Edmonton VR team creates Halloween Snapchat lens

You may have used an Edmonton-made Snapchat filter this Halloween without knowing it. Nov. 11, 2019. (CTV News Edmonton)

EDMONTON -- Snapchat put out a challenge to see who could make the most terrifyingly awesome new lens feature for Halloween this year. An Edmonton team’s design was one of only six to be selected.

Aaron Clifford is the lead augmented reality/virtual reality producer at KOVR in Edmonton, one of only about 150 people in the world that officially produces filters, or lenses, for the popular app Snapchat.

His team came up with Soul Selector, a creative idea that was not only exciting, but also pushed the technology of the Snapchat features to a whole new level.

“It was a pretty unique idea,” said Clifford. "There are some [lenses] that show one half of a face done as a lens, but none that allow you to transform from one face to another quite like this. It was quite a technical challenge but it was a lot of fun to build."

The lens allows users to transform their face from either an evil-type character, to a celestial-type character depending on which way you look.

Which character is most popular? "From what I’ve seen it’s mostly the celestial that gets picked, which was a little surprising," Clifford said.

The special Halloween filters came about after Snapchat launched a competition for designers.

A demonstration of KOVR's Soul Selector Snapchat filter. Nov. 1, 2019.