ILMxLab, EA have been teaming up on VR projects
With more and more virtual reality content on the horizon, ILMxLab is working on being at the forefront of VR storytelling.
Part of this push is a coupling with EA on the Star Wars Battlefront Rogue One: X-Wing VR Mission for PlayStation VR. Lucasfilm’s chief technology officer, Rob Bredow, talked about the relationship in an interview with Digital Trends.
“We share assets back and forth,” he said. “You’ll notice the materials are happening on the same kind of turntables that Industrial Light & Magic does their turntables on, and that’s not by accident. It was because of a very close collaboration and a real mutual interest. We love the work they’re doing.”
No release date outside of the upcoming holiday season is set for the PlayStation VR-exclusive mission. However, Battlefront’s former lead designer, Dennis Brannvall, hinted that it will likely release alongside the game’s Rogue One: Scarif expansion. That DLC is slated for December.
In the Digital Trends interview, Bredow also touched on other projects ILMxLab is working on outside of EA/DICE’s Battlefront game.
First, the Lucasfilm group crafted short experience called Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine. That project released in July on Steam for users with an HTC Vive VR headset. Bredow called the project a “bite-sized experiment ” meant to be “three to five minutes.”
Next is a longer VR experience focused on Darth Vader that was teased at Star Wars Celebration in July.
“We’re doing a VR experience that’s going to feature Vader, and that’s not just a little bite-sized experience,” Bredow said. “It’s designed to be very much more involved. And the ergonomics are getting better as time goes on, and we’re looking at an audience that’s getting more acclimated to experiencing things in VR. We’ll see as the year plays out how people adapt to those longer experiences, and how people enjoy those longer experiences, but we’re pretty optimistic.”
The article also notes that main challenge now facing ILMxLab is getting “Vader’s pronounced breathing into the 360-degree sound environments” that is a primary feature of VR experiences.
I certainly recommend reading the whole article. It touches on how Rogue One director Gareth Edwards used VR in the production for the movie and the xDeck (a project that creates “immersive environments by projecting 3D pixels on multiple walls”).
You can watch the short teaser for the Darth Vader project below:
(H/T TechnoAisle)
