Composing Motion in Tilt Brush
The creative world has been buzzing with the promise of the newest platform on the street, Virtual Reality. Everyone has hardware they’re betting on, whether it’s the Oculus Rift, The HTC Vive, or smartphone-equipped iterations from Google and Samsung. No matter the specific shape of the computerized brick you choose to strap directly to your eye holes, one thing is clear: VR is here and artists and brands alike are clamoring over the new tech to unlock its creative potential.
A developer’s kit for the HTC Vive hardware arrived on the doorstep at Slanted Studios earlier this Spring, and with some help from HTC’s adorable setup guide, we soon converted our conference room into a fully-equipped virtual playground.
After a few afternoons spent gawking at the sheer novelty of the cutting-edge technology, it was time to buckle down and start thinking constructively. What were the unique advantages of this platform and what were we most excited to explore with it?
Stepping into the virtual space with the Vive and Tilt Brush is a phenomenon that truly has to be experienced firsthand to fully grasp. 3D polygons and particles are no longer stuffy geometric calculations locked behind a screen, but become physical, tangible objects that can be manipulated at the whim of a sleek VR paintbrush. The brushes’ effects vary from the delicacy of a sumi ink brush to the kinetic vibrancy of a lightning bolt. They can be used to create objects with inspiring energy within the program, but how do they hold up back outside of the headset? We found throughout our investigations that even with an export to the 3D-ready online gallery Sketchfab, many of our creations lacked the life that was once so engrossing with the VR hardware.
We wanted to create parameters for a project that would address these questions and allow us to take a deeper dive into the platform and explore the fundamental concepts of VR as a whole. We realized that the central theme we wanted to explore was a key property absent from many of our prior sculptures: motion.
As with any creative endeavor, we began to iron out our initial ideas in a brainstorming session. We gathered inspiration from current CG artists and fellow Tilt Brush pioneers, but also flipped back through our history books to find references from sculptors like Alexander Calder who incorporated motion as a cornerstone of their work. These samples referenced back to our guiding thesis: How does one compose motion on the virtual stage?
With a better understanding of the software and its compatibility with our existing Cinema 4D workspace, we began a few smaller-scale animation tests. We had our freelance 3D animation extraordinaire, Terra Henderson, jump into Tilt Brush and started sculpting. To facilitate the replacement animation process that would be necessary to give our models the illusion of motion, Terra would sculpt multiple models along a path, with each transforming incrementally from the prior model. When these models would eventually be exported, there would be multiple hand-drawn permutations for use in each frame of the animation.
Adjusting her eyes to the harsh light of our reality, Terra transferred the raw files from Tilt Brush and imported them to C4D. Once each one of the individual models had been imported, they needed to be reassembled in line with one another. Compiling the models together allowed our compositor to replace each model with a new one for each frame of movement within the animation.
Presentation is key! With all of the frames in our model’s motion sequence playing back smoothly in Cinema 4D, we applied added SketchFab’s required .timeframe file to allow stop-motion animation-style playback.
After importing the file into our Sketchfab gallery, we played around with Sketchfab’s built-in suite of lighting and color filters to bring the finished model to life!
In conclusion, our first foray in Tilt Brush sculpture animation gave us a surprising amount of insight into animation production with VR. We certainly expected to be confronted by typical challenges that accompany working with new technology, but we ended our project with a swarm of unresolved conceptual conundrums.
What will Tilt Brush be like when you can import 3D models and interact with them directly? What if you had the ability to rotoscope motions in 3D? How will creatives harness these possibilities and continue to innovate with them?
To get a closer look at our animated Tilt Brush experiments, follow Slanted Studios on Sketchfab!