Major animation figures continue to dip their toes into the emerging virtual reality animation field. This week a new company announced its launch — Baobab Studios — headlined by CG veteran Eric Darnell, co-director of the Madagascar film franchise and Antz, and Maureen Fan, who served as v-p of games at Farmville maker Zynga. Darnell will serve as chief creative officer; Fan is CEO.
Baobab boasts an impressive board of advisors that includes Disney animation legend Glen Keane, Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith, PDI co-founder Glenn Entis, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, and DreamWorks Animation co-president Mireille Soria. The company’s chief scientist, Michael Hutchinson, is another DreamWorks veteran. Most recently he was the technical lead for all character technology at DreamWorks where he designed and built the studio’s character rigging Apollo/Premo platform.
Below is the trailer for Baobab’s first project, Invasion!, which will be available on Samsung’s Milk VR service in early-2016. You can also play around with the interactive trailer here.