Last Dance
Last Dance, a full-fledged VR short animation that has been highly evaluated by many international film festivals and famous artists for its epic scale and unique VR presentation, is finally available worldwide!
Synopsis:
The human race has devoured itself in war, resulting in the destruction of our home, the Earth.
Only an AI created by human wisdom was able to survive.
The AI escaped into space and was given a single mission: the Regeneration of Mankind.
It kept recreating the Earth and humanity over and over, hundreds of times.
However, the cycle of human extinction did not stop – it only repeated itself every single time.
Just when it seemed history would only repeat forever, a woman danced alone right before the end of her life.
The AI, interested in this woman, could not help but to land on Earth to ask her the reason for her Last Dance.
The encounter between the AI and her would change the fate of the Earth.
Director’s Comment:
This story is a “myth” in the distant future, in which a god-like omnipotent AI falls in love with a human woman.
But what is so attractive about a human to an AI whose existence is beyond human knowledge?
Perhaps, for an AI that can live forever, the short life of a human is like a trotting horse lamp, with their inconvenient body bound by gravity.
Maybe under these limitations, their glittering dance may look peculiarly attractive.
I hope it can become the VR experience that allows us to rediscover the fleeting existence of human beings and the joy of love through the eyes of AI.
Toshiaki Hanzaki
Producer’s Comment:
This is my first time making a feature-length VR animation.
I worked together with Director Hanzaki to create the original story, with our staff gathering the creativity and techniques from all over the world.
Together, we have successfully created a wonderful work that made full use of the goodness of VR media.
I would like to thank everyone for their hard work.
For the time being, we will mainly be exhibiting the film at different festivals.
However, we are planning to broadcast it and release it through events next year.
Please look forward to it.
Kodansha VR Lab
Representative Director and President
Kenji Ishimaru
Read More: Best Cinematic VR Games.
The Great C
This short adventure cinematic is well-made, though it has some of that “indie” charm to remind that it has been made by a small team of enthusiasts, rather than a heavy-hitter like ILMxLab. Most of the characters' animations are motion-captured performances, though there are plenty of character movements that are stilted and robotic, which were obviously manually-animated. The characters are cartoony, but expressive. And don’t let the character designs fool you… this story is not for young children.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cinematic VR Games.
Not quite long enough to be called a movie and not quite short enough as the Google spotlight shorts. At 38 minutes long it’s almost as long as an episode of most series.
The story is good and the actors are quite believable. Graphically it looks a lot like Telltale (rip) games. Which kinda makes me sad that I’ll never see that studio dive into VR.
VR cinematic experiences are quite new and there is a lot of experimentation involved. Some of it really works, like the building case scene, where trying to follow both characters creates tension, or the final confrontation, where the scale of C really can be appreciated. Some of it doesn’t, like suddenly you feel like an ant watching giants and the next moment a giant watching ants. But that cam be expected in such a new medium.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Filmmaker Tycoon
Edit: The lead “developer” has stated in discord that the current bugs in Film Maker Tycoon are “unfixable”. It was also said a few months back, that the other member of the 2 man team has left the project and it was heavily hinted that the individual who parted, handled all the art assets.
Dead on Arrival. The developer stated (within 2 months of release) that updates with be coming to at a greatly slower pace (this is considered we have only seen 2 patches so far, each containing only one fix and with the bug the first patch addressed still remaining). Just weeks after that, the developer claimed that development has ceased all together.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cinematic Building Games.
As one who has The Movies and still plays it from time to time, I have to say that this game is a bit disappointing at present - it feels very disjointed and basic at present, certainly not worth the asking price as it stands …. it just does not feel that you are embarking on a journey, rather that you are just seeing what’s available and looking at the mechanics of the game, whereas it would be nice if you felt as if you were on a career. BUT I think it has potential and if the developers can push out updates and listen to criticisms/suggestions then I believe this will become something immersive - a trait lacking at the moment. I know it is Early Access and it only came out yesterday so because of this I will give it a thumbs up - if it were possible to give a neutral review I would, however to ‘down’ on it would be unfair - fingers crossed we get updates and features….. and a sense of cohesion!
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Kessler Effect
It’s a Sci-Fi TV show in VR. On sale it’s worth it. Not on sale, it’s ok. It has good visuals, but everything else is cheesy including the script, but you won’t care.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
TLDR; While the game has GREAT voice acting, and looks great, the nonsynched facial recognition they boost about, the rushed storyline, the somewhat weird writing, very short, a couple of nausea inducing parts (like really bad, and i have strong vrlegs) and pretty bad performance (50fps with a 1080) makes it hard to recommend.
This is a Mostly a Cinematic experience, with 3 endings, all branches and endings can be seen in ~30min. (you can choose a new branch after finishing the game so you dont need to go through everything again).
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Conscious Existence - A Journey Within
This is something that I honestly think everyone should see - pick a reason. But a few suggestions: 1. This thing is VERY system intensive. I have a 9900K system with 32gb RAM, a RTX2080Ti Founders ed., and m.2 nvme primary drives. I didn’t install this on a primary drive, I put it on a slower external as I do for new things. Well, the slow drive alone was enough to make this experience clip and stall on me, badly enough that I stopped it part of the way in as it ruins the experience utterly. (@dev, I sure hope there is some additional work that can be done on the buffering?) This means if you have an SSD, put it there or risk stutter and stalls, which ruin it frankly. 2. Put away the bitter sarcasms and stresses of the day before you experience this, and commit to just be open and present. The author is clearly trying to make a statement, but that statement may not be for everyone. Nor does it need to be. This is a beautiful experience in imagery, message, and sound (I am not sure what kind of headphones some reviewers are using, but my audio was extremely clear and full spectrum) I certainly would have a hard time thinking of a better way to practice being present, listening, and letting go of the cynical side for a few minutes than this. 3. I would suggest that you watch this while alone, and only so that you can react open and honestly to it and not react how others might expect of you. @Dev as others have suggested tweaks for replayability would be a nice add. I can think of several guided meditations that would fit beautifully and it should be relatively inexpensive to sound-engineer someone in to read. That is, If you are open to increasing your target objectives a bit (but I think, in doing so you would be promoting the spirit of the intent anyway)
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
I’m rather PISSED OFF I did not experience this on the index. The audio alone would of tested the index spatial performance to the max.
Imagine dying and coming back to life and then appreciating your room. YOUR ROOM! A feeling enhanced by Infinity! That feeling! The production crew managed to pull that out of me. I appreciated life, looking at the sky, the sun, the ground, the trees. Even an ANT I observed under a magnifying glass. It’s like all your senses melted into one neural pulse. This is how I felt after I came back from death. And after the high, I am now feeling normalized and I validated my existence now and for ever more.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
CINEVEO - VR Cinema
8/10
DK2 w/ runtime 0.7 , GTX 980 [Only have access to 4D Movie Theater 3.0 Beta]
PROS:
Theatre is well made (graphically pleasing) + ambient lighting that is linked to the image on screen is great
No Need to use keyboard and mouse everything can be navigated with gaze detection
Smooth Experience no judder at all
Subtitle Support
CONS:
0.7 runtime is very limited at the moment still waiting for update (cannot choose other theaters except main beta version)
There was one tvshow that started with low frame rate only on the screen not the theatre and took about 10 minutes to become smooth again
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game
I really do not understand the negative reviews around. If you don’t know how to instal a codec well…the problem is yours. There are also instrucions on the website and in the manual.
However, I reccommend new users to wait for an update before buying this software (read the whole review).
In my opinion, “CINEVEO - VR Cinema” offers the BEST VR CINEMA EXPERIENCE so far, and especially for the 3D movies. It features a fully functional multiplayer movie theater in virtual reality, and you can even choose your seat!
– Real player with 9.5 hrs in game
Systematic Insanity
This is not a game.
If you cannot speed read do NOT buy this!!!!
This is a basic “modern media” project that would be regularly seen in the late 1980’s to the early 2000’s as a “media arts” project requirement in North American universities.
That being said it is visually well done.
however:
a) all interaction is disabled entirely except during “dating game” style dialogues.
this is a major issue since the speed of the dialogues is far to high so even a person like me that can absorb the entire LOTR + The Hobbit in under 25 hours of reading still misses nearly 1/4 of the dialogue
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
She Sees Red - Interactive Movie
I liked Late Shift and I bought this game as it’s similar to that game, I finished my first play within 45 minutes and got a good ending don’t know if it’s best, this game has various choices to select like Late Shift but it’s shorter than Late Shift, when I started my play the game mentioned to play it twice to reveal more of the story.
As for the story it’s so fast players will be confused when they start the game as it progress they will get to know what is happening and what was this all about. There are around 15 achievements and I only managed to get 5 on my first time playing the game.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
“She Sees Red” is a short, well-produced interactive movie that can take radically different turns depending on your choices.
The story is standard thriller material with murders in a nightclub, drugs, two detectives on an investigation, and some allusions to organized crime. The narrative is interesting and mysterious, particularly because you play both the detective and the killer. While you take moment-to-moment decisions like “fight or flee”, the motives of these characters remain unknown at first. But as you replay the game and discover more endings, secrets about each main character are revealed, until you understand the full picture.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Virtual Home Theater Video Player
I can’t believe I haven’t written a review yet. As you see from my over 300 hours of usage that I use this exclusively. I purchased this when it was more expensive and never regretted it. I never got it for the audio aspect although it is impressive. I got it for the 3D movie playback. The MAIN thing that drove my interest is that I did not have to use my controllers at all. I could do everything I wanted with the mouse. Trust me this is way more relaxing. I have had many many email conversations with Aurel the developer about features and getting help. I don’t think it is possible to get someone nicer and more hard working. I have had a number of suggestions that without hesitation were implemented in updates. I know there are more things to come as well so if you are on the fence, get this and you won’t be sorry
– Real player with 334.5 hrs in game
The only app that can play non head locked surround sound video with hardware decoded video, i tested it against all other players (deovr, whirligig, big screen etc), only virtual desktop come close (with it’s virtual sound drivers enabled), but still not as good, lots of parameters in VHT that you can adjust to your own like.
Of course the complicated and let’s be honest, rather ugly, GUI is the draw back. I would love the 3D model cinema enviroment (best ones are those in virtual desktop workshop),
– Real player with 86.5 hrs in game
Puppet Play 🎬
You have the idea, we have everything else!
Puppet Play aims to make animating as easy as possible by utilizing the possibilities of VR headsets. In traditional animation tools, animating is done by manipulating gizmos on a 2D screen. In Puppet Play everything is animated by recording your movement in real-time. This not only makes animating easy but also super fast. No matter the prior experience, if you have a cool idea for a movie you can turn it into reality in a few minutes (depending on your idea it might take a bit longer)!
Grab an object → press record → move it around & repeat!
Additional tools like motion capture, remote control & auto walk support the process. Use your headset to record live audio and once everything is complete, export and share your creation in a standard video format (mp4).
A huge collection of different characters (not only puppets), props and environments are ready for you to use! All things animatable are separated into 3 categories:
Puppets: Characters with Full-Body-Inverse-Kinematic rigs for fast animations
Props: Large objects to build & decorate your set with.
Items: Small objects that can also be attached to the puppets, like weapon, hair & hats.
You are in your own movie studio with many different sets that can be further customized with props. They range from traditional puppet theatres to fully-fledged 3D scenes for your next epic cinematic trailer!
A puppet on a stick or a full 3D character with individually animatable limbs: Choose what fits your vision & time scope. Short on time but still want to tell a story? Choose puppets on a stick! Got a bit more time on your hand and want to go into detail? Then choose a fully animatable humanoid character!
It’s designed for VR, there is no place for 2D UIs! All interactions are physical and integrated into the movie/puppet studio world. Or to say it in cool UX design terms: It’s a fully diegetic UI!
Once your animation is complete, you can export and share it as a standard video file (mp4). You have all rights to upload and monetize anything you make with our tool!
Puppet Play is being developed by a team of freshly graduated students from Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Puppet Play started as a semester project in the study “Animation and Game” at the campus.