Augmented books, Wallace and Gromit show VR future in Venice

The rapid evolution of virtual reality was on display in Venice this week, with visitors brought into the world of Wallace and Gromit and watching books come to life before their eyes.

Running alongside the world's oldest film festival, Venice Immersive is tucked away on a former quarantine island that transforms each year into a showcase for the latest frontiers of entertainment.

This year showed how quickly the tech is evolving.

Some experiences had users interacting with the virtual environment using hand controllers. Thus "Wallace & Gromit in The Grand Getaway" plunged them into the world of the famous animated duo.

Players become Gromit, helping him fix his hapless owner's contraptions and rescue them from an accidental trip to Mars.

"The interactivity in those worlds is increasingly precise and diverse," said Venice Immersive co-curator Michel Reilhac.

"Makers are finding ways to hijack the technology and use it in really unexpected ways."

Another experience used VR helmets to put several people at once in the studio of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, allowing them to snoop around his workshop and watch as his famous Barcelona cathedral rose up spectacularly around them.