MultiBrush is one of these community alternatives, offering the same functionality as the base app while also allowing more than one player to work on an artwork at the same time. MultiBrush launched over a year ago, first appearing on App Lab in 2021 before moving over to the official Quest Store in January 2022.
Up until now, other users in MultiBrush were represented by a floating headset. Thanks to a new update that rolled out this week, users can now use their Meta avatar in MultiBrush, meaning you’re able to create art with your friends, represented by their actual avatars.
Interestingly, the avatars will even scale up and down in size to match the scale of the user. As you can see in the screenshot below, the user has zoomed out of the tree artwork and is looking at two other users, who appear smaller to match the scale they’re working at.
This should massively increase immersion and presence in MultiBrush, especially when used in conjunction with the new passthrough integration to use the app in your own space via the Quest’s cameras
MultiBrush is available for $19.99 on Meta Quest. While the original Tilt Brush app by Google is also still available on Quest for $19.99, Open Brush is available on App Lab and offers all the same (and increased) functionality as Google’s original app, entirely for free.
Once Open Brush adds multiplayer and passthrough, MultiBrush may have to add more features to justify its price tag. The developers do mention that they have “exciting plans on the horizon”, so we’ll be keeping an eye on both apps over the next few months.
Yes that's right, we're putting the finishing touches to OpenXR passthrough support for Open Brush! AR Passthrough is one of the many the exciting Open Brush developments coming soon for all platforms, forever free pic.twitter.com/s77wZv03B5
As you can see in the video above, the new mode will let you use Tilt Brush in your real environment in Passthrough mode, acting as a halfway point between VR and true AR.
OpenBrush is a free, community-developed continuation of Google’s Tilt Brush art software for VR, which Google ceased development on and made open source in early 2021. Open Brush received consistent updates since launch, driven entirely by the community, adding new features, brushes and modes to the app that go beyond the original functionality and scope of Google’s Tilt Brush release. The latest 1.0 update added snapping, grid functionality, brush jitter controls and a new lazy input feature, to name a few.
Since then, a variety of open source replacements for Tilt Brush sprung up across VR platforms, most notably Open Brush and MultiBrush.
MultiBrush launched last February and is essentially a version of Tilt Brush that allows players to create together in the same space on the same artwork. The app launched on Quest’s App Lab platform in 2021, but almost a year on, it is now available on the official Oculus Store for Quest.
Open Brush v1.0 is available NOW!
This update marks 1yr since Tilt Brush was open sourced, since then we have been crafting a bunch of new creative spells for all #VR magicians to enjoy!
Open Brush, on the other hand, doesn’t support multiplayer yet but has become an unofficial continuation of the original app, with the community adding new features and expanding Tilt Brush’s functionality far beyond where Google left it. The latest 1.0 update adds lots of new functionality, some of which can be viewed in the embedded video above.
Snapping and grid functionality is now available in Open Brush, along with jitter controls for brushes. Likewise, the new lazy input feature applies real-time input averaging, allowing for much easier creation of smooth curves when drawing at slow speeds. There’s plenty more features — you can read more in this blog post.
The post also makes it clear that the 1.0 update is far from the end for Open Brush. The development team says that they are close to transferring Open Brush over to OpenXR. This will also allow them to implement hand tracking support on Quest, along with passthrough view support as well. Multiplayer is also on the agenda, as well as custom user brushes.
Poly was Poly was first launched back in 2017 as a platform where users could visit, browse and download any of thousands of 3D objects in a virtual reality environment.
It also had a toolkit that other virtual reality developers could use to access the library.
Poly’s shutdown happened on the same day as the shutdown of Expeditions, a virtual reality travel app popular with educators.
Expeditions was an even bigger loss than Poly. It’s been used by millions of students since its launch in 2015.
“As we continue to build helpful and immersive AR experiences, we want to continue supporting the artists using Tilt Brush by putting it in your hands,” the company said. “This means open-sourcing Tilt Brush, allowing everyone to learn how we built the project, and encouraging them to take it in directions that are near and dear to them.
That sounds almost nice. Then, down below the listing of all the awards the app won and all the VR platforms it’s available on, Google added, “it is not an actively developed product.”
The end of Cardboard?
Google’s biggest virtual reality play is Google Cardboard, which is simultaneously a platform for software developers, a mobile phone app available for both Android and iPhones, a virtual reality headset made of actual cardboard, and an open-source headset standard that allowed hundreds of manufacturers to create their own low-cost phone-powered virtual reality headsets.
Some of the Cardboard headsets from third-party manufacturers.
Some of this still exists. While Google stopped the development of the Cardboard software in 2019, the code is still available as an open-source project. And third-party manufacturers are still making the headsets, but in March Google stopped selling its own Cardboard headsets in the Google Store. There was no official announcement of this, but 9to5Google and other media spotted a note that the product has been discontinued. That note is now gone, too.
In 2016, Google Cardboard was supplanted by Daydream, a slightly better development platform for mobile-based virtual reality that supported a headset button and a motion controller. To go with it, Google also released a nicer headset, made of plastic and fabric, called the Daydream View. Hypergrid Business editor Maria Korolov reviewed that headset in the fall of 2016 and liked it a lot.
Daydream View headset with Pixel XL smartphone. (Photo by Maria Korolov.)
The Daydream platform had support for VR versions of YouTube, Hulu, CNN, USA Today, Street View, and a couple of brand-name games including Ghostbusters and Fantastic Beasts. Over time, it lost support for Hulu and other apps. In 2019, Google stopped selling the headset.
Last October, Google announced that the Daydream software was no longer supported. “You may still be able to access the service,” the company said, “but it won’t receive any more software or security updates.” Google also said that Daydream would not work in Android version 11 or above. Android 11 is the current version of Android.
In addition to Cardboard and Daydream, there was one other major phone-based virtual reality platform — the Samsung Gear VR.
Samsung officially announced its death in February of 2019. “The Gear VR and Samsung XR have reached end of service and will no longer be supported,” the company said. “The videos and apps related to this feature will also be discontinued.”
But VR itself isn’t dead
With all this bad news, you’d think that virtual reality has hit a dead end.
The firm predicts that virtual reality headset shipments will grow 29 percent this year and will grow even faster in the future. “The long-term outlook remains quite strong as global shipments grow to 28.6 million in 2025 with a 41.4 percent compound annual growth rate,” the research firm said.
Other researchers also expect continued growth.
Grand View Research, which estimates that the virtual reality market reached nearly $16 billion in 2020, predicts that it will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18 percent over the next seven years.
So where is the growth coming from?
According to IDC, the biggest growth was due to Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset. Shipments more than tripled last year, due to its reasonable price and people’s need for gaming and socializing during the pandemic. Other gainers included Chinese companies DPVR and Pico.
All three companies make higher-end headsets, either ones that connect to PC computers or are standalone sets with their own computing power.
It offers VR artists a way to store their creations online, including environments and models built using Tilt Brush and its new open-source counterpart, Open Brush.
Icosa Gallery is the latest option for Tilt Brush creators, with the ability to upload GLTF and GLB files from Tilt Brush sketches and have them display and animate online in the same way as they would in Tilt Brush. There’s also plans for direct integration with Open Brush in the future, as well as support for the .tilt sketch files. It’s also possible to import all of your current Poly creations into Icosa Gallery before the service shuts down in a week’s time.
Earlier this year, Google announced that it was ending official development support for Tilt Brush but would be adding the source code to a repository on GitHub. This allows the VR developer community to crawl around the code and create their own versions of the software with new features or other changes, preserving it beyond official support.
Open Brush is one such project, described as a “derivative made from the open source code of Tilt Brush”, which initially launched for Oculus Quest via App Lab. Almost six months later, Open Brush is available for PC VR on Steam, and brings with it a few new features.
The biggest new feature is full mixed reality support. Google’s original Tilt Brush app did have limited mixed reality support, “but suffered from blending issues with darker strokes” according to the Open Brush blog. Open Brush on PC VR has full integration with LIV, the leading mixed reality capture software. Additionally, the Quest version of Open Brush has also been updated to include mixed reality support as well, using the Oculus Mixed Reality Capture Tool.
Open Brush also now features the Fly tool, which is available in advanced mode and lets you “reach out and pull the trigger to fly around your scene like your favorite heroes.”
The team plans to add Icosa Gallery support for sharing creations, to act as a replacement for the soon-defunct Google Poly. Plans are also in place for user brush support, allowing users to make their own brushes without digging into the source code.
Open Brush will also eventually move to Unity XR, away from Unity 2019 and the SteamVR SDK. This should future-proof the app a bit more and allow support for future headsets.
Psychic VR Lab’s VR creation platform, Styly, is adding direct uploads for Google Tilt Brush creations, after news of Poly’s demise.
Operated out of Tokyo, Japan, Styly allows any user to jump in and start making 3D content almost instantly. These experiences can be viewed online via browser or fully inside VR via a native SteamVR app. By stepping in with Tilt Brush support, Styly will offer creators a new destination to publish their creations and share them with others.
As an online library of 3D assets and scenes, Poly played an important role in keeping content creation accessible on the platform. But, in December 2020, Google announced it would be shutting Poly down on June 30th of this year. While support for Poly will continue on the platform, Styly users can now export Tilt Brush creations as a glb file and upload them directly to the app. More info about exactly how to upload can be found here.
“The closure of Google Poly will drastically reduce the number of places where Tilt Brush artists can present their works, which will in turn affect the creative activities of many artists and will be a major issue for the culture of XR art,” said Ryohei Watanabe, CMO of Psychic VR Lab, in a prepared statement. “We have decided to officially support Tilt Brush with STYLY in order to support the creative activities of Tilt Brush artists in their continuous efforts to break new ground for XR art.”
Psychic VR itself raised a further $8.5 million in funding earlier this year, bringing its total raised to $18 million to date. Recently, the company launched a mixed reality version of its app for the Nreal glasses.
Google has been dropping support left and right for its virtual reality (VR) initiatives but others in the industry are either helping pick up the slack or giving users alternative avenues to explore. Tilt Brush recently went open-source and now web-based creative platform STYLY has announced official support for 3D models built in the painting app.
It was necessary due to the fact that Google Poly is closing this year, where artists could upload their models and then use them in STYLY. Now developer Psychic VR Lab is enabling artists to directly upload their creations to STYLY to remove that worry.
“STYLY has supported the Google Poly API for many years, offering a platform for Tilt Brush artists to easily create and distribute XR content. The closure of Google Poly will drastically reduce the number of places where Tilt Brush artists can present their works, which will, in turn, affect the creative activities of many artists and will be a major issue for the culture of XR art,” says Ryohei Watanabe, CMO of Psychic VR Lab in a statement. “We have decided to officially support Tilt Brush with STYLY in order to support the creative activities of Tilt Brush artists in their continuous efforts to break new ground for XR art.”
To upload your Tilt Brush artwork Psychic VR Lab explains that the: “3D modeling data created with Tilt Brush can be uploaded to STYLY after exporting it as a glb file.” For further information on the process follow this link.
The Japanese studio launched STYLY in 2017 as a web platform specifically tailored to the easy creation of VR experiences. A cloud-based solution, creators can use STYLY for any type of artistic projects, some have created music videos whilst others down the anime route. All of which are promoted every year as part of the NEWVIEW Awards held in Tokyo. In addition to VR, Psychic VR Lab added augmented reality (AR) support last summer, greatly expanding STYLY’s functionality. The studio recently held a successful funding round, managing to raise $8.5 million USD (¥900m JPY) towards expanding the platform globally.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of STYLY as well as its NEWVIEW Awards, reporting back with further updates.
Thanks to Tilt Brush going open source, we already have Multibrush from Rendever, a free multiplayer version of the groundbreaking VR app available now for Quest via SideQuest. It’s also coming soon to App Lab so you won’t have to sidelaod it.
We figured it was only a matter of time before someone released a multiplayer version of Tilt Brush, but admittedly I thought it would take a little bit longer than a week and a half or so. Luckily, the ingenuity of VR developers knows no bounds.
MultiBrush is out now on SideQuest, where you can sideload the app onto your headset to check it out and collaborate with other VR users online. This is an early 0.01b version of the app so you should expect some issues here and there.
According to the developers from Rendever:
“When Google announced it was open sourcing Tilt Brush last week, Rendever Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer Tom Neumann immediately went to work developing a multiplayer version of the popular app that gives creators a way to make art in virtual reality. Within 10 hours, the team developed a working prototype of multiplayer – a feature that has been eagerly requested by Tilt Brush users for years. Given Rendever’s mission to improve health through social VR experiences, Neumann and his team were able to leverage their extensive expertise to develop this version in record time.”
Since Rendever have already confirmed the app is definitely coming to App Lab very soon, you could just hold off if you wanted to avoid sideloading. It hopefully won’t be too long before you can just access it directly from an App Lab page. Here’s more details on how to download App Lab games onto your Quest without even needing a PC at all.
Or you can grab it now on SideQuest. Let us know what you think!
It’s been about a week since Google announced it had stopped active development on VR creation suite Tilt Brush (2016) and made the app open source. Now that it’s in the hands of the developer community, we’ve seen Tilt Brush clones aplenty, however SideQuest app MultiBrush gives it something we always hoped it would have: multiplayer mode on Quest.
To get MultiBrush, you’ll need to set up SideQuest, the headset’s unofficial app store. Check out our simple guide of how (and why) to use SideQuest to download this and a mountain of other games and apps.
Rendever says they have plan to publish through Facebook’s App Lab for Quest, which would effectively allow all Quest users to download the app without needing SideQuest.
“This is a first release, some things may not work perfectly and we are still implementing some tools in the multiplayer rooms,” Rendever says. “In individual canvases, the full set of tools is available to you. Stay tuned for more!”
Open Brush v1.0 is available NOW! 
We are a free open source Google Poly replacement, built by the community, for the community 
, Icosa is the perfect home for your magical VR worlds.
