'Zero Point' director explains filmmaking with Oculus Rift

Condition One is using Oculus Rift to take films to new, exciting places and director Danfung Dennis explains some of the technology used to make VR films possible.

Ozzie Mejia

March 31, 2014 3:30 PM

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Condition One is already showing what they can do with the Oculus Rift, having previously released an interactive trailer for their 3D 360-degree film, Zero Point. At this year's Game Developers Conference, director and studio founder Danfung Dennis went into more detail about the technology used for his film.

"This is custom-built for virtual reality," Dennis explains to GamerHub TV, referring to his capture system. "This is an entirely new medium and a new way of telling stories, flims, and movies. We capture at the highest resolution, highest framerate possible. You need at least a minimum of 60 frames per second to have a comfortable experience in VR."

Dennis goes on to explain the shooting process, revealing that his capture kit can utilize wide-angle lenses and capture data at 1GB/s. The data is then exported for editing and custom stitching work to acclimate it for VR. Dennis then describes the video engine, which uses several aspects of game engines (like hardware-accelerated images) to create a full 360-degree world from inside the confines of a movie.

"It's really hard to describe without actually trying it in an Oculus Rift," Dennis added, "but the experience gives you a sense of scale, size, and presence. You feel like you're inside the movie. You're no longer looking at a flat screen. You can actually become a participant. You can step inside a movie and feel like you're there."

For more about Condition One, including the audio process and the studio's approach towards creating this new form of filmmaking from the ground up, check out the video below.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?