An augmented reality (AR) effect system can improve application of AR effects by sharing resources between AR effects. The AR effect system can employ manifests for AR effects that define which resources are required to render each AR effect. The AR effect system can organize rendering operations used by selected AR effects into a pipeline and can use the manifests of the AR effects to determine when each resource will be needed. Based on this pipeline, the AR effect system can create a cache order defining a resource schedule which specifies, when a resource is freed, conditions for whether to save the resource to a local cache or unload the resource. As rendering of the video with the AR effects progresses, the resource schedule can control whether resources not currently being used to render an AR effect should be unloaded or cached for fast access for future render operations.