3D World

Reviews

Oculus Rift

Oculus

Quill gets

animated

Painting in VR is just

the start – what about

getting things moving?

One of the first creation

tools people seem to

try on the Rift is Oculus

Quill. It’s a stroke-based

illustration package that

enables you to paint

vector-like strokes in

the air in front of you.

It was made popular by

one of the early Oculus

experiences called Dear

Angelica that enabled the

user to step inside a huge

‘Quillistration’, as Quill-

based artworks are now

known. In a recent update

the Quill team added

the ability to move and

record the strokes that

the artist has laid down,

allowing basic animation.

A couple of artists like

Goro Fujita and Martin

Nebelong have already

embraced this software

and have been showing

an amazing array of

animated scenes from all

sorts of camera angles.

The tools have onion

skinning, a timeline and

stepping frames like more

traditional animation

software. You can draw

new strokes as you add

new frames or simply

move the ones you’ve

laid down around. Quill

is an amazing tool for

character concepts but

now it has become an

amazing way to quickly

bring those character

ideas to life.

been done correctly you get
a guardian system made of a
blue wire grid whenever you
wonder outside the safe zone.
This isn’t such a problem if you
sit at your desk in VR, but trust
me, if you play Superhot you
will learn to rely on the blue
grid to stop you from punching
any walls and screens!
Oculus Home is the
jumping-off point when you
start in the Rift but Oculus
has allowed access to a beta
command centre called Dash
that lets you multitask across
compatible apps. When
more titles are enabled for VeRdIcT

Dash this will be an amazing

experience as you can be

watching TV, using software on

a VR monitor and reading your

social media without leaving

your headset. The Oculus

Library is getting better every

week and currently has more

titles available than that of the

Vive. They range from driving

games, bullet-time shoot-em-

ups like Superhot to full-blown

creative tools like Oculus

Medium and Google Tilt Brush.

There are actually a fair few

titles for creatives now in both

3D and 2D. Oculus Medium,

Gravity Sketch, MasterpieceVR

and Google Blocks all cater

for the 3D end of the market

and all have their own way of

creating geometry, mostly

voxel-based. For the 2D artists

and animators there is now

Oculus Quill, Google’s Tilt

Brush and animation software

like AnimVR. All of these titles

are being developed at an

incredible rate meaning that

each time you put on your Rift

you might find an update or

new features waiting for you.

So what’s next? It’s all to

play for now and it doesn’t look

like VR will be just another fad.

There’s also its portable little

brother the Oculus Go that just

stepped into the limelight.

Below: You have the ability to paint strokes

in the air and then animate them around you

in space

left: Sculpting in virtual reality is very much

like the real-world feeling of sculpting

something that is as big as you are

“THe RIFT IS noW RUSHInG HeAdlonG To GIve ITS

USeRS Some mUCH-needed HIGH-end ConTenT”