Micro Monsters with David Attenborough

Alchemy Immersive partnered with Oculus to reveal the hidden lives of bugs in a way never experienced before in virtual reality. Find yourself shrunk down to the size of an insect to be thrown into their thrilling but dangerous world.

Over five episodes, experience the conflicts, courtships, and communities of this micro world. Witness a scorpion and a centipede fight to the death; experience the process of an aphid miraculously cloning itself; and an army of green ants building incredible structures. Narrowly avoid the deadly ambush of a Trapdoor spider and become transfixed by the Portia spider’s deadly musical lullaby. Combining spectacular live-action close-ups with the power of computer graphics, watch a caterpillar’s transformation from inside its cocoon and discover a beetle’s secret chemical weapon.

All episodes are now available on Oculus TV in Oculus Quest headsets.

Produced for the launch of the Quest 2, Micro Monsters brought Oculus users an experience of unparalleled quality. This live-action VR experience can be seen in 8K 3D 60fps, revealing the real-life superpowers of arthropods from a completely unique perspective.

Alchemy Immersive worked with Atlantic Productions and Zoo VFX to create this continuation of David Attenborough’s Mighty Micro Monsters. Produced using a combination of specially developed 3D stereoscopic camera rigs, 180° live-action capture, and newly developed VFX compositing techniques, Micro Monsters showcases the best in immersive media production pipelines. Every detail is revealed, for example, the beat of a butterfly wing, through the incredibly high frame rate (60fps) elevated with spatial sound design by 1.618 Digital. This state-of-the-art storytelling is delivered to users thanks to high resolution streaming and caching support on Oculus TV, allowing users to enjoy the incredible stories of Micro Monsters at 8K resolution on the latest Quest headsets. Read Director Elliot Graves and Oculus Immersive Media Lead Eric Cheng discuss how the project production was optimised for VR on the Oculus Blog.

One of the biggest challenges of Micro Monsters was translating the incredible 3D 8K content from flat screen into VR 180 content. This involved a lot of imaginative work extending the set around the arthropods while preserving the 3D. To learn more about how the team worked with Nuke to turn high-quality flat footage into astounding 3D VR, read The Foundry’s interview with director Elliot Graves and VFX producer David Barker.

Join David Attenborough to discover the unbelievable world of the arthropods in Micro Monsters, exclusively available on Oculus TV. These real-life superpowers need to be seen to be believed.