Ozgur Serdar Altunoglu

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What is Virtual Reality

The Best Virtual Reality (VR) Illustration, Design, Modelling & Animation Applications – 2019

Tarih: 2019-08-19
Kategori: Animation Dairy, Concept Art, Graphic Design

The Era of Virtual Reality (VR) is beginning. This wonderful tech is not only for gamers, but also great for designers animators and concept artists like us. When I was studying concept art at VFS, the school started up the VR/AR Design and Development Department. Next year, there will be educated designers and artists on the field and the evolution has been started. After that,  digital assets will be made on 3D virtual world in an infinite canvas instead of limited LCD screen borders. Drawing, painting, designing, modelling even animating can be developed in virtual reality without taking off the VR headsets.

First thing first, we should answer this question: What is virtual reality? Then we will look at the VR applications I tested for you, one by one.

Başlıklar / Contents

  • What is Virtual Reality?
  • The Best VR Devices
  • The Best Illustration, Modelling & Animation Applications
    • 1. Quill
    • 2. Tilt Brush
    • 3. Gravity Sketch
    • 4. Medium
    • 5. Sketchbox 3D
    • 6. Google VR Blocks
    • 7. AnimVR
    • 8. Masterpiece VR
    • 9. TVori
  • Conclusion

What is Virtual Reality?

I have already explained virtual reality in my MA thesis in detail, but I will sum up for you. Virtuality and reality are two opposite words and this is a kind of oxymoron. This term is not from literature or as a joke. This is the name of the next step in design world.

Virtual reality is an artificial sense of reality which includes animated images and sounds completely generated in computers. The sense of reality increases with the quality of VR headsets and remote controls.

There are several artificial reality types: 3D cinema movies (augmented depth), weather forecasts on TV on an imaginary map (augmented virtuality), playing Pokemon Go with your mobile phone (augmented reality), and the so-called VR, virtual reality which completely visualized reality without any outside world input except gravity.

Above, you may see Glen Keane, Disney’s veteran animator, using Tilt Brush software with HTC Vive headset. He is drawing the little mermaid designed by him.

The Best VR Devices

Buying VR device is not enough, you have to own a powerful computer hardware to support it. If you think to buy such VR set, you may test your machine on Steam VR performance test before. This application might give you some upgrade opinions.

Let’s take a look at these VR devices. I have joined this world with Oculus Rift, but HTC Vive is also quite suitable for this task. Generally most of the apps support both of them. I have listed the most popular brands and their prices below (2019.08.23):

  1. Oculus: Owned by Facebook. There are 4 models including Rift, Rift S, Go and Quest, and prices are around $400.
  2. HTC: Taiwan-based global company. VIVE VR, VIVE Pro has 2 products for now. The prices ranging between €599 and €1999.
  3. Playstation VR: Sony’s designed this device for PS4 and it is $600.

There are some several models like Windows Mixed Reality, Nintendo Labor VI, Lenovo Mirage Solo, but I am not sure that they will hold on the market. The top two is best for this task for both gamers and designers.

The Best Illustration, Modelling & Animation Applications

Many of these software are still under development or early access period. Which means they are not mature enough like Adobe Photoshop. They are still gaining new features and major changes in every updates. Like my previous the best desktop art & design apps article, it is too early to separate these applications in different categories. Some of them include drawing, modelling, even animation tools. Therefore, I have gathered these artistic productivity applications under one title. I am planning to continue this research and feed additional articles and videos. Let’s start.

1. Quill

Company: Facebook
Price: Free with Oculus headset bundle. Not in Steam.
Usage Area: VR Illustration & animation.
Specifications: Infinite canvas, layers, Fbx export (Autodesk format, but also supported by Blender & Unity.), audio import. Ofcourse Facebook share.

The most mentioned feature is the infinite canvas. The biggest supporter of this project, digital artist Goro Fujita presented this app when drawing a beautiful Quillustration in an IAMAG seminar. Frankly, he is the person who convinced me to buy this device.

Quill is very successful program as a coding-wise. It worked with even my old GTX 780 GPU, which had a average score in the VR test. This means that the software is carefully coded. I hope the development continues and it becomes the Photoshop of the VR world. (Now, I am using the GTX 1070 graphics card, the lowest limit for VR, that’s enough “for now”.)

2. Tilt Brush

Company: Google
Price: $20
Usage Area: VR Illustration
Specifications:
Brushes, lots of brushes. Obj and Fbx import. (no layers for now.)

Few years ago, I was extremely excited when two programmers announced their Tilt Brush project on their Facebook page. And I texted the owners. How do I get this software? They said “Well we will announce it soon.” Two years later, I found out that they sold the project to Google. They became rich. At first, I was afraid it would be expensive; but the price is very reasonable.

3. Gravity Sketch

Team: Gravity Sketch Team (Based on London)
Price: $25 limited version + ($30 per month (Pro version) / $100 per month (the Studio version) that adds the ability to import environments and export to Rhino.)
Usage Area: VR Modelling (especially best for mechas.)
Specifications: It has lots of handy tools for modelling. You may use for vehicle design, concept art, and prop design.

Gravity Sketch (GS) is the software that wants to be the industrial standard for virtual reality modeling. Our school (VFS) installed this software on student computers. In fact the following video shows the variety of modelling tools. I have a friend who makes the rough models at GS, then imports into Blender and gets great rendering results. The monthly Pro package that opens the additional features of the program is very annoying. So, this makes it the most expensive software on the list. But the limited version is also enough for us. We respect that independent developers also need money to live. Life is hard.

4. Medium

Company: Oculus (Facebook)
Price: Free with Oculus headset bundle. (Not in Steam, but standalone price was $30.)
Usage Area: Organic VR Sculpture
Specifications: Opportunity to collaborate on a virtual project with a friend. (There’s no 3D import feature, that’s a big minus.)

We can call it the Zbrush of the VR. It has a very user-friendly  interface.  You don’t experience any adaptation problems. I made a fetus figure in my thesis animation project with this application in a short time. So, this is a good sketch program for organic modeling.

5. Sketchbox 3D

Company: Sketchbox Inc.
Price: Free (because of early-access period)
Usage Area: VR storyboard, VR PowerPoint Presentation
Specifications: Scenes (kind of layers or frames), Collaboration and meeting on same file in real-time. Google Poly, Sketchfab, Fbx export.

The most interesting feature to me is the use of it for presentation or storyboard purposes. In this respect, we can say this program  is the VR version of the Sketchbook Pro. Sketchbox 3D has a large library and the import feature. So, interesting presentations can be performed. Consider a Powerpoint presentation in virtual reality environment. Unfortunately, it is not suitable for drawing, modeling and animation.

6. Google VR Blocks

Company: Google
Price Free
Usage Area: Low-poly modelling
Specifications: Free and very practical. Possibility to instantly share what you draw. Very nice designs can be done with 6 basic tools. Cute. The 3D grid for children also makes it suitable for architectural modeling. Google Poly sharing.

The best software for startup. Google introduced the Blocks to the VR world like what they did with free SketchUp to the 3D world before. The software is so useful that I made my first design with it. Please see the cute mosque model below.

You need to design everything in a limited cube canvas. This restriction also minimizes problems such as crashes due to overload of the program. You can watch the Blocks trailer video below.

7. AnimVR

Developer Team: Milan Grojetzki, Dario Seyb.
Price: $30
Usage Area: VR animation & drawing.
Specifications: Timeline, virtual camera, sound recording, fading & editing.

Quill’s biggest rival in animation. It is obvious that they want to be an industrial software. It has lots of tools. but it really takes a lot of effort to get used to it. More tools lead to more difficulty. It is important to keep in mind that the beautiful lines you see in the introduction video below are not the ingenuity of the software, but of the ingenuity of the artists. Remember applications are just tools like pen and paper.

8. Masterpiece VR

Company: Brinx Software Inc.
Price: $30
Usage Area: VR Sculpture.
Specifications: A cube-shaped canvas design in a pleasant virtual study room. Collaboration.

Zbrush type SG digital sculpture software. It lags behind my Medium due to lack of pressure sensitivity. Do not believe the exquisite visuals below made with external rendering like Blender. Sounds like they need more time. The same company has introduced another new application called Masterpiece Motion which enables motion capture with VR which is an exciting news for 3D filmmakers.

9. TVori

Company: Tvori Team (Küçük bir  ekibin ürünü, umarım dağılmadan devam ederler.)
Price: $20 (Free for students and 30 day free trial period for artists.)
Kullanım Alanı: VR 3D Animation
Özellikler: Staging, animated cameras, light sources, sound import, Obj.

Obviously the most successful software in VR animation. It doesn’t animate brushes like Quill, but animates directly 3D objects. The design of the lights specification also leaves behind all its competitors. (You’ll be amazed, but Quill doesn’t have light and shadow, unfortunately, they solve the problem with light and dark coloring.) Light is very important for depth and atmospheric effects. The interface is also handy. Promising.

Conclusion

VR Technologies cannot exceed the design possibilities of desktops “for now”, even though they provide fascinating experiences. But my expectation is great. In the future, when the VR devices become more practical, the design world will also benefit from this technology. For this reason, it is useful for future designers and artists to experience this dimension of reality.

I open the door to a new world and share my knowledge with you.  If you liked it, you may share and spread this link. If you want to learn desktop version of these programs you may check my previous article the best animation concept art and visual effect applications. Hoping to discuss new contents on this topic. Goodbye.

PS: Feature photo is taken by Tolga Ulusoy, and the model is me :)

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Etiketler: 3D modelling, virtual reality

Yorumlar

  1. Cape

    2021-06-08 at 20:52

    Article itself is great, but…

    I hate how your page prevents me from selecting the text, so my TTS plugin can’t even read it for me with text to speech. I had to open source code, rip all data from page, paste it into local html file and run it locally without your useless anti-UX scripts.
    You will never be able to stop users from stealing from your page. Only thing you achieve is hostile environment for normal users where users like me have to do extra to just listen to article, or majority of users will just leave. Fuck I can’t even paste text from grammarly here so I have to write directly here, so not sorry for any grammatic errors and misspelled words. Congratulations for making life of people hard ;)

    Good article BTW. After that torture I was able to listen to it so I like how you summarized prices and pointed out usage areas and even added videos. I appreciate it :)

    Reply
    • Ozgur Serdar

      2021-06-08 at 21:24

      Ok Cape,

      I ignore your F. words and accept your offer. Here is the open site have a nice readings.

      Oz.

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Sanat dünyasını kasıp kavuran, haram datalı y Sanat dünyasını kasıp kavuran, haram datalı yapay zekaya karşı düzenlenen #NoAI protestolarına bir destek de bizden. 

English translation of the pages for my international friends:
Title: Bewitching Intelligence, Episode 2: The Protests

1. So why are artists bothered? You see a striking comparison showing how the appearance differs when artist names are typed into the AI commands.
2. This means that without drawings by human artists, AI cannot produce any stylized output.
3. There are public databases like LAION-5B. Works by popular artists like @Loisvb have been added to this database without their permission. All AIs in the market started to produce works in the style of artists by taking advantage of this data. This is copyright infringement. 
https://laion-aesthetic.datasette.io/laion-aesthetic-6pls/images 
https://twitter.com/megraeart/status/1598806459004985363
4. So what do artists want? The artists rightly want their drawings removed from this database. The number of applications that use this data, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, are increasing.
5. What will they do? The Concept Art Association, led by Karla Ortiz, is preparing for an action. @kortizart @conceptartassociation
6. Their requests are at this link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/protecting-artists-from-ai-technologies
7. I consider these demands justified. It is ethically wrong for them to feed AI with haram data and make money from it. Laws are lagging here too. I hope necessary adjustments are made.
8. Because AI has entered our lives and will not leave. AI can be a useful tool even with just your own images and public domain content. I created the images in this series with ethical AI and old photo editing techniques to try if another way is possible.
9. “ART = IDEA” -Steve Huston There has to be another way. Because art is an idea. The story is king and the stories emerge from life.

 #yapayzeka #yahşizeka #yzroman #fotoroman #fotobashing #stablediffusion #AI #aiart #humanartist #lensa #midjourney #dalle2 #stablediffusion #artistrights
Ünlü öykücü dostum Füsun Çetinel’in (@fus Ünlü öykücü dostum Füsun Çetinel’in (@fusun.yaziyor) de dediği gibi “At a timeless zone, the story should start.” O zaman haydi buyurun. Hikayemiz 2009'da başlıyor. 
Hikayede bahsi geçen makale: https://serdara.com/go-oyunu-ve-kaos-teorisi/

English translation of the pages for my international friends:
Title: Bewitching Intelligence Episode 1: The Go Defeat
1. Years ago, I wrote a passionate article on artificial intelligence (Bibliothec:2009).
2. The artificial intelligence that beat humans at chess had not yet beat humans at Go. In the article, I compared the subject with the popular chaos theory of that period and tried to explain why it could not be defeated.
3. Ten years later, the AI named "Alpha GO" defeated humans in Go as well in 2016.
4. But I took my part. From now on, I would not challenge AIs anymore, I would mind my own business.
5. When I couldn't find what I was looking for in engineering and philosophy, then I chose the digital art career path.
6. A news would wake me up from my peaceful sleep in my comfort zone called “concept art” and “storyboard”. A bloody AI-generated painting would return with an award from a competition in a fair.
7. Prompts are text commands for AI. Below are the pictures received from AI in response to these commands. Until last year, AI who made pictures like children with these commands…
8. By what time had he developed enough to win a competition in a few months? Beautifully drawn by a toast machine.
9. Will they take our jobs?

We will see.

 #ai #aiart #stablediffusion #photobashing #fotomanupulation #fotoroman #yapayzeka #photoshop #yzroman #yahşizeka #go
Tam olarak yapay da değil vahşi de değil olsa o Tam olarak yapay da değil vahşi de değil olsa olsa yahşi olan bu zekalar hakkında benim de diyeceklerim var. Bir kaç bölümde anlatmayı planlıyorum. Evet tüm görseller yapay zeka, fotoşop, Wacom ve sanatçı işbirliği ile üretildi.

English translation of the pages for my international friends:
Title: Bewitching Intelligence Episode 0
1. Hello, this isn't me, this is my AI-trained Surrogate (2009). (Cool SciFi Movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/)
2. A great revolution has taken place in the art world.
3. There is total chaos and uncertainty right now.
4. But art history has witnessed many such turning points. *discovery of perspective 15th century.
5. With the invention of the camera, portrait painters were negatively affected. *the first photograph, 1826
6. Digital drawing tablets had forced artists in the industry to break away from paper.
7. And the internet… With an endless number of visual references, artists are now able to educate themselves without going through costly jobs such as visiting museums, working with live models, going to distant schools. Because they had an endless mine of knowledge in front of them.
8. There was another one feeding on this mine of knowledge while we slept. Artificial Intelligence! (AI) It climbed from the bottom of the mass data mines and came to the surface.
9. Now, here in these few series, I want to talk about them with you… To be continued…

 #AI #aiart #comics #çizgiroman #fotoroman #yapayzeka #YZroman #yahşizeka #stablediffusion #photoshop #wacom
Bu haftasonu hiç olmayan bir sokakta hiç olmayan Bu haftasonu hiç olmayan bir sokakta hiç olmayan bir ceket ve şapka ile bilinmezliğe yürüdüm. #stablediffusion
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@isfstudios 
@rafadantayfa
#animation
#storyboard
#animatic
I am digging the ancient roots of Turkish #animati I am digging the ancient roots of Turkish #animation. Visually much better than my expectations. #karagoz #hacivat #hacivatkaragöz
It seems that last year was full of tea love ❤️☕️ My #art vs #artist banner by @artstationhq #artvsartist2021
2007’den beri PC önünden kalkmamışım sanki. 2007’den beri PC önünden kalkmamışım sanki. Not: Daha eskisini bulamadım. 😅#20yaschallenge / Year 2007 me.
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