MAF 2018: Virtual Reality

This was a wonderful edition to the Manchester Animation Festival with a setup of four VR Headsets for us to see each of the films by the proper “in the world” style of the films. And they also had a great range of VR Films to experience and see which was great.

 

• .This film is very smooth and flowing through the time of a story of a whole life of this family
• The scene uses great colour as time passes in the day, the bright tones of morning and the orange tones of sunset
• It is a sweet short story as you see the couple have a baby and it grows older until they get old and pass on

 

• .This film became very popular when it was released on Google Doodles and they were Celebrating Georges Méliès. It follows many of the big tricks and acts of Méliès’s work in this adorable digital cartoon style
• The animation is very smooth as a whole 360° environment, each part working well together in this digital animation style
• It is also a very sophisticated virtual reality film as it waits until you are looking at the action before it plays out so you don’t miss anything important to the story of the film which is really nice

 

• Has a great comedic loop story produced in an equally comedic 2D digital cartoon style of animation
• You feel like you are right in the middle of this buzz of party life as you turn around and each element it alive with action
• The animation itself is a great repeating loop of action so you can keep turning and see all the little bits of it as it repeats

 

• The quality of this CG film is breathtaking as each part is textured and rendered really well
• Very creepy film as you follow this old man and his nightmares that follow him around his home
• However the film itself is quite jarring to watch in VR as I believe it is more a film turned into VR rather than made originally in VR as the scene moves following the character rather than standing still with you, so of course when you turn in the VR it can be double movement and therefore a little motion sickness feeling

 

• This was the only VR created with Stop Motion Animation as we see this handmade world and puppets come to life in it
• It is not as sophisticated as some of the digital environments but it works incredibly well in this VR world and you can’t help but smile at the handmade elements that build on the quality of the animation
• The sound throughout was perfect, you really feel like you are in this little forest with these animals when you watch it

 

These Films at the Manchester Animation Festival 2018 were a really great look into the World of Virtual Reality and using VR headsets to present these films. Come back next week to read up on some more short films with the ‘Short Films 1’ showing animated shorts from around the World.

 

– Photographs in Feature Image © Manchester Animation Festival