There’s just over three weeks to go until Oculus launches its motion controllers, Touch, onto the market. The company is lining up a strong selection of titles for the 6th December launch, with several free apps available. Back in August Oculus confirmed its sculpting software Medium would be shipping with them and now its also revealed painting app Quill will also be available in a beta form.
Quill was first unveiled back in January at The Sundance Film Festivals New Horizons festival, when Oculus Story Studios showcased its next project Dear Angelica. To create the experience the Oculus Story Studio team decided to build an internal production tool called Quill, allowing illustrators on the project to paint entire scenes in virtual reality (VR) with Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch. The technique was designed to give the artists complete freedom to create directly in VR bringing them away from the more traditional medium of pen and paper. The software allows artists to quickly and intuitively draw and create their ideas, from simple line drawings up to fully realised characters.
Then during Oculus Connect 3 in October Quill was showcased again, promoting Dear Angelica which is set to feature at the next Sundance Film Festival next year. But Oculus never confirmed a public release of the software until now, pitting it against Google’s popular painting app Tilt Brush on HTC Vive.
As Oculus describes in a blog posting that Quill: “was born out of the creative needs of Dear Angelica’s Writer/Director Saschka Unseld and Art Director Wesley Allsbrook. The unique style and story of Dear Angelica required it to be painted and shaped entirely inside of VR.
“Quill was developed to let artists create and shape their artistic visions directly inside VR, no matter their stylistic preferences. For that to happen, Quill needed to be “unopinionated,” as Wesley puts it. “I, as the artist, want to have the opinions, so the last thing I would want is for my tool to have them.””
Oculus will be running a monthly artist feature on its Oculus Story Studio Facebook page, showing what can be achieved using the software.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Oculus, reporting back with any further announcements.