This is what the AR experience looks like in real time.
All pieces were created in Adobe Illustrator using basic shapes.
After the shapes were built, they were broken up into layers...lots of layers (more below).
All assets were created on a single layer and then broken up into their own layers, depending on where depth needed to be added once it was brought into Adobe Photoshop. It's...a lot, but it's better to have too many layers in the beginning and merge some of them before exporting, than to have to re-think how your experience is going to work when augmenting.
Depth was added to the piece in Adobe Photoshop using multiple highlights and shadows for each layer. Once I was satisfied with how the piece looked, I merged the layers together that would not need interactivity once in Adobe Aero. For instance, the moth itself started as 10+ layers in Illustrator and was compressed into 1 before export for Aero. I wasn't going to need to differentiate between those layers after the depth was done in Photoshop, so I saved myself some time (and sanity) before exporting. You can save multiple copies of your PSD file (original and merged) if it will make you feel better...I did. Am I insane? Maybe. But if taking up space on my hard drive is going to make me sleep better at night, I'm here for it.
Here is what the preview interface looks like in Adobe Aero. Space was added equally in between each layer, with the exception of the moth...I wanted that piece to pop off the screen just a bit more than the others. The fireflies were added as separate assets instead of including them in the Photoshop export. This allowed me some more flexibility with timing and placement of the animation of each piece while in Aero.