Samsung Gear VR, A Moon For All Mankind by Framestore

This project has been selected in both the Craft & Technical Innovation and Interactive Film & Virtual, Augmented or Mixed Reality categories in The Annual 2019, CR’s award scheme celebrating the best in commercial creativity

Photograph by Stuart McKenna

A Moon For All Mankind lets users walk on the moon in VR while experiencing the feeling of being in zero gravity. Created to promote the Gear VR and Galaxy S9 handset, the experience uses a custom-built rig developed by Framestore in partnership with creative agency Iris, engineering company Mannetron, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center: users are strapped in to the rig while wearing a custom spacesuit, and the rig then calculates their weight and offsets it to create a feeling of weightlessness.

Once strapped in, users embark on a virtual lunar mission, planting a custom flag on the moon’s surface and peering into a crater before rushing to their vehicle to avoid a meteor shower. Alongside building the rig, Framestore worked with Iris to create the accompanying VR experience, drawing on NASA imagery to create lunar landscapes and vehicles using CGI.

Photograph by Stuart McKenna

The experience is optimised to work on mobile devices and unfolds in real time, using gaming techniques to guide users through a series of brief tasks.

The project was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and has since travelled to Samsung’s flagship store in New York. It’s an ambitious installation that combines complex engineering with engaging VR content.

Credits:
Agencies: Iris & Framestore. Client Governance: Jeremy Cochran. Creative Director: Grant Hunter. Project Governance: Jordan Harper. Project Lead: Stuart McKenna. Creative Leads: Rob Leeks, Joel Lim. Account Lead: Fraser Thomson. Event Production Lead: Chloe Aldridge. Integrated Production Lead: Alexis Garcia. Agency: Cheil. Project Governance: Justine (Eun-Sook) Koh. Design Studio: Mannetron. Lead Hardware Engineer: Peter Jungen. Lead Software & Project Manager: Jason Fox. Sound Design: GCVRS. Technical Lead Sound Engineer: Steve Lane. Audio Developer: Mirren Malcolm-Neale. Post-Production: Framestore. Executive Producer: Heather Kinal. Lead Developer Hardware Integration: Jonathan Forder. Lead Developer Content: Alex Perry. VR Producer: Taylor Kennard. Lead Tech Artist: Makoto Tanaka. Lead CG Artist: Taekyu Yang. Lead Production Technology: Richard Fish. Developer: Thor Bunting. Tech Artist: William Arterton.

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