Category: Asteroids!

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Viveport’s Sundance Hub ‘VR on the Mountain’ to Feature World Premiere of My Brother’s Keeper by PBS Digital

The annual Sundance Film Festival opens in a few days and over the past few weeks VRFocus has reported on several virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree experiences debuting at the event. For those in attendance there’s going to be plenty of immersive content to explore, HTC Vive and Viveport are taking a lineup of apps as part of VR hub VR on the Mountain, which will be premiering PBS Digital’s My Brother’s Keeper.

A story-driven VR reenactment of the Battle of Antietam, My Brother’s Keeper is a companion piece to PBS’ Civil War series Mercy Street, set to debut a second series later this month. To create the experience PBS Digital partnered with StoryTech Immersive, Perception Squared and the Technicolor Experience Center, using a new action camera rig built by the filmmakers.  My Brother’s Keeper is written and directed by Connor Hair and Alex Meader.

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One app being showcased at the hub will be Mindshow, an app enables users to improvise short animated vignettes in VR and share them with friends. “Mindshow lets you make VR cartoons with your body and voice,” describes the developer. Featuring a variety of playsets – from a distant planet to a comedy club stage – people can act out scenes using their bodies, then share content either as a VR scene visible through HTC Vive, or exported as 2D videos for online social channels.

In December VRFocus reported on the announcement that Baobab Studios’ sequel to popular VR animation INVASION!, ASTEROIDS! would be debuting at the festival. In fact ASTEROIDS! will be showcased at VR on the Mountain this Saturday 21st January, continuing the adventures of bumbling duo Mac and Cheez and their robot-dog, Peas.

Other titles exhibiting include: Deluxe VR and TIME-LIFE VR’s Remembering Pearl Harbor, The Price of Freedom from Construct Studios, Google Tilt Brush and Pearl from Google Spotlight Stories.

For any further news from the Sundance Film Festival, keep reading VRFocus.

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Baobab’s ‘Invasion’ Has Reportedly Been Downloaded ‘Well Over 1 Million’ Times

Baobab’s ‘Invasion’ Has Reportedly Been Downloaded ‘Well Over 1 Million’ Times

Baobab’s adorable virtual reality animated short Invasion has reportedly been downloaded over 1 million times according to co-founder Maureen Fan. Fan was most recently the vice president of games at Zynga before starting Baobab with Madagascar and Antz director Eric Darnell. UploadVR had the chance to speak with Fan on the show floor of CES 2017 where she hinted at the success of Baobab’s first production, Invasion.

According to Fan, “I contractually can’t speak to exact download numbers. That’s part of our deal with Oculus,” but when UploadVR asked if she could tell us if the number is above or below 1 million Fan did admit that Invasion’s download numbers are “well over 1 million.”

Invasion is available for free on just about every VR platform available to date including Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, Google DayDream, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive. This type of cross-platform distribution would hopefully lead to the type of numbers Fan is describing and points to a reassuringly healthy VR ecosystem. To put it simply: if a free app featuring a cute little bunny isn’t able to reach millions of downloads, then the immersive industry would be in a lot of trouble.

Invasion is an engaging, albeit brief story that follows you, a rabbit and two wayfaring aliens named Mac and Cheese. The aliens arrival on earth is is interrupted by you and your fuzzy companion and the would be invaders are sent packing. The experience also features the narration of Ethan Hawke.

Babobab’s next film, which will was being previewed at CES is titled “Asteroids” and will follow the continuing exploits of Mac and Cheese as they make their way across the galaxy. This next installment will feature the voice talents of Elizabeth Banks and will premiere in just a few weeks at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

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Baobab Studios Reveal Elizabeth Banks as Voice of ‘Cheez’ in ASTEROIDS!

Whether its animated movies, videogames or cartoons, famous actors have been lending their vocal talents to these mediums for many years now. With the advent of virtual reality (VR) comes a new entertainment form that requires skilled voice acting and notable names are already jumping on board. Battlestar Galatica’s Katee Sackhoff voices the lead character in CCP Games’ EVE: Valkyrie, and Ethan Hawke narrates Baobab Studios award winning short INVASION!. And its for the latter’s sequel ASTEROIDS! that Baobab Studios has secured the talent of Emmy-nominated actor and director Elizabeth Banks (30 Rock, The Hunger Games, Wet Hot American Summer).

Banks lends her charm and wit to Cheez, one of the bumbling aliens, but kind-hearted aliens seen in INVASION!. ASTEROIDS! will make its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and has been chosen as an official selection. In the animated film viewers take on the role of a helper-bot alongside a pair of quirky aliens, Mac and Cheez. Joined by their other robot sidekick, Peas, viewers wait for a chance to prove their worth on a dangerous mission in deep outer space. The chance finally comes when the spaceship is endangered by teeth-gnashing space-bugs and careening asteroids.  With the others up to their alien eyeballs in trouble, it’s their job to save the day!

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       “Elizabeth’s voice brings the heart-warming and blissfully innocent character of Cheez fully alive in ASTEROIDS! as viewers don a VR headset and become part of the completely engrossing animated story,” explains Maureen Fan, CEO and co-founder, Baobab Studios. “This story employs a secret, decodable and very fun alien language that she has fully and enthusiastically embraced in the voice of Cheez.”

And for fans of INVASION! who are keen to see ASTEROIDS!, Baobab Studios has released ASTEROIDS! Holiday Sneak Peek today for Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream via their respective stores. A standalone app experience for ASTEROIDS! will also be available soon for PlayStation VR.

For the latest news on ASTEROIDS! and Baobab Studios, keep reading VRFocus.

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Invasion! Sequel Asteroids! to Debut at Sundance Film Festival

Earlier today VRFocus reported on The Sundance Film Festival revealing that Rez Infinite and Enhance Games’ Synethesia Suit would be on demonstration at next years event. But the Sundance Institute has got more planned with the announcement that Invasion! sequel Asteroids! will make its debut there.

Asteroids! continues on from Baobab Studios the successful Invasion!, its global award-winning short VR animation that introduced audiences to the bumbling aliens Mac and Cheez.

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Written and directed by Eric Darnell, Baobab Studios Chief Creative Officer, who worked on the Antz and the Madagascar movies, Asteroids! has been chosen as a coveted “official selection” by Sundance Film Festival programmers.

“Asteroids! Is an important next step for Baobab Studios in showing what we can do in VR and how it is the ultimate medium for emotionally invested, compassionate and riveting storytelling.  We’re so excited to reveal the full episode in Park City where festival audiences will experience firsthand the incredible journey virtual reality takes you on. There’s really nothing else like it,”  explains Maureen Fan, CEO and co-founder of Baobab Studios.

Asteroids! picks up in deep space where Mac and Cheez and their robot-dog, Peas, are joined by the viewer playing an essential role as a robot sidekick onboard their ship. With the others up to their eyeballs in trouble, it’s up to viewers to save them.

The Sundance Film Festival runs from 19th – 29th January 2017 with screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, Utah.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Asteroids!, reporting back with any further announcements.

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VR Animation Startup Baobab Adds $25 Million

VR Animation Startup Baobab Adds $25 Million

Redwood City-based Baobab Studios closed a $25 million Series B round of funding, bringing the total raised to date by the startup to $31 million and placing the studio among the most highly-funded content startups to emerge with a focus on VR animation.

The startup made Invasion!, a short story about a cute bunny attacked by hapless aliens. The property is already becoming a full-length traditional film to be produced by Roth Kirschenbaum Films. Baobab also announced a second episode in the series called Asteroids!, due out next year.

The funding round is being led by Horizons Ventures with 20th Century Fox, Evolution Media Partners (backed by TPG and CAA), China’s Shanghai Media Group, Youku Global Media Fund and LDV Partners. They join the original investors, Comcast Ventures, HTC and Samsung.

The money will be used to develop more animated movies and add to the 20 people currently working at the company. Baobab was founded by Eric Darnell, Chief Creative Officer, and Maureen Fan, CEO, in 2015. Fan previously worked at Zynga as a vice president while Darnell worked on the Madagascar films. Now the company is adding a chief technology officer, Larry Cutler, who was a technical director at Pixar on Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc. The company also added Chris Milk, the CEO of Within, to its advisory board.

“We make sure that our content is platform agnostic, so it is available for every single platform,” Fan said in an interview with Upload. “We believe there needs to be more content and more reasons to repeatedly pick up the headset.”

Invasion! is available now, and if you haven’t seen it yet it’s definitely worth a watch. Fan said they are also developing tools and technology to produce their animated films, but right now they are just using those tools to assist their own story creation rather than sharing that externally.

“We do absolutely have secret sauce technology we’re developing,” Fan said.

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‘Invasion!’ Studio Baobab Returns With Second Episode, ‘Asteroids!’

‘Invasion!’ Studio Baobab Returns With Second Episode, ‘Asteroids!’

It’s a busy time for Baobab Studios. After release on other platforms, the team is preparing to launch its cutesy debut VR short film, Invasion!, on PlayStation VR, and help with a big screen adaptation of it. But that’s not it has up its sleeves.

Baobab revealed its next film, Asteroids!, at the Oculus Connect 3 developer conference in San Jose this week. The piece is the second episode in a series that started with Invasion!, though it leaves Earth behind. This time viewers will follow the two clumsy aliens that we met in the last episode, Mac and Cheez, as they undertake a dangerous mission. These two were villains in the first episode; could they now become heroes?

Asteroids! boasts the same animation seen Baobab’s first work, which itself is reminiscent of the short films being created at Oculus Story Studio like Henry. It’s a piece for all ages.

The first clip of the film is above. It features Mac playing with his lovable robot sidekick, Peas. While not in VR itself, the sneak peek does give you a good idea of how the piece will utilize the platform. If you do want to watch the preview with a headset, it’s available now on Gear VR for free

Asteroids! launches next year for free. Its running time is three minutes and it arrives on Gear VR. Other platforms haven’t been confirmed but Invasion! moved from Gear to Rift and beyond and we’d expect this to do the same.

Elsewhere, Baobab is working on completely new projects. “In addition to Episode 2, we’re also working on completely other, different IP…that has nothing to do with aliens and bunnies at all,” Maureen Fan, Baobab’s CEO and co-founder, told us back in August. “I can’t say what we’re doing in the future, but you will see soon.”