PHILIP CADOUX

The Immersive Room began as an interactive showcase for the hands-free capture capabilities of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, premiering at Meta Lab LA on Melrose Blvd in 2024. Its overwhelming success led to new commissions, with evolved versions produced for Cannes 2025 and Coachella 2025, each reconfigured to suit different form factors and audiences. The project continues to evolve, with further interactive iterations underway.

Inside, guests step into a mirrored enclosure with a white faceted floor and low-poly scenic elements outlined in stark black lines. A large-format LED wall extends Unreal Engine environments into infinity through reflection. Each scene is treated with avant-garde LUTs, washing the space in narrow, saturated color ranges for maximum visual impact.

At the center, a plinth houses a Leap Motion sensor that tracks hand gestures, seamlessly blending between LUTs in real time. The environments also feature live weather data pulled from NOAA and integrated through Ultra Dynamic Sky, while surround sound immerses visitors fully in the atmosphere.

I served as the primary Unreal Engine developer, writing the state machine architecture that powered this installation and has since become the backbone of all DE-YAN Unreal projects. I also contributed to level design and coordinated with collaborating artists to bring the experience to life.

For NBA All-Star Weekend 2025, the NBA 2K League asked DE-YAN to create a fully interactive playground fusing renaissance opulence with modern streetwear and street culture. At the heart of the experience was a custom-built backend, Hyperion, which generated unique AI “royal avatars” for every guest. Each avatar balanced classical portraiture with contemporary fashion, and evolved as players moved through the space—new outfits and colorways appeared with every game played.

The playground featured multiple touchpoints:

• Baroque Beat – A drum kit rhythm game in TouchDesigner where good performance graffiti-tagged a baroque castle hall with color.
• Court Cutter – An Unreal Engine sword-slashing game (developed primarily by me) where breaking statues revealed modern reimaginings beneath, controlled with a Nintendo Switch controller.
• Winners Library – I built a custom magnetic switch circuit that triggered TouchDesigner animations, unlocked new portraits, and occasionally awarded prizes.
• Tagging Station – Guests used HTC Vive spray cans to graffiti over AI-generated templates, exporting their own tagged portraits.

I was involved in ideation and design across the playground, while leading development of Court Cutter and circuit design for the Winners Library.

By tying all experiences together through Hyperion’s AI portrait system, the installation created a unified narrative: guests left not only having played games but also carrying their own evolving legacy as streetwear royalty. The project drew massive crowds, with lines wrapping around the convention center.

HOKA Mafate X Launch
Flatiron, NYC – with Jellyfish Creative

To debut HOKA’s Mafate X trail shoe, we transformed NYC’s Flatiron Plaza into a living diorama inspired by the Museum of Natural History. The installation simulated a desert trail run through Joshua Tree, blending physical set design with real-time digital environments.

I led the treadmill hacking, creating a custom serial communication system that translated runner speed into TouchDesigner and synchronized it with Unreal Engine. On-site, I managed installation and live operation, ensuring the system ran reliably in public. I also designed the Unreal Engine architecture, optimizing a Megascans desert environment to dynamically match the runner’s pace while maintaining real-time performance.

For the 30th anniversary of Weezer’s iconic Blue Album, PDA Arcade was commissioned to design both a custom arcade cabinet and an original game packed with 90s nostalgia. The result: Sweater Saga, a tongue-in-cheek throwback where players race to unravel a thread using a trackball, dodging obstacles like Dungeons & Dragons monsters, hacky sacks, guitarists, construction equipment, dogs, and spaceships.

We collaborated with a fabrication team to bring our 3D-designed cabinet to life, finishing it with a sparkle speckle paint reminiscent of mall food courts and amusement areas of the 90s. The visuals were brought to life in partnership with pixel artist MAOWLING, while I served as the solo Unreal Engine developer, building the entire game system end-to-end.

The cabinet debuted in Brooklyn Projects, Los Angeles in late 2024 and continues to live there as a permanent installation.

For the opening of the Intuit Dome, new home of the LA Clippers, we created a permanent hands-free basketball game that lives inside the arena. Built with TouchDesigner and Unreal Engine, the system uses body-tracking and custom Optical Flow algorithms to detect when guests step up and when they take a shot. Scores are seamlessly added to a live leaderboard, creating an interactive experience that’s always ready to play.

I was primarily responsible for Unreal Engine development, including designing the gameplay and scoring mechanics, coding the UI, managing the state system, and overseeing final integrations for reliable long-term performance.

Additional Social

Immersive Room

The Immersive Room was created as an interactive showcase for the hands-free capture features of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, debuting at Meta Lab LA on Melrose Blvd in 2024.

Inside a mirrored enclosure, guests stepped onto a faceted low-poly floor accented with bold black lines. A large-format LED wall extended Unreal Engine environments into infinity, with avant-garde LUTs washing the space in shifting colors. Using a Leap Motion sensor, visitors could control these LUT blends with hand gestures, while live NOAA weather data drove dynamic skies overhead.

I was the primary Unreal Engine developer, building the custom state machine that powered the experience—an architecture that has since become the foundation for all DE-YAN Unreal projects.

Bounce Boulevard

For the LA pop-up store, themed around lowrider culture, we set out to celebrate the remote-control car designers who carry on that tradition. The result was Bounce Boulevard, an interactive rhythm game where cars dance and bounce in sync with player performance.

I was primarily responsible for programming the custom circuit and car controls in TouchDesigner, as well as the game design and UX. The circuit I built sent data directly into the cars’ servo motors, with a specialized MOSFET power cut-off for heat management in a long-term install. I also helped design a custom controller, giving players a tactile connection to the experience.

The game itself was a Guitar Hero–style rhythm experience: when players hit notes, the car would wiggle, bounce, and dance—but miss a beat, and it would shut down. To emphasize hands-free capture, we used a mirrored screen technique that let players record themselves playing while also seeing the gameplay.

Bounce Boulevard premiered at Meta Connect 2024, where Mark Zuckerberg personally played and praised the LA pop-up design. Following its success, the installation was also featured at CES 2025.

Additional Social

In collaboration with Silent Partner Studios and SNL, the team at DE-YAN was tasked with creating custom visuals for Travis Scott’s performance of FE!N. Using Unreal Engine 5, we designed a single, evolving environment that amplified the track’s intensity on stage.

Taking advantage of Unreal’s new Heterogeneous Volumes, we built hyper-realistic smoke simulations that shifted dynamically with lighting. As the song progressed, glowing orange hues emerged within the smoke, evoking distant flames and raising the visual tension.

I served as the primary Unreal Engine developer, responsible for building custom exports for a three-sided screen setup and leading optimization for real-time testing at 4th Wall Studios in New Jersey.

PAWPCULTURE set out to merge tabletop culture with playtime, creating dog toys inspired by RPGs and board games. Their goal was simple: bring the joy of game night to your pup.

I designed two flagship toys from the ground up. First, a 3D-modeled D20 die with a hidden treat dispenser, engineered to be both durable and playful. Second, a rope tug toy featuring a rubber Meeple core, combining classic tabletop iconography with functional chew-resistant design. Both toys were produced in milk-scented rubber to boost engagement and fun.

The second cabinet from PDA Arcade, Slice Hunter was commissioned by Mike’s Hot Honey to celebrate their new partnership with Scarr’s Pizza on the Lower East Side.

Our challenge was to design something retro-inspired without tipping into garishness. The final build features a clean, angular silhouette with custom LED inlays that complement the aesthetic of the pizzeria while still feeling playful and arcade-authentic.

While the Galaga-inspired game was developed externally, I adapted its control scheme to run seamlessly on arcade hardware. Together, our team designed and fabricated the fully wooden cabinet from scratch, delivering a piece that balances nostalgia, brand identity, and modern craft.

For the global finale of HYBE Labels and Geffen’s Dream Academy competition—which launched the K-pop group KATSEYE—DE-YAN was invited to XR Studios to design immersive virtual environments for the live broadcast.

Our team created multiple worlds:

• A neon sign graveyard for Dirty Water
• A reflective salt flat for All the Same
• A motion graphics package for Girls Don’t Like
• A traditional proscenium stage for the emcee
• A rooftop overlooking Los Angeles for the final selection moment

I worked as an environment designer on Dirty Water, the proscenium stage, and the LA rooftop. I also led optimization across all levels, implementing logic-gated Tick functions to manage variable changes during filming—ensuring smooth performance under the demands of real-time XR production.

This remains one of my favorite projects, blending technical precision with the cultural significance of introducing a new K-pop group to a global audience.

The first arcade cabinet created with my team at PDA Arcade, Byte Ball started as a school project but quickly found new life in public spaces. After a two-year residency at Wonderville NYC, the cabinet was inducted into the permanent collection at the NYU Game Center.

Inspired by classic playground games like hot potato and handball, Byte Ball is a fast-paced party game where players catch and throw a glowing ball at their opponents. The last player standing wins.

I was involved in every stage of the project, serving as the solo Unity Developer, building the full game loop, physics, and interactions from the ground up.

The House of Hype is a massive, year-long project: a futuristic arcade playground in Riyadh developed by Hyperspace and built by DE-YAN. Across dozens of interactive touchpoints, visitors step into games, environments, and fashion-forward digital experiences that merge pop culture with cutting-edge technology.

I worked on the project for nearly a year, contributing to ideation, game design, and development across multiple zones. My primary role was lead Unreal Engine development, building a suite of core arcade titles, plus systems integration and dev support across the broader ecosystem.

MetaServices (Lead Development)

A collection of five original arcade games distributed across the park. I was the primary developer for all:

• Hyper Monster Moon Tennis – A tennis-racket-wielding astronaut faces off against a giant head on the moon.
• Operation Pegasus – Mythical horses race to earn their wings and fly farther than ever before.
• Kernel Panic – Kernie, the last popcorn in the bag, dodges grasping hands in a frantic survival run.
• Space Parasites – An omnipotent space cat enlists your help in counting and destroying alien parasites.
• Sneaker Stacker – Stack sneakers through time and space as they evolve into new forms.

Body Games (Dev Support)

Powered by NVIDIA Maxine for body tracking, I provided development support on three motion-driven games:

• No Running in the Hallways – Strike poses to escape detention, culminating in a pose-off boss fight.
• Synth Cycle – Lean left and right to survive a neon motorcycle gauntlet.
• Beat Bash – A rhythm game where players match directional notes with hand movements.

Avatar Labs (Dev Support)

Guests answer strange personality questions to generate an AI-driven avatar archetype from hundreds of thousands of possible outputs, usable throughout the park and app.

Echo Park (Dev Support)

Guests dance in a virtual production setup, watching their avatars mirror their moves inside stylized environments.

Drip Fits (Core Contribution)

A futuristic fashion photo booth. I developed the system for unwrapping any face onto a 3D mesh in TouchDesigner, then integrated it into Unreal Engine to output high-resolution editorial-style portraits.

Feelz (Material Dev Support)

A room-scale, three-wall projection game using nDisplay. With a custom wand, guests chase animated dots across the environment.

Floor is Lava (Game Design / UX)

Using LiDAR and projection mapping, I designed a system that projected obstacles onto the floor. Guests had to dodge hazards, losing lives with each misstep.

Other Experiences

• UDesign – Voice-driven custom sneaker design (no direct involvement).
• StarMakers – Multiple TouchDesigner photo booths with AI/sticker-based outputs (no direct involvement).

My Role

Across House of Hype, I was responsible for:

• Primary Unreal Engine development (MetaServices, Drip Fits, integration across the park).
• Game design and UX (Floor is Lava, Court Cutter-style mechanics, etc.).
• Custom circuits and interactive systems (magnetic triggers, face-mesh unwrapping).
• Cross-team support on nearly every major experience.

This project represented a year of work, blending art, technology, and culture into one of the most ambitious interactive entertainment destinations in the world.