Yesterday Oculus revealed that it had formed ‘Story Studio’, an internal team dedicated to experimenting with real-time CG VR cinema. Today the company has put out a promo video which reveals that the studio has five VR short films in the works for 2015.
See Also: Oculus Internal ‘Story Studio’ Draws Pixar Talent, Experiments with CG Cinematic VR
For now, Story Studio is leaving live-action VR cinema alone and instead focusing on real-time CG VR storytelling.
“We have a slate of five films coming up this year, and with each one we want to explore and learn something about storytelling in VR,” says Saschka Unseld, Creative Director at Oculus Story Studio and former Pixar director.
Lost, which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival yesterday, is the first VR short out of Story Studio. “Lost takes the viewer on a journey to a moonlit forest inhabited by an unexpected creature,” the company describes in a new blog post where it also reveals that the experience is built with the Unreal Engine 4, a popular game engine used by many Oculus Rift developers.
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told us that Lost would be on display at more Oculus-attended events, like GDC in March.
Four of the five short CG VR films in the works are described by Unseld in the Story Studio promo video:
- Bullfighter – “…truly feeling presence in the scary situation of being in a bullfighting arena.”
- Lost – “Magic and wonder”
- Kabloom – “Comedy and empathy”
- Dear Angelica – “How would it feel like if we could be inside of an illustration?”
Iribe told us yesterday that “[Oculus plans] to make all of this available on the Oculus Rift [consumer version]” and that while he’s impressed with the exploratory work done by Story Studio thus far, “we still have a ways to go before people are making longer film experiences.”
