AiLien

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  Ailien scene 2

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  scene 1 passthrough

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  Ailien scene 2

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  scene 1 passthrough

ABOUT THE PROJECT AILien is a Mixed Reality (MR) experience that turns your room into a portal to the cosmos. It centers on an unexpected extraterrestrial visitor: a meteor that lands in your physical space. This visitor becomes a virtual companion that users can converse with endlessly. Named ‘Telothar,’ this poetic, cosmic intelligence arrives not to crash, but to connect. It offers users a companion to help explore their own thoughts, one landing at a time. Inspired by the discovery of the Knyahinya meteorite in 1866, this interactive narrative combines an NPC AI engine with spatial computing to create a presence that can respond to questions about the universe—and the user's place within it. People increasingly crave grounding, introspective moments of calm. While meditation apps and wellness tools are often passive or monotonous, AILien creates a safe space that uses the novelty of an unexpected visitor to encourage users to explore the “big questions.” It serves as a daily or weekly check-in, a comforting presence, and a way to externalize thoughts and feelings. It is not a productivity tool, a game, or meditation as we know it. It is a new category: an MR companion that merges storytelling, emotional wellness, and non-human intelligence.

HOW WE BUILT IT The project features 3D scans of the actual Knyahinya meteorite and environmental designs based on hand-drawn sketches converted into 3D models via AI, accompanied by an original score and sound design. We have currently built two of the three envisaged scenes. The experience begins in Mixed Reality: the headset scans the user's physical environment and replaces real-world objects with pre-assigned digital assets—rocks and trees. One specific rock features sound and movement; this serves as our teleportation anchor to the next scene. In the main scene, the user is immersed in a fully virtual environment where they can have a live conversation with the AI about cosmic subjects and personal reflection. Tech Stack: We utilized MRUK building blocks to create a prefab spawner that manipulated the mesh, followed by hand interaction and teleportation mechanics. We integrated the Convai NPC AI Engine to create a voiced character with the personality of a cosmic oracle. Finally, we used the Meta SDK to incorporate this character into a Unity scene and the VR Optimiser by Valem to speed up the final stages of development.

CHALLENGES In this phase, we navigated several significant hurdles. Technical Integration: Our primary technical struggle was the headset’s ability to interact with the physical room. First, it could not reliably recognize physical objects. Second, we faced issues with sizing and positioning the 3D assets when overlaying them onto real-world items. Third, mislabeling occurred when the headset attempted to define parameters for these objects. Interaction & Mechanics: We had to solve how the user interacts with the meteor after teleporting to the new scene, as we struggled with the object’s positioning and ensuring it could be manipulated correctly using hand tracking. Scope & Workflow: Controlling the scope was a major challenge. As ideas for narrative elements expanded, we had to refocus on core features to meet time constraints and match our team's experience level without losing the heart of the project. Additionally, the Convai NPC Engine does not integrate directly with the Meta SDK. With mentor support, we had to manually modify the codebase to ensure compatibility.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS For this demo, we successfully engineered a system that recognizes, resizes, and positions 3D assets to match physical objects. Our main achievement is the reliability of this Mixed Reality scene: we can now accurately link physical furniture and objects to their corresponding digital assets in a real room.

WHAT IS NEXT FOR AILIEN We plan to complete the full three-scene narrative and further refine the interactivity between the user and Telothar, deepening both the emotional connection and the sense of presence in the experience.

Built With

• ai
• blender
• metasdk
• unity