Oculus Rift Movie: Oculus debuted its second virtual reality film, the short animation movie, "Henry" yesterday, July 28, 2015, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Oculus via AP)

Oculus is hoping that the cuddly critter can convince consumers that virtual reality is the future of storytelling.

VR company Oculus, which was bought by Facebook for about $2 billion last year, premiered their 10-minute short about a lonely hedgehog named Henry at an invite-only event at a private mansion in  Beverly Hills. Guests wore consumer versions of the Oculus Rift headset.

Henry is the second computer-animated virtual reality short to come from Oculus VR's newly founded Story Studio. Oculus Story Studio debuted "Lost" at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

The Oculus character works on the audience's empathy.

"That was the big question for me: How are people going to connect with him?" director Ramiro Lopez Dau said recently.

"So we came up with this character who has an obvious problem: He wants to hug people and he's super spiky. So that was the connection because everyone deserves a friend. And Henry doesn't have a flaw. He's just like that; he's a hedgehog.

"So it's more about, okay, there's some meaning here. You will find someone who will accept you for who you are, which is a very universal message.

"There's going to be a very strong point to feel empathy for this guy."

Oculus hopes "Henry" will show VR's capability and inspire studios and production companies to create content.

"The goal with 'Henry' and these short films isn't to be an introduction to virtual reality," Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, said.

"We're trying to build things with Oculus Story Studio that other people can learn from and build better content from as a result.

"In a perfect word, we'll have all the major studios making tons of VR content because they're making tons of money off of it. That would be much better for us than having to hold up the entire VR marketplace with our own content. Nintendo managed to do that with their games, but it's really rough. It'll be much healthier to have a diverse ecosystem."

"Henry" director Ramiro Lopes Dau is a former animator at Pixar.

"I think there's room for all difference kinds of experiences, where they can be more or less interactive," Lopes Dau said.

"In the case of 'Henry,' it's more about the character. We use those moments when he's happy or sad to look at you no matter where you're standing."

Oculus plans to bundle "Henry" and other films and games for free with Oculus Rift.