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Why 'teleportation' makes sense in virtual reality
Getting around in virtual reality is a bit tricky right now. Even in room-scale VR, players are restricted by the physical size of their play space. Trying to walk to a point on a digital horizon might cause you to crash into a very real wall -- which is why VR games like Robo Recall and Budget Cuts allows players to teleport through the experience, rather than walk. This works surprisingly well, but I could never put my finger on why it worked. At Oculus Connect 3 this week, VR filmmaker Eric Darnell gave me an answer: teleportation in VR works because I grew up watching television.
The director of 'Madagascar' takes on the Wild West of VR
As the writer/director of DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar, a blockbuster that spawned five sequels and one TV show, Eric Darnell could've easily hung up his hat and basked in his Hollywood legacy. But, instead, Darnell departed the studio he made famous last year to explore the "Wild West" of virtual reality with Baobab, an animation studio he co-founded alongside Maureen Fan, the former VP of games at Zynga. At this year's Tribeca Film Festival, the two debuted their first effort, Invasion!, a VR short featuring a lovable, alien-thwarting bunny rabbit and a prologue narrated by Ethan Hawke. "He's a big fan of VR, it turns out," says Darnell of Hawke's involvement.
