Making movies for virtual reality is unlike any previous kind of filmmaking. You can’t “frame” a 360-degree shot. There are no cuts. And, weirdly enough, the characters can know you’re there. It lets filmmakers surround you with their world, but it also means they have to factor in a lot more to make sure they don’t just immerse you in an uncanny valley. We asked Oculus Story Studio’s creative director Saschka Unseld and character lead Bernhard Haux to explain that process for Henry, their bittersweet animated short about a balloon-loving hedgehog.

Make Eye Contact

Because viewers are in Henry�s space, he does something almost no other protagonist has done before: look them in the eye. “The moment Henry looks at you, you have a direct connection,” Haux says.

Show the Viewer Around

The freedom of VR can be daunting, so Story Studio added a ladybug that enters the scene and draws viewers� eyes to the different places they can look at and explore—like the underside of a table.

Pay Attention to Scale

Object sizes aren�t always in real-world ratios: Henry is bigger than an average hedgehog, and the strawberry on his table is the right size in relation to him but not to the audience. This helps us feel comfortable in his world. “Certain scale decisions were based on what feels right,” Unseld says, “rather than what would be mathematically correct.”

Get It Real but Not Too Real

Henry�s spikes are key to his backstory: They explain why he can�t get the hugs he wants. Animators used a blend of shaping and shading to make them look soft and translucent yet still sharp enough to preclude intimacy.

Don't Overload Your Rendering Machines

Oculus headsets show images at 90 frames per second, which is a huge computational burden. To reduce the load in a CG production, mathematical bounding boxes are calculated around objects; if the viewer isn�t looking at something in a particular box, it simply doesn�t render.

Focus on Movement That Matters

Henry�s movements are computed in real time to adjust to the viewer�s perspective. But others, like a falling “Happy Birthday” banner, are fixed and always run the same.