We’ve hosted a number of discussions on Cartoon Brew about how animating for virtual reality projects is different than animating for traditional linear viewing experiences — for example, here and here — but what we haven’t discussed is how virtual reality tools have the potential to actually change the traditional animation process.
The most exciting example of the forthcoming possibilities can be seen in PoseVR, a new in-house tool developed by Walt Disney Animation Studios that allows an animator to work with a posable rig in vr, which in some ways has parallels to how stop-motion animators manipulate objects in 3d space.
PoseVR was developed last year as part of a studio internship project and was subsequently used in the prouduction of the studio’s first vr project, Cycles. The video below, featuring Cycles tech lead Jose Gomez, and animators Wayne Unten and Alberto Abril, offers a good explanation of what PoseVR does: