Smaug from 'The Hobbit' Is a VR Nightmare

Tolkien fans already watched the dragon Smaug wreak havoc in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy on both the big screen and Blu-ray. But the digital creation from Jackson’s Weta Digital special effects studio, which features the voice and performance capture of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, has never been scarier than he is in virtual reality.

At the annual Game Developers Conference this week in San Francisco, Weta and Epic Games unleashed the first VR experience recreated from the fantasy universe. The real-time sequence, which blends the original digital assets from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Epic’s own Unreal Engine 4, uses the latest version of the Oculus Rift headset to drop viewers into the quaking boots of Bilbo Baggins as he confronts the giant lizard.

And it’s terrifying.

The “Thief in the Shadows” demo sets you in a cavernous hall filled with, as Tolkien wrote, “countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.” At first, the room is dark and quiet. The latest Oculus Rift tech, dubbed ‘Crescent By’, allows you to take small steps across padded flooring in different directions to get the full sense of size and scale of the virtual space. A god-like ray of light beams down from above, casting shadows and adding depth to the impressive room

But then the floor begins to move, as the red and gold-scaled monster slithers beneath the treasures he’s been hoarding for years.

It’s at this point that you’re thankful for the shadows, because Smaug abruptly pops out of his stockpiled gold and into the room. While he can’t see you yet, his mammoth frame forces you to crane your neck in an effort to take it all in. He knows you’re in the room, and he’s toying with you as he searches the shadows.

Suddenly, Smaug brings his huge head down to your level and opens one large eye to look directly at you. It’s imposing, to say the least. If you have the courage, you can reach out and try to poke it, but more likely you’ll cower in the corner. This is the big screen dragon, come alive, and it’s just you and him in this room with nowhere to go.

Perhaps the scariest bit is saved for the end, when Smaug aims a wave of fire at you that literally engulfs the entire room. Those who have read the book or watched the films know that Bilbo survives and Smaug is eventually slayed, but for this experience, you’re left with the distinctly unpleasant feeling of being burned alive.

And you can’t wait to try it again.

Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, is a believer in VR, and thinks Unreal Engine 4, which is now free for anyone to use, could help make it happen.

“Computers are finally capable of such realistic graphics that the production pipelines for game development, for Hollywood, for architectural visualization and all of these industries are coming together, with its common vocabulary being photo-real art and assets,” Sweeney said. “It’s awesome that we’re finally able to tear down those barriers so that somebody building movies of the future could create a consistent set of assets that could also be used to develop games simultaneously.”

While there’s plenty of smoke in the Smaug demo (courtesy the dragon), there are no mirrors. The entire VR experience was built in real-time and runs at 90 frames per second, which is what allows you to look around Smaug’s lair as you wish.

“Thief in the Shadows” is one of the more impressive Hollywood VR experiences, which also includes the Unreal Engine 4-developed “Pacific Rim: Jaeger Pilot” that debuted at San Diego Comic Con last summer. With more Hollywood studios embracing VR and a parade of companies working on VR hardware, the future looks brighter than Smaug’s flames.

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