Augmented Reality

VW ID.4 AR Racing

Date

2020

Client/Agency

VW/Spinifex Group

Role

Creative Direction, Design & 3D

During the COVID lockdowns VW needed a way to keep fans and customers engaged while everyone was stuck at home. The answer was a web-based AR racing game where players could place a full 3D track anywhere in their home and race a miniature VW ID.4 against other players in real time. No app download, no special hardware, just your phone and a flat surface.
I was the creative director, art director, designer, animator, and 3D lead on the project, working with a team of six.

The Challenge

Three things had to work together and none of them were easy. Performance, visual fidelity, and multiplayer, all running through a web-based AR engine. We used 8th Wall as the platform and pushed it hard in all three directions. Web AR has real constraints compared to native, and a lot of the early work was testing what was actually possible, what held up under real conditions, and where we needed to pull back or find a different approach. Track design and game mechanics went through a lot of iteration too, getting the balance right between fun and genuinely competitive took time.

UI Designs

The Approach

The track design was something I was particularly invested in. Rather than a generic racing circuit I built the VW and ID.4 branding directly into the shape of the track itself, so the layout you were racing on was also a piece of design. The other thing I pushed hard on was occlusion. When the cars went into certain sections of the track they appeared to disappear below the surface you were playing on, so if you were in your living room the cars looked like they were driving under your floor, headlights and all, before emerging on the other side. That one detail made the whole thing feel a lot more real and a lot more surprising.
The game had two modes, a four lap race against the leaderboard and an endurance challenge tied to battery management, which connected the gameplay back to the ID.4's EV identity. Players got personalized animated scorecards to share their results, and I created a full suite of social content to promote the experience across VW's channels.

Gameplay Tests

The Outcome

Stacks never became a product, it was a concept and a proof of thinking. But it demonstrated something that the industry caught up to not long after: that the future of AI creative tools isn't a text box, it's a visual system that gives people real control over what they're making.

Jeff Levine

Fake-Up

Creative Director, Designer & Artist