Lego Star Wars AR Experience

Yifei Chai

Lego: Star Wars AR Experience

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‘Enter the world of Lego with Augmented Reality, and be a part of these famous scenes from 40 years of Star Wars.’

Yifei Chai, Creative Director, UNIT9

The background

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi, Lego wanted to create a tribute to Star Wars fans. So we launched a multi-experiential augmented reality campaign that let them be part of famous moments from the movie.

Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Images courtesy of LEGO
Lego Star Wars AR Experience

The execution

We created three bespoke AR experiences: a UCS X-Wing Starfighter for the aspiring Rebel pilot; the Endor Speeder Chase for Scout Trooper fans; and the Emperor’s Throne Room, where Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader held their final climactic battle. The bespoke AR experiences were inspired by three new Star Wars Lego sets of the same scenes.

We used 8th Wall and react-three-fiber, a renderer for creating animated 3D graphics, for this project. 8th Wall does not have pre-created components for react-three fiber, and it was challenging to get these two platforms to work together. Once we did, we had an excellent UI framework that supported composability and easy swapping of scenes, objects, and materials.

Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Images courtesy of LEGO
Lego Star Wars AR Experience

Some technical highlights include the glow of the lightsaber in the Emperor’s Throne Room and clipped planes that cut the trees off in the shape of the base in the Endor Speeder Chase scene.

Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Images courtesy of LEGO

The results

It was a joy to work with Star Wars assets, especially for our team members who grew up loving the movie franchise. This nostalgic project reminded us to find inspiration in the toys we loved as children, and that digital technology can help bring our wildest dreams to life.

Lego Star Wars AR Experience
Lego Star Wars AR Experience
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