Sahira

Inspiration

At the crossroads of poetic storytelling and fantastical worlds, the project draws inspiration from the artistic sensibility and emotional intensity of "Ori and the Blind Forest", the richly symbolic universe of "Avatar", and the magical and surreal touch of "Fish Night", from the anthology "Love, Death and Robots".

What it does

Sahira is a mixed reality experience designed for art therapists as a new tool for their patients. Used directly by patients, Sahira is intended to evolve in order to meet challenges in a number of therapeutic fields, particularly in hospitals.

A series of modular scenes, designed by committed artists driven by a poetic approach. By combining immersive technology and sensitive artistic expression, Sahira offers a sensory refuge where users can catch their breath.

Beyond the scripted scenes, Sahira has a feature that allows everyone to express themselves freely and create their own painting, their own soothing, purifying, and resilient environment.

How we built it

We created this first scene with Unity using Meta's Interaction SDK for interactions and a workflow focused on sensory storytelling. The sounds were custom-composed to promote calmness. Our team worked in parallel on ideation, artistic design, technical development, and sound integration to produce a complete experience in less than 24 hours.

Challenges we ran into

The idea for Sahira’s first artwork emerged during the Innovher hackathon dedicated to women’s health an ideal space to shape our ambition and refine the project’s vision while carrying out some technical tests. We then took advantage of the opportunity offered by the “Meta Horizon Start Developer Competition” hackathon to design, in just 24 hours, this first piece, Elevation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Sahira is a collaboration between three minds, three artists, three creative breaths weaving together the soul of the project. Three different paths, yet a shared language: images that resonate, atmospheres that leave their mark, and experiences that endure.

We are particularly proud to have designed “Elevation” in just 24 hours, while creating an experience that is soothing, immersive, and artistically coherent. The very positive feedback during public testing confirmed that Sahira truly manages to offer a moment of respite, even in the midst of noise and commotion.

What we learned

This creative sprint taught us how to quickly optimize a mixed reality experience, adapt our artistic direction to technical constraints such as Shader Graph, and adjust our choices based on technical challenges. We also refined our understanding of the balance between sound immersion, comfort, and emotional intent.

What's next for Sahira

This first scene, “Elevation,” is just the beginning of the Sahira's universe. We hope to win an award to fund the creation of three additional dreamlike scenes, each exploring a different emotion and sensation, in order to allow as much people as possible, especially teenagers, to enjoy this unique artistic experience. We also plan to integrate our new feature, which responds to each individual's uniqueness, in order to deepen the therapeutic experience and offer users an even more immersive, soothing, and personalized space.

Sahira is an experience we had the opportunity to test in real conditions, during a well-attended event and with diverse audiences. User feedback was very positive, confirming the value of the experience, its ability to create a true bubble of calm despite the surrounding noise, and its powerful mental soothing effect that extends beyond the experience itself. Sahira: a memorable moment for oneself.