Meta Horizon Worlds Spotlight: Eemit

Welcome back to our weekly spotlight on the people building for Meta Horizon Worlds and their amazing creations.

Last week, we dipped into Worlds’ history and checked out omniparker’s Foundations of Horizon Gallery, a place to honor the creative pioneers who got this amazing platform off the ground by building some of the very first worlds.

This week, we spent some time with Eemit, the creator of numerous worlds including Hanami, a place where you can “travel” to Japan for traditional cherry blossom viewing—and where you might even be able to ride a dragon!

I first discovered VR when I was studying medical illustration in graduate school. A fellow student had created experiences that let you see through the eyes of patients with Alzheimer’s or who suffer from macular degeneration. I was blown away by how VR let you see and experience things you couldn’t normally and that were even beyond the limits of physical reality.

Many different things, starting with my memories of living in Japan, Japanese dragon mythology, and Japanese traditional artistry like kabuki. I’ve also been inspired by movies, art museums, and immersive, themed environmental storytelling design by Meow Wolf, teamLab, and others. And I draw on emotions I want the viewer to feel, as well as the creations of other VR artists in Worlds.

I want to give people an experience they couldn’t physically have. I want to help them develop a cultural understanding of Japan, while having fun and being inspired to create and learn more.

With Hanami, I want people to know what cherry blossom viewing in Japan is like and enjoy that cultural experience with a side of magic (you might get to ride a dragon).

And with The Dragon King’s Underwater Palace, I wanted to teach people about the mythology of Japanese dragons by putting on a kabuki play that explains the legend of Urashima Taro and helps explain what the Dragon King’s underwater palace is. It’s an intro world to an RPG game I’m planning to create where you’ll visit the palace as an honored guest or as a thief.

I’m looking for collaborators, so please reach out if you’re interested in helping!

I’m a medical illustrator and medical and neurosurgical video editor and multimedia specialist at a hospital. That’s a creative job, but it’s a highly-constrained and technical space that demands accuracy and realism. So I enjoy working in Worlds because it allows me to be as creative as I want and work with mythology, magic, fantasy, theater, and emotions.

I also like it because I get to learn about and work with new technology and learn new skills like coding and scripting, environmental design, and experience design.

I see this as a way to gain technical skills and knowledge in VR that I can utilize in my day job. It’s also a terrific creative outlet.

I collaborate informally but I am looking for creators to work with more formally. For my kabuki play, I collaborated with two professional voice actors and it was amazing to hear them bring my script to life.

I also write scripts and stories with a half-Japanese writer. And I’ve worked with a talented programmer who’s been my informal mentor on scripting. And the Worlds creators program has helped me immensely by connecting me with scripting and art mentors that have shared their experience.

Start by going through the in-world tutorial to gain familiarity with the tools. Then join a community-led event to meet other creators and go on a world hop to see what’s possible. There are other things too: take a vidyuu tutorial, go to a scripting lesson, and try building something you know well, like a room where you live or something you think is cool.

Once you have a project in mind, start planning it outside of VR and create sketches and reference images. By completing a small project, you’ll learn a lot about what is and isn’t possible in Worlds.

Finally, reading about game design is very helpful.

A free multiplayer virtual experience that allows user generated content is a powerful thing. I think Worlds will make it possible for people to build remote friendships and for people to feel closer to others that they can’t be with physically.

Ultimately, the fact that creators and creator-adjacent professionals can make a living from the hard work they put into building worlds—and even more importantly, building communities—will empower many people.

I think it will be part of a digital ecosystem that allows people to do things that are physically difficult, inconvenient, or impossible. This will expand accessibility for many people and help them cut down on commute times to places like the gym.

Eventually, I expect to see things like technical physical training coaching in fields like spine surgery so that, for example, surgical residents and surgical attending physicians can practice low frequency, high stakes operations before doing them on actual patients.

I Expect You To Die, Cookie Gardening Demo, Walkabout Mini Golf, Maestro: The Masterclass, Supernatural for exercising, and Gravity Sketch.