CemtrexLabs created an immersive magic room that became the central exhibit to Richemont’s popup experience and would showcase several brands.
The Background
Richemont, parent company of world-famous luxury brands like Piaget, Montblanc, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Panerai, wanted to create an innovative experience for their Arcadium exhibit, a popup at Hudson Yards in NYC. This would be their first multi-brand popup for consumers, so it was important it went off without a hitch. Working with the C-Labs team, they arrived at an idea of an immersive magic room that would showcase several brands and become the central exhibit to their popup experience.
The Challenge
The Richemont project had several challenges CemtrexLabs gladly tackled:
- Break-neck turnaround time of 11 weeks
- They needed seven unique AR experiences for their brand
- Numerous 3D models
- Complex interrelated sound design
- Showcasing multiple unique brands while maintaining corporate branding
- Needed a unique way to feature products without any physical product
Feature + Process
Creating Concepts that Respect the Brands
C-Labs quickly met with each brand to define the story of each AR experience. It was important that CemtrexLabs 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, CemtrexLabs moved into storyboarding.
Storyboarding: Bringing the Concepts to Life
Once the initial brainstorming sessions were complete, CemtrexLabs brought each brand’s story to life through intricate storyboarding. CemtrexLabs was still facing their tight deadline, so CemtrexLabs 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 move into development.
Sound Design
For sound design, CemtrexLabs 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, CemtrexLabs began creating sound design late in the storyboarding stage. Once the development matured, their sound design team refined the assets to ensure a perfect match with the experience.
Shaping the Backbone of the Experience
Their architects had to shape a complex, interrelated backend to ensure users had a consistent shared experience. CemtrexLabs 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.
3D Models & Animation
Once the storyboards were largely approved, their 3D team began modeling. CemtrexLabs started with the central component of each story – the products. CemtrexLabs received detailed images from the brands for their modeling team to create. Next, CemtrexLabs began modeling the rest of the elements from the stories. Each brand had very unique stories and products to feature. CemtrexLabs animated planes flying through the air, underwater scenes, jaw-dropping landscapes, and equestrian adventures—to name a few.
The modeling team would send bi-weekly builds for the brands to review so CemtrexLabs could maintain full transparency and adaptability as CemtrexLabs progressed towards the Arcadium launch date.
Results: A Wildly Popular and Engaging AR Experience
CemtrexLabs was able to create all the AR experiences in under 11 weeks, bringing the whole thing to life in time for the launch of Arcadium. The experience went off without a hitch: over 7000 people visited over the course of two weeks, resulting in 2000 magic selfies along with overwhelming praise from visitors. The Richemont team was overjoyed at the reception and grateful for the unprecedented turnaround time to bring their project into reality.
About CemtrexLabs
CemtrexLabs is software and hardware, design and development services range from business-critical applications to powerful Augmented and Virtual Reality applications that push the boundaries of consumer, industrial, experiential, and commerce applications for the world’s most innovative brands (e.g. LiveNation, Cartier, IWC, AARP and more).
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