Category: oculus medium

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Adobe Productizing Oculus Medium Acquisition As ‘Substance 3D Modeler’

Back in 2019, Adobe acquired the Oculus Medium PC VR sculpting tool and made it free. Adobe just launched a new ‘Substance 3D’ suite of creation tools, and Medium is evolving to become Substance 3D Modeler.

Oculus Medium started development in 2014 as an internal showcase of the potential of positionally tracked controllers.

Oculus Touch controllers were shown at dozens of trade shows & conferences in 2015 and 2016, with Medium being the demo of choice for creatives. We first tried it at Oculus Connect 2, declaring the experience “the future of creativity”.

When the Touch controllers finally shipped in December 2016, Medium was one of the pack-in titles. HTC Vive owners could purchase it for $30 and run it using the tool ReVive.

Medium was always pitched as a serious creation tool for professionals, with the team making it clear they wouldn’t downgrade the software to make it run on the mobile Oculus Quest. Instead, it was bundled for free with the PC-based Rift S.

As Facebook’s focus shifted from PC to standalone, Medium’s future became less clear. In December 2019, Adobe announced the acquisition of Medium – and much of the team behind it – from Facebook.

Nine months later, Adobe renamed the software ‘Adobe Medium’ and made it available for free to all. It will remain on the Oculus Rift Store for free.

Adobe now plans to productize an evolved vision of Medium as ‘Substance 3D Modeler’. A private beta is now beginning. Unlike Medium, Substance 3D Modeler will also support non-VR interaction:

“Modeler uses a VR interface to recreate the natural, organic feeling of sculpting clay with your hands and it lets you interact with your model on the desktop so you can leverage the precision of mouse and tablet controls.”

Adobe

Substance 3D Suite

While Substance 3D Modeler is launching in the future, the wider Substance 3D Collection consisting of four desktop tools is launching today.

Adobe acquired Allegorithmic in December 2019, including its IP & team. Substance 3D Designer & Substance 3D Painter are based on Allegorithmic’s products of similar names.

Adobe says Allegorithmic’s tools were used in “the vast majority of AAA game titles, including Half Life Alyx and Microsoft Flight Simulator“.

Substance 3D Sampler lets you create materials from real world objects, or combine existing materials from Adobe’s library.

Substance 3D Designer lets you create dynamic textures & materials using graphs.

Substance 3D Painter is used to apply textures and materials to 3D models.

Substance 3D Stager lets you position models in a scene, apply realistic lighting, and render images from the created scene. It replaces Adobe Dimension.

There’s no price announced yet for Substance 3D Modeler, given that the software is still in a beta testing release, but the rest of the Substance 3D Collection is priced starting at $39.99 per month at the time of this writing.

“3D is the next generation of creativity,” said Scott Belsky, Chief Product Officer, Executive Vice President – Creative Cloud, in a prepared statement.

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Oculus Medium Becomes Adobe Medium As Of Today

VR creation app Oculus Medium today becomes Adobe Medium, following last year’s announcement that Facebook was selling the app to the company.

This inaugural version of the app remains free to use, though users will now have to agree to Adobe’s terms of use. Medium is mainly concerned with making 3D sculptures in VR. In fact, today’s update also brings with it some big improvements, like importing existing projects into new creations and adding Free Layers. If you want to keep Oculus Medium, make sure not to update the version of the app as you have it.

What’s unclear, though, is where Adobe will take the project from here. Most of Adobe’s software suite includes premium features and products used for mostly professional cases. Medium’s spatial 3D modelling could definitely have big advantages in this space, but we don’t know if Adobe will eventually charge for any portion of the app, or if it might come to other platforms. For now it’s still only available in the Oculus Store.

In a tweet following today’s news, John Carmack noted that, while many projects under Oculus had often adjusted “Medium was able to just steadily increase in value for their focused user base.”

Medium was one of two VR art apps Facebook introduced when it launched the Oculus Touch controllers in 2016. The other, Quill, was run by the now-defunct Oculus Story Studio, but Facebook continues to maintain the app and artists continue to release work from it, including on the Oculus TV section of the Quest (though the app itself isn’t on the platform).

Are you going to be checking out Adobe Medium today? Let us know in the comments below!

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Adobe Acquires Facebook’s ‘Oculus Medium’ VR Sculpting Tool

Facebook today announced that Adobe—the company behind industry-leading creative tools like Photoshop, Premiere, and Substance—has acquired Oculus Medium, the company’s VR sculpting tool.

Oculus Medium launched back in 2016 alongside the company’s Touch motion controllers, and began as an exploration of how VR could be useful beyond gaming and entertainment.

3D modeling on a computer is notoriously abstract compared to working with a physical medium; with VR’s unique, one-to-one perspective and input, Oculus set out to make a ‘sculpting’ tool which would feel more like working with clay in the real world than drawing primitive shapes and vertices with a mouse.

At launch Medium included a range of tools for making and forming 3D volumes. Models could also be ‘painted’ with spray paint-like control. The app also supported exporting of models so that they could be refined in other common 3D modeling and texturing tools, and ultimately used in production projects like games and films. Oculus continued to expand the app as VR’s potential for this sort of modeling work became increasingly clear. A Medium ‘2.0’ update launched in 2018, overhauling performance, UI, and tools.

Today Facebook announced that Adobe has acquired Medium; the price of the acquisition was not disclosed. Adobe is promising “continuity in the way [existing Medium users] access and experience the tool;” it remains available on the Oculus Store and will continue to be free for new activations of Oculus Touch.

What Will Happen to Medium Next?

Adobe says it “can’t wait to work with this community to keep Medium growing and improving,” so at least outwardly, the company is signaling that this isn’t a mere talent acquisition which would threaten to deprecate Medium and absorb its developers into other Adobe projects. Rather, Adobe says it plans to align the Medium team with its Substance team to “work together on the next generation of 3D tools” (Substance is a  3D tool widely used by game developers, which itself was acquired by Adobe in early 2019). This makes it sounds like Adobe wants to make Medium’s functionality part of the company’s broader 3D modeling offerings.

In the announcement shared by Oculus, the Medium team is calling this “a new chapter” for the tool, and says that users should “stay tuned for more features, improvements, and other developments coming from Adobe in 2020 as Medium continues to evolve.”

Who Wins?

At least from the outside, this actually looks like a win-win-win for Facebook, Medium, and Adobe. Medium has demonstrated itself as a unique and powerful creative tool, but this kind of product is quite far removed from Facebook’s core business; Medium‘s ultimate potential may have been stifled by a lack of interest from the parent company, and in a worst-case scenario, Medium—like Oculus Story Studio—might have been wound down and left to fade from existence. Rather than let that happen, Facebook found a way to let the project go without killing it outright.

Adobe’s entire business, on the other hand, is about making tools which empower artists and creators to produce great works. While the company’s foundation is in photography, videography, and print, in recent years it has clearly recognized opportunities in the 3D realm and has worked to aggressively expanded in that direction by building new tools—like Dimensions and Aero—and making acquisitions of companies like Mixamo, Allegorithmic (Substance), and now Medium. Under Adobe, Medium has a home where it could reach its true potential—becoming a core part of the 3D production pipeline—rather than a niche VR app.

What About Quill?

The news of this acquisition can’t help but turn eyes toward Quill, another Facebook-owned VR art tool with origins very similar to Medium.

Though they seem similar on the surface, Medium focuses primarily on a clay-like sculpting approach to 3D modeling while Quill is borrows more from the art of illustration, painting, and animation (even though it’s ultimately a 3D tool).

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Oculus Artist's 'Quill' Shorts Show the Incredible Potential of Illustrating & Animating in VR

Quill was not mentioned in today’s announcement of Medium’s acquisition, but it’s hard to imagine that Quill isn’t in a similar position with regards to Facebook (a company which doesn’t seem to have a core business interest in helping Quill reach its ultimate potential as a powerful creative tool). If anything, the Medium acquisition seems to set the stage for some serious discussions about the future of Quill, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar spin-out of the tool and team in 2020.

The post Adobe Acquires Facebook’s ‘Oculus Medium’ VR Sculpting Tool appeared first on Road to VR.

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Adobe Acquires Oculus Medium Sculpting App From Facebook

Adobe is the new home for the Oculus Medium sculpting app that originally launched three years ago from Facebook with the Oculus Touch tracked controllers.

The surprising move raises intriguing questions about the ongoing strategies in VR and AR by some of the world’s largest creative and technology companies. Medium was seen as a groundbreaking sculpting app on the PC-based Rift headset when it launched and has been updated a number of times over the last three years.

A blog post from Sebastien Deguy, former CEO of Allegorithmic and now Adobe vice president of its 3D and immersive efforts after the acquisition of the company and its Substance tools last year, describes Medium’s “shaping as something we’d love to tackle. The redoubled investment of Adobe in the 3D and AR space finally allowed us to join forces and bring our complementary talents together. The Substance and Medium teams are ready to work together on the next generation of 3D tools.

According to a tweet from the Substance Twitter account, and supported by additional tweets from Medium team members, “Several members of the Medium team are moving to Adobe.”

The addition of Medium to Adobe’s range of creative tools gives the company a custom engine that can maximize visible detail while sculpting and may strengthen Adobe’s position offering a suite of creative tools for VR and AR creators.

The move raises intriguing questions also about the future of other creative VR tools, like the animation and 3D drawing app Quill at Facebook, as well as the Blocks and Tilt Brush tools at Google.

What do you think of the acquisition? Please share in the comments.

The post Adobe Acquires Oculus Medium Sculpting App From Facebook appeared first on UploadVR.

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Adobe Acquires Oculus’ Sculpting App Medium

Ever since the Oculus Touch controllers were first made available in December 2016 Oculus has ensured they can aid creativity thanks to homegrown apps like Medium. A piece of sculpting software which has built a reputation as an important professional design tool, today Adobe has announced the acquisition of Medium.

Known for its suite of design apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dimension, Substance and many more, Adobe is one of the world leaders when it comes to software tools for creative professionals. The addition of Oculus Medium into that family certainly demonstrates its importance as a VR tool to enhance productivity across a range of use cases.

“Medium has been a beacon of creativity in the VR space, pushing creative and technical boundaries of 3D modelling,” says Sebastien Deguy, VP, 3D and Immersive at Adobe in a blog post. “The creative tool enables users to sculpt, model and paint in an immersive environment – to easily create characters, objects, environments, expressive works of art and more. The integration of Medium’s tools and technology will greatly contribute to our 3D and immersive strategy.”

While it certainly marks a turning point in Oculus Medium’s life cycle this will cast doubt over its future as a freely accessible VR app – even though it’s sold on the Oculus Store for £22.99 GBP, Medium is free with every Oculus Touch, which comes supplied with every new Oculus Rift S. The Oculus Blog does mention: “To our passionate Medium users, nothing is changing for you today. Stay tuned for more features, improvements, and other developments coming from Adobe in 2020 as Medium continues to evolve.”

Oculus Medium

“During my time at Allegorithmic (acquired by Adobe in January 2019), we’ve always looked up to Medium and seen shaping as something we’d love to tackle. The redoubled investment of Adobe in the 3D and AR space finally allowed us to join forces and bring our complementary talents together. The Substance and Medium teams are ready to work together on the next generation of 3D tools,” Deguy adds.

So there will be changes to Medium in 2020, let’s just hope they help to widen adoption. As further updates are made available, VRFocus will let you know.

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Oculus Medium 2.3 Arrives With Launch of Oculus Rift S

Oculus sculpting app Medium was a launch title when the Oculus Touch controllers arrived in December 2016, so it’s more than apt that with the release of Oculus Rift S in a few days the creative program is getting a big new update to improve the experience even further.

Oculus Rift S Medium

Just like before Oculus Medium will be available for free when users activate their new Touch controllers for Oculus Rift S and for current users Medium 2.3 will bring a refreshed design, new modes for the Move tool, plus improvements to the precision and hard-surface features.

“For Medium’s new look and feel, we sought to unify colour and form throughout the app, while giving people more control over their sculpting environment,” says Oculus Medium Art Director Tommy Cinquegrano on Oculus Blog. “To fully take advantage of the higher resolution Rift S display, we utilized higher resolutions textures in a more targeted manner, stripping away excess detail on the tool meshes and throughout the sculpting environment.”

Workspace themes now include Classic, Dark, Neutral, and Cute, and users can alter the lighting through atmospheric IBL lighting and textures. A new grid system enables the design of environments, architecture, vehicles, and more to exact measurements in metric units, while the addition of a constrained manipulation to the mirror plane enhances quick movement between scene editing and sculpting.

The Move Tool – which lets users move, twist, and stretch virtual clay – is getting two new modes: Cube Move and Capsule Move. These allow users to translate, rotate, and scale using their hands creating volume, pulling geometry and shaping organic sculptures.

And for dev users, Oculus Medium will introduce three presets: Raw, Real-Time, and 3D Print, in addition to exporting OBJ and FBX. “To use the work you’ve created in Medium in other software, you first need to export it—but each different software package requires its own special set of export parameters,” explains Software Engineer Joe Virskus. “To streamline this, we’ve added export presets for the most common use cases: Optimized, textured exports for real-time 3D game engines; raw, high-detail exports for use in other 3d modeling packages; and a format optimized for 3D printing.”

Medium 2.3 will be available for Oculus Rift and Rift S on 21st May. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.

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Oculus Medium Won’t Be On Quest, Requires “The Power And Memory Of A PC”

Oculus Medium Won’t Be On Quest, Requires “The Power And Memory Of A PC”

If you were hoping to do some VR sculpting on Oculus Quest, you may be out of luck. The Rift app Oculus Medium won’t be coming to Quest. Facebook says it requires “the power and memory of a PC”.

Standalone VR is great- it’s affordable and wireless. Over the past few months and throughout GDC we’ve been hearing about plenty of games coming to the $399 standalone headset. Developers have been working hard to optimize their art assets and code to make them run on the Snapdragon 835 SoC.

But some apps and games simply can’t be brought to standalone. They depend on the power of a PC. If you want to know the extent of this difference, check out our article Standalone vs PC VR Power Compared: How Big Is the Difference?

Facebook is positioning Quest as a games console. The company has repeatedly told developers that the focus of the device’s content library is gaming. That’ll disappoint potential buyers who were hoping to unleash their creativity in VR.

Facebook’s other VR art app, Quill, won’t be coming to Quest either. But thankfully Quest will act as a Quill viewer. You’ll (though perhaps not at launch) be able to view Quill creations. At XRDC Facebook explained the efforts they’ve been taking to make this work, including making a custom Android renderer for the format.

Thankfully, there will be competing apps to Medium with a similar featureset. SculptrVR launched to PSVR last year, and is already available on Oculus Go. It’ll be available on Oculus Quest, allowing the same kind of sculpting experience, if not all the features.

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Oculus Medium: 3D-Kürbisschnitzwettbewerb mit Preisen gestartet

Oculus startet zur Feier des schaurig schönen Halloweens einen Kürbisschnitzwettbewerb in der 3D-Modelling-App Oculus Medium. Die Teilnehmer/innen können in zwei unterschiedlichen Kategorien ihre gruseligen Werke einreichen und erhalten damit die Chance auf einen besonderen Preis. Die besten Einsendungen erhalten einen physischen 3D-Druck ihrer Kürbiskreationen zugeschickt und werden zusätzlich als Teil des Halloween-Themes in Oculus Home verewigt.

Oculus – Alljährlicher 3D-Krübisschnitzwettbewerb in Oculus Medium gestartet

Am 31. Oktober ist es wieder so weit: Verkleidete Kinder (und jung gebliebene Erwachsene) ziehen als Monster, Geister und andere fremdartige Kreaturen durch die Straßen der Städte. Dies nimmt Oculus zum Anlass, um professionellen 3D-Designern und Amateuren in einem Wettbewerb die Möglichkeit zu geben, das traditionellste Dekostück von Halloween in VR zu bearbeiten. In einem Kürbisschnitzwettbewerb in Oculus Medium können kreative Köpfe ein 3D-Modell eines digitalen Kürbis so furchterregend wie möglich gestalten und als fertiges Objekt oder als Szene einreichen.

Oculus-Medium-Pumpkin-carving

Dafür steht allen Teilnehmer/innen ein Standardmodell zur Verfügung, welches innerhalb der 3D-Modelling-App bearbeitet wird. Die fertigen Werke könnt ihr daraufhin bei Oculus einsenden und präsentieren, wo sie von einer hauseigenen Jury bewertet wird. Zur Bewertung kommt ein festes System zum Einsatz: 30 Punkte für Kreativität des Designs und Einzigartigkeit, 30 Punkte für das deutliche Erfüllen des Halloween-Themes, 30 Punkte für strukturelle Integrität, um das Handwerk zu würdigen und 10 Punkte für die Präsentation. Insgesamt können also 100 Punkte erreicht werden.

Um den Wettbewerb fair zu gestalten, gibt es zwei verschiedene Kategorien. So können bei den Amateuren neue Medium-Nutzer/innen ihr Glück versuchen und sich als Newcomer beweisen, während bei den Profis fortgeschrittene Anwender/innen teilnehmen dürfen.

Die Regeln für die Teilnahme sind wie folgt:

  • Grundlage für die Arbeit ist das vorgegebene Modell von Oculus, welches ihr hier findet.
  • Das Einsenden ist nur über Oculus Medium möglich
  • Insgesamt müssen drei Fotos oder ein 20-sekündiges Video eingesendet werden
  • Screenshots und Videos müssen mit den internen Foto- und Video-Tools von Medium aufgenommen werden
  • Die Einsendungen müssen zudem per Webgalerie geteilt werden
  • Nur eine Einsendung pro Teilnehmer/in
  • Die Teilnehmer/innen müssen mindestens 18 Jahre alt sein und in Deutschland, USA, UK, Kanada, Frankreich, Niederlande, Polen oder Japan wohnhaft sein
  • Keine Plagiate

Einsendeschluss ist der 21. Oktober 2018. Weitere Informationen findet ihr im Forum von Oculus.

(Quellen: Oculus Forum | Road to VR)

Der Beitrag Oculus Medium: 3D-Kürbisschnitzwettbewerb mit Preisen gestartet zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Oculus Hosts Halloween Pumpkin-carving Contest in ‘Oculus Medium’

There’s only a few days left until the trick-or-treaters come knocking at your door, but as you break out the dull kitchen knife and inevitably cut yourself on your real pumpkin this year to make a haphazard Jack-o-lantern, you might consider entering in Oculus’ spooky pumpkin-carving contest instead. It’s certainly less messy.

Two new categories have been added since last year’s inaugural contest, allowing for both new and experienced Medium users: a simple Jack-o-lantern carving for newcomers, and an advanced pumpkin object or scene for the pros.

The winners, who will be chosen by the Oculus Medium & Home teams, will receive 3D printed versions of their creations and a spot in Oculus Home.

Image courtesy Oculus

The judging criteria is based on a 100 point system; 30 points go to design creativity and uniqueness, 30 points go to interpretation and clarity of theme to the judges/viewers, 30 points go to the structural integrity (if 3D printed and imported into Oculus Home), and the final 10 go to presentation.

There are a few other rules to watch out for too:

Rules

1) Use the base pumpkin sculpt downloadable from the Medium Newsfeed
2) Submissions must be made in Medium only.
3) Submit three (3) photos and/or a (1) 20-second video of your final sculpt.
4) Submission screenshots and videos must be taken with Medium internal photo and video tools – emailed to  medium@oculus.com and specified which category you’re competing in
5) Submission must be shared to your Medium web gallery (press Share inside Medium and find your sculpt at oculus.com/medium/artists/YourOculusID).
6) One entry per participant.
7) Must be 18 year or older, must be in located in United States, United Kingdom, Canada (excluding Quebec), France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland or Japan.
8) Submissions must be original designs!

The final deadline is October 21st at 11:59pm PT (local time here), so get carving!

The post Oculus Hosts Halloween Pumpkin-carving Contest in ‘Oculus Medium’ appeared first on Road to VR.

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Oculus Medium Announces Annual Pumpkin Sculpting Contest

As the month of October continues and we get closer to Halloween, the Oculus Medium team have announced that they are holding their annual pumpkin sculpting contest once again. This is a chance for users of the virtual reality (VR) sculpting application, Oculus Medium, to get creative and create their own pumpkin for a chance to win some prizes.

Oculus Medium Pumpkin

Revealed on the Oculus forum, the annual pumpkin sculpting contest is inviting people to create a pumpkin for one of the two categories. This can be a simple Jack-o-lantern carving or an advanced pumpkin object or scene, which must be made from using the base pumpkin sculpt which can be downloaded from the Medium Newsfeed here. The final submission must be three photos of the finished sculpt and/or a 20-second video that showcases off your creation.

There are a number of rules for the contest that must be followed in order to take part. This includes using the base pumpkin sculpt as a starting point for the finished product. All screenshots and videos must be taken within Oculus medium using the internal photo and video tools and submissions must be shared to a users Oculus Medium web gallery. There can only be one entry per participant and they must be 18 years of age or older and from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada (excluding Quebec), France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland or Japan. Of course, all submissions must be original designs.

Oculus Medium header

Once you have finished and submitted your entry it will be put up against the judges who will review entities and award points for a number of different reasons. 30 points will be awarded for the following criteria: Design creativity and uniqueness, interpretation and clarity of theme to the judges/viewers, and built as a standing object (can be 3D printed and imported into Oculus Home). 10 points will be awarded for presentation and the choice of using pictures or a video will not be counted against the submission or awarded points.

The deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2018 at 11:59pm PT and more information on the full contest rules and submission process can be found here. The winner of the contest will get to win a 3D printed prize from the Oculus Medium team but details on this have not been revealed yet. VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest on Oculus Medium in the future so stay tuned for more.