Augmented Reality experiences for The Maisons of Richemont
CXR.Agency quickly met with each brand to define the story of each AR experience. It was important that we captured the essence of each brand in their story while keeping the experience as a whole unified under the Richemont brand. After a few brainstorming sessions, we moved into storyboarding.
Once the initial brainstorming sessions were complete, we brought each brand’s story to life through intricate storyboarding. We were still facing our tight deadline, so we worked rapidly to produce numerous storyboards in just a couple of weeks. Thanks to the detailed brainstorming sessions, most storyboards were approved on the first turn, allowing the project to quickly to move into development.
For sound design, we needed to balance the shared experience within the room with the unique visitor experiences as they navigated the space. To solve that challenge, each story is comprised of its own ambient music along with spatial sound effects that correspond with a user’s interaction with the story. The ambient music would play from the main speakers within the magic room, while the spatial sound effects would play from the user’s iPad. Due to the rapid turnaround time, we began creating sound design late in the storyboarding stage. Once the development matured, our sound design team refined the assets to ensure a perfect match with the experience.
Our architects had to shape a complex, interrelated backend to ensure users had a consistent shared experience. We created a powerful infrastructure that ensured the scenes and music would always stay synced, emailed selfies to visitors, and gave the Richemont team control over the overall session with a custom session controller.
Once the storyboards were largely approved, our 3D team began modelling. We started with the central component of each story – the products. We received detailed images from the brands for our modelling team to create.Next, we began modelling the rest of the elements from the stories. Each brand had very unique stories and products to feature. We animated planes flying through the air, underwater scenes, jaw-dropping landscapes and equestrian adventures—to name a few. The modelling team would send bi-weekly builds for the brands to review so we could maintain full transparency and adaptability as we progressed towards the Arcadium launch date.
