XR Direction Systems
Magic Leap
Lead 3D Artist | Art Direction
The Last Light
Designing emotional storytelling for spatial computing.
The Last Light was an experimental AR narrative for Magic Leap One, built around the idea of bringing a cinematic miniature world into the viewers physical space.
My role focused on environment art direction, spatial composition, lighting, asset creation, and helping translate a delicate storybook-like visual language into a real-time XR experience.
Premiered at SXSW 2020.
Featured Trailer
The Last Light trailer gives a clearer sense of the tone, pacing, and spatial storytelling of the experience.
01Context
Spatial computing changes how a story is framed. There is no traditional screen, no fixed camera, and no single guaranteed viewing angle.
For The Last Light, the challenge was to create a small, intimate world that felt handcrafted, readable, and emotionally present inside the viewers real environment.
02My Role
Lead 3D Artist / Art Direction
- Environment art direction
- Lighting and mood development
- 3D asset creation
- Spatial composition
- Scale and readability studies
- Collaboration with narrative, design, and engineering
I helped define how the world should feel in space not just as a beautiful image, but as something the viewer could physically move around, inspect, and emotionally connect with.
The Last Light was a team effort across art, concept, narrative, design, engineering, programming, and production - it took a full village to bring the experience to life.
My focus was on shaping the environment direction, spatial composition, lighting mood, asset execution, and the production decisions needed to make the world readable in AR.
Mouhsine leads by example, creating high quality, industry standard art. Regardless of the challenges and limitations faced over the last 4 years of development. Mouhsine is a problem solver who gets the job done. He isnt afraid to get dirty and push into unforeseen territory.
03Challenge
How do you guide attention when the viewer controls the camera?
The work had to balance cinematic composition with spatial freedom. We needed strong silhouettes, clear scale relationships, readable lighting, and optimized assets that could run on Magic Leap One while still preserving mood and story.
04Inspiration
We looked at theater sets, maquettes, and physical miniatures as inspiration for how the world should feel. The goal was to create a small, staged environment that felt handcrafted, intimate, and emotionally contained inside the viewers real space.
05Spatial R&D
We explored scale, lighting, layout, gradients, and silhouette breaks to understand what held up in AR and what became noisy or unreadable.
Scale, lighting, layout, gradients, and silhouette tests for readability in AR.
06Production
The work moved from concept art into real-time game-engine scenes, keeping the original mood while making the experience interactive, readable, and performant.
Most of the lighting was baked to support performance on Magic Leap One. Only one real-time light was used, primarily to cast the characters shadow and keep the scene grounded in the viewers space.
Production boards showing how environments moved from blockout and direction into final real-time scenes.
07Concept to Final
One of the key challenges was preserving the emotional intent of the concept art while translating it into a real-time spatial experience.
The final result had to keep the same mood, silhouette, lighting direction, and sense of intimacy while working within AR constraints.
08High-Res Renders
High-resolution renders helped evaluate mood, lighting, composition, and material response outside the headset before final integration.
09Optimization
Assets had to be efficient and readable, using simplified meshes and texture strategies where possible while preserving the emotional tone of the scene.
Mesh and texture strategies used to preserve mood while supporting performance.
10Outcome / Final Result
The Last Light became a small, cinematic AR experience that blended miniature world-building, real-time constraints, and emotional storytelling.
Built in Unity for Magic Leap One, it remains a strong example of how art direction can shape not just how an experience looks, but how it is felt in physical space.
For a longer look at the full experience, watch additional walkthrough footage on YouTube.
SXSW 2020
World Premiere
Magic Leap One
AR Experience
Spatial Storytelling
Real-Time Narrative