to do is ask the right questions. Thank you to Snap and to the Snap Academies for giving us this opportunity to learn more about AR.

Interactive Augmented Experience

With zero prior experience, I joined Snap Academies in June to learn how Augmented Reality works. Over the course of 9 weeks, I published 18 Snap AR Lenses, crossing over 14.8million total views and 1.1million shares.

Along with 14 other selected Snap scholars, I feel incredibly grateful to have spent 2024 with Snap Academies. We found ourselves in a very supportive and encouraging environment, learning with other scholars how to create Augmented Reality lenses and it'll be an experience I never forget.

BORN IN SF 🌎 AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE

Every morning I got to learn Augmented Reality with this cohort. Connections are rare and I'm grateful to have found a few here with these lovely people.

Mild Cognitive Impairment affects up to 20% of our elderly, leading to declines in executive function, memory loss, and decision making. The good news is that they also discovered that 12 weeks of playing Mahjong, a game very dear to our culture, helped improve Executive Function in the elderly.

After she laid out the master vision for the styles, I took everything and brought it all into Blender, where I got to bring the whole thing into the 3d space and apply all the textures for the environment.

Using behavior scripts and spatial triggers, we hid tiles and UI cards all around the house, letting you discover a story and perspective that many of us share.

Because we believe immersive education is where this is all going, we wanted to pack this lens to be packed with interaction. All around the room are tiles and explanations of the game and what things mean in our game of Mahjong, where users are free to explore as they move in the physical space.

KINDNESS, CREATIVITE, SMART

The art style and our game mechanics flowed in a way that felt like it told a real story.

Chloe with her grandparents and a photo of me with my Grandma.

There were numerous surprises held around the house as well. We packed the lens full of different interactions and we can see this being fleshed out even more. In the future, we plan on integrating sound, and even maybe a connected lens feature where users can upload their own images to the boards. We can also see the immersive educational experience with different settings, time periods, and lessons.

A 2-week sprint that culminated in presenting this project to over 80 Snap Directors, friends, and family in attenance.

MY TIME AT SNAP LENS ACADEMY 2024

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9-Week Augmented Reality Apprenticeship Final Project and Lessons Learned

W H O W E A R E

Chloe Hsu & Darren Lau

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1 EXPERIENCE

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9 WEEK CURRICULUM

Because it was the two of us, we were able to iterate really quickly, coming up with creative decisions and collaborating on every step.

Diving into Lens Studio was buckets of fun. I'm not exagerrating. Yes, the interface had a learning curve but it was a fun challenge to explore it like a kid in a playground, to learn how to navigate and fully understand how things work inside the program. Aside from Lens Studio, I got to also utilize all of my knowledge with Blender, Photoshop, Javascript, and Generative AI tools to complement my Augmented Reality lenses.

Our goal was to teach people about all of the moments that make up the parts of our culture, family, and honor.

How can we make this lens as immersive as possible? What would make this feel like a unique experience only found on Snap?

A variety of Snapchat AR Lenses I made during the Lens Academy.

For our Final Showcase, Chloe and I were tasked with the topic of Education. We got to know each other pretty well and after finding that we had many shared experiences, we felt like we could really narrow down on our topic.

Exploring Lens Studio was such a fun experience. We even got to play with Lens Studio 5, which came with Machine Learning capabilities.

FINAL PROJECT

Chloe was the brains and wunderkind behind the styling: she began with similar and familiar items found in our grandparents home.

Home magic

MAGIC

Our main engine became a scavenger hunt style game, where users got to walk through the same nostalgic experience we had with our grandparents. Technically, things really clicked for us when we integrated a particle system along with Physics Bodies and Colliders.

Education is a broad topic but we decided to hone in on sharing and educating people on our culture, specifically because our experience as a 2nd-generation Asian American seems like a shared nostalgic memory for many of us.

2D Assets • 2D Textures • 3D Modeling • Custom VFX • Particle Systems • Behavior Scripts • Hand Tracking & Interaction • Physics Bodies & Colliders • 2D Animation • 3D Animation • World Tracking • Spatial Triggers • Custom Javascript