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Virtual reality movies are here; thanks, Oculus

It’s well-known in the office that I have a bit of a thing for virtual reality and Oculus, Inc., so when I saw this morning on Engadget that the company has announced a division dedicated to making VR movies, I just had to share.

The new division is called Oculus Story Studio, and the first film to come from it is called Lost, all about a disembodied robot hand wandering around a forest looking for the body it’s meant to be attached to.

The movie made its debut at the Sundance film festival that’s currently underway. Techcrunch was there, and posted this review of the short film. They weren’t blown away, saying that while immersive the film wasn’t very interactive, but in fairness the format is brand-spanking-new and has to start somewhere.

What has me excited about the news is that the core concept – stories that immerse the viewer in 360 degrees of the movie’s environments – has been bought into by ex-staffers from Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic, two of the most well-known names in animated movie and special effects creation.

Story Studio is being headed up by former Pixar director Saschka Unseld, and he’s joined by another Pixar alumni Max Planck as the supervising technical director.

Both men have been solving challenges relating to 3D animation for years, making them perfectly-poised to bring their creative and technical minds to the challenges of storytelling in this new medium. Facebook’s money probably helped win them over, but it’s still encouraging to see that competent and talented people are being attracted to the format.

More movies are in the works, and although Oculus reps haven’t said anything concrete, it’s expected that a consumer-grade version of the Oculus Rift virtual headset will go on sale sometime this year, bringing VR in your home a few steps closer to reality.

As you can probably guess, I may be among the first to buy one.

[Source – The Verge, Image – RoadtoVR.com]

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