Watch Oculus Rift’s groundbreaking virtual reality film, “Henry”

Oculus, meet Pixar.

Henry, the pixelated star of Oculus VR’s first animated virtual reality short, is a lovable hedgehog who loves, loves, love hug. Being a spiky guy creates an obvious pickle that leaves Henry sad and friendless, and like the 10 minute virtual reality short Henri opens — with a narration from Elijah Wood — Henry celebrates his birthday solo.

Don an Oculus Rift headset transports you to the colorful CG-animated cabin that Henry calls home. A ladybug passes, drawing your eyes down and across to enjoy a fully immersive environment with 360 degree views. When Henry makes his birthday wish hoping for friends to share his big day, it becomes reality, bringing six balloon animals to life.

And, soon, to death: Henry’s cruel fate means that at least one of his new friends pops his magical death ring, giving the short a bittersweet dramatic point, which I won’t spoil here.

After Facebook shelled out a fortune to acquire Oculus VR, Oculus Story Studio launched last year at the Sundance Film Festival to develop virtual reality “movies” that showcase the potential of the technology. The five ongoing projects range from Henri immersive Bullfighter To Dear Angelique, a short film that immerses the user in an illustrated world, and beyond. Henri is the first of five experimental shorts that will debut early next year when the head-mounted Oculus Rift units officially hit the market. It’s also the most kid-friendly and, surprisingly, emotionally engaging in the way that Disney and Pixar’s best releases are tugging at the heartstrings.

First Henri to reporters this week at a chic Beverly Hills mansion, the studio’s creative director, Pixar veteran Saschka Unseld, highlighted a user experience that transcends traditional film, television or even games. Feeling empathy in a virtual reality experience, rather than just observing or visiting a digital environment, is “the most important,” he said.

To that end, Henry the Hedgehog is aware that you are in his living room watching his story unfold. It makes eye contact during moments of strong emotion – sadness, hopelessness, elation – sharing those feelings with the user in a surprisingly intimate, real-time way that can first be intensely unsettling, then wonderful.

Henry, Unseld urged a room full of skeptical reporters, “is alive.”

The idea of ​​creating an animated character who could somehow appear being alive through follow-up glances and eye contact accidentally came to Unseld and the small team of about 15 staff responsible for designing experimental proofs of concept for Oculus Story Studios, most of whom were recruited from the worlds. animation and play.

“No one knew how it was going to feel in VR”, Henri director Ramiro Lopez Dau, a former Pixar whose credits include Monster college, Courageous, and the short film 2012 The moon, said The Daily Beast. “Are we going to feel something for this guy? Is it going to be awkward? Is it going to feel stronger or weaker than a movie? This medium is new. Maybe you just won’t log in.

“It was fascinating,” Unseld added. “He looks at you when he feels an emotion, when he is happy or when he is sad. Conceptually it didn’t make sense, but at one point we said, maybe in a calm moment that should come. And it worked. But it was an experiment.

Unseld and Co. released their first VR film, The Creature in a Forest Tale Lost, last year at Sundance. They have the luxury of developing their list of varied short films at their own pace, with no set quotas or specific release dates to hit. “When they’re done, they’re done,” Unseld says.

Oculus Story Studio’s directive, for now, is to push the boundaries of experimentation to show other creators what is possible in VR storytelling. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how Oculus executives are investing in expanding VR experiences with an eye on the future.

For a taste of that long-term vision, I had to look no further than Palmer Luckey, the tech prodigy who built his first Oculus Rift prototype at the age of 18 and sold the company off. to Facebook last year for $ 2 billion. Now 22, the effervescent, Long Beach native face of Oculus VR divides his time between the Menlo Park headquarters and various global offices around the world.

I found Luckey, wearing his iconic flip flops, on a stone bench overlooking the Los Angeles skyline.

“I’ve always believed that people want to experience great things that are beyond what they can do in real life,” said Luckey, smiling tirelessly under the sun. “People have never grown tired of doing things that are outside of their own existence.”

Virtual films like Henri are comparatively conventional uses of technology in Luckey’s grand scheme. And while most consumers don’t know what the Oculus Rift is, let alone plan to buy one when they release in the first quarter of next year, Luckey is sure virtual reality will be ubiquitous. over the next few years to a decade.

“The quality will increase. There will be more content and a larger range content ”, he assured. “What if I told you, ‘You can put on that pair of sunglasses and it’s a couple hundred bucks, but you can watch a VR recording of a sports match or hang out with friends in a virtual cafe in the world. whole ” ?’ I think VR is for you. It might not be fair to you now. “

Luckey foresees a future in which telecommunications will be via virtual reality: this long distance conference call, with friends in different area codes, games, dating and exploring – we will all want to socialize virtually. He has already brought in close friends to test a prototype version of Oculus Cinema, an app that will allow friends from different cities to watch movies together in a shared virtual space.

“If virtual reality continues to progress to a similar quality to the real world – and it’s going to happen in our lifetimes, and we’re going to get closer to it in another decade or so – then it will be the most human form of it. digital. communication never, ”he promised.

What most laymen know about VR comes from watching sci-fi movies that tend to end horribly for the Luckeys of the world, the pioneering visionaries pushing technology to its limits. But the movies have it all wrong, Luckey laughs. I churn out the titles of a few classics of virtual reality.

“eXistenZ is a weird film, ”he exclaimed. “Did you hear the twist? The theory is that in the end when they come out and it’s super corporate, they are still in the game. But take The matrix-[in the film] people connect to the matrix to connect with everyone.

“The point is, virtual reality doesn’t have to be isolating,” he continued. “Right now, people are isolated from other countries just by geography. But if you could easily mingle and communicate with people from all over the country and the world without ever having to get on a plane and burn gallons of kerosene to get there, that’s a net positive for humanity.

Virtual reality can help us get closer to making artificially intelligent movie characters and save money on office meetings, but it’s also harnessed for the ultimate coupling of human and digital interactivity: pornography. Virtual. Is XXX VR a useful step forward for the VR community?

“There is a list of things people want to experience: fantastic things and naked people. It will never change. We have pictures of naked people returning to cavemen, ”Luckey smirked, pausing. “But I can’t go in there.”

The intensely bubbly and intensely private virtual reality prodigy is concerned not to raise the curtain too much on his personal life. He will admit to having watched Game Of Thrones and technical dispatch Silicon Valley– “It is strangely correct,” he said of the latter. He was once approached to star on a reality TV show about tech billionaires: “They ran out of billionaires, got off the list and got to me,” he joked.

People often ask him what his hobbies are outside of VR, but he’s the kid who tinkered with lasers and Tesla coils at 11, spent years amassing perhaps the largest collection of head-mounted VR systems in the world, and raised over $ 2.4 million on Kickstarter from avid gaming fans he still engages with on Reddit before his 21 birthday.

“I love talking to people about virtual reality,” he said. “It was my hobby before, and it still is. I live in an apartment with six other people, all Oculus! But mostly I’m a private guy. I’m not trying to be the new Kardashians.