By Chris Morris, Reuters
LOS ANGELES – Bilbo Baggins is going on another journey — this time to the virtual world.
The hero of Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” trilogy will face off against the dragon Smaug one more time in “Thief in the Shadows,” a virtual reality experience created by Weta Digital.
The visual effects studio used Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 to develop the VR spinoff, using assets from “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”
Using the Oculus Rift headset, viewers wade through a vast collection of gold coins and are confronted by Smaug, who guards the loot. Benedict Cumberbatch voices the dragon as he did in the films.
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