Oculus’s New 'Infinite Canvas' Will Make You Question Your Place in the Universe

In this sweeping, slightly-vertiginous tour of miniature worlds, an artist who's worked on Dreamworks films shows us what playing God in virtual reality can do.

Goro Fujita, who's credited as an artist on such films as Megamind and Penguins of Madagascar, is now an art director at Oculus Story Studio, the VR company's virtual filmmaking arm. He recently used Oculus's new VR illustration program Quill to create "Worlds in Worlds," a still VR scene set in an original trippy, fun, surreal cartoon universe. A video shows the full range of detail packed into the 3D scene.

Quill's "infinitely scalable canvas" lets virtual reality artists create worlds like this one from mid-air. The program costs $29.99 and requires Oculus Touch controllers to use. You can purchase it here.

Fujita's planet creation looks tiny at first, but a closer zoom reveals it's stacked full of more, increasingly intricate landscapes, like snowglobes within snowglobes. "What if there was a world within a world within a world within a world…." he writes on his blog. "By zooming in and out of the worlds I created, I blew my own mind. I could not comprehend how this was possible."

Watch his Quill creation and try not to wonder if we're all just living in the palm of a giant alien's hand. Fujita says its best experienced in VR, so for those with their own Oculus Rift headsets at home, fire it up and have a look. What an adorable mindfuck this is.

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