Celebrated Disney animator Glen Keane has an incredible resume: "The Little Mermaid," "Pocahontas," and "Aladdin" are a tiny smattering of the dozens of films he's worked on in the past 40 years.
Yet, despite that acclaimed history of famous works, Keane is frustrated with traditional animation.
"When I animate, there's a frustration that I have wishing that the flatness of the paper would go away and I could actually dive in."
It's easy to see why: Literally flipping back and forth between your current drawing and the next is laborious and frustrating. If Keane could just step into his animated worlds and animate them from within, his life would be so much easier. And that's why he's so excited about virtual reality.
In a video posted to Vimeo by the Future of Storytelling conference, Keane uses HTC and Valve's virtual reality headset with the drawing program "TiltBrush" to create one of his most iconic characters in three dimensions.
Not bad, right? And it must be pretty incredible to go from pencil and paper to motion controller and VR headset.
Keane's quite impressed.
"I would draw not to do a drawing, but so that I could step in and live in that world. Today, all the rules have changed," Keane says. "I can put goggles on and I just step into the paper and now I'm drawing in it. North, South, East, West — all directions are open now."
Here's the full video of Keane in action, from pencil and paper to the virtual reality of "TiltBrush," all in under 10 minutes:
