Silicon Valley: Inside the Hacker Hostel is a captivating real-time VR experience inspired by the Emmy®-winning comedy series, Silicon Valley. The ambition was to produce a faithful recreation of the show’s iconic homebase and an interactive experience that would appeal to both die-hard fans and those who’d never watched Silicon Valley. Modelled, textured, and lit from photo references, blueprints, and 360º room captures, the experience provides the most highly detailed and realistic VR recreation of a TV set ever made. In addition to more than 750 moveable objects, there are many iconic show elements you can fully interact with, from the Not Hot Dog app to the ‘Always Blue’ ball. The Hacker Hostel gives users firsthand one-on-one encounters with show characters—find a secret message from Jared and help Richard out of a coding crisis. The experience is a hilarious virtual playground, bringing users into the heart of Silicon Valley.

Implementation

Authenticity and attention to detail was key. All elements were bespoke, created from the ground up to ensure consistency with the show’s aesthetic and branding.

Placement

The free experience launched with the premiere of Season 5 of Silicon Valley on HTC’s Vive via the Viveport platform.

Scale

The experience is currently only available in America, but further territories are being considered. The experience has toured to international events.

Brand relevance

Silicon Valley lampoons startups and tech, and therefore using VR, an emerging technology, to extend show/brand engagement was entirely fitting.

Touch points

A supporting webpage was created on SiliconValleyVR.com and news of the release was pushed out via the show’s social media channels and in relevant media.

Materials, style elements, design choices

A fully explorable virtual 1:1 representation of the Hacker Hostel was created in Unreal Engine. Simplified controls make it easy for users of all experience levels to explore the Hacker Hostel.

Methods and process

Unreal’s built-in systems, married with the studio’s own in-house VR template - specifically designed for convincing physics-based interactions - ensured a faithful replica was created.

Highly detailed blueprint designs were used to model all of the Hacker Hostel’s floors, walls, and ceilings in 3DS Max and Maya, ensuring a perfect replica. From the set, thousands of photo references were captured, including 360º captures of each room, so every last detail—even the lighting—was exactly matched.

There is original scripted content from the show’s principal talent, created in collaboration with the show’s writers within the experience.

Special attention was paid to ensure textures for the likes of books, bottles, cans and all other interactive objects were bespoke and consistent with the show’s aesthetic and branding.

Timeline

Production ran over 12 weeks, with an on-set capture session a month before production.