You’ve just been nominated for a Viveport Developer Award - how do you feel?

We are thrilled that Pearl is touching people's hearts in VR and can't be more proud of our creative and technical teams.

Where did the idea for Pearl come from?

It is a story inspired by Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.   A story about the gifts we hand down and their power to carry love.

How big was your team and how long did it take to develop Pearl?

25-35 artists and engineers for about 10 months.

Tell us something about Pearl that we wouldn’t know from just experiencing it on Viveport?

If you sit in the back seat, you get a fundamentally different experience.  

The song was recorded in a traditional studio and on location, using a mixture of modern and vintage equipment as well as a tetrahedral microphone which captures sound in three dimensions.

During the development process, did anything surprise you along the way you didn’t expect? 

Edits and cuts in a VR narrative is challenging.  Testing was done to help us understand how individuals view these shorts and what kinds of adjustments we would need to make in order to help people adjust to the changing environments.

What do you hope people take away from Pearl?

Narrative experiences in short form & long form have a future in VR.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other developers?

Keeping the focus on story and a strong idea helped us keep perspective on the choices we made throughout the project.

Experience Pearl for yourself, by downloading it from Viveport