Do you think VR Modeling/Sculpting will ever be used in a Prodcution Pipleine?
polycounter lvl 9
I looked around for a similar question on PolyCOunt but haven't found anything so I'm asking this.
As we all know already, Virtual Reality is taking expansion right now in the industry, being mostly used as an entertainment interactive space. From games, to animated movies, to 3D scenes as well as simulations, the technology let us take a whole new approach at seeing virtual 3D spaces.
However, after watching this convention, I wondered if in the creation process could be used in a real production pipeline.
Don't watch it completely as it's not all that interesting really but there's a few highlight i'd like to talk about.
Here's the vid :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZcYvrbKWJc
The artist seen in the video is Goro Fujita, which was the creator of this popular scene here, using the same workflow he did in the above video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzsG1uqfDTQ
But let's look at a few key points from the video here:
At 13:10, we can see him going really far away showing alot of the work he did in the scene and I'm wondering if such a scene could even be used interactively, say if we adopted the same painted art style for a cel shaded game.
Starting from 22 minutes, he start sculpting a robot using a few tools and subtools available in the library. After only about 20 minutes, he creates this kinda average yet cool robot.
Now here's the thing that's bugging me, at 45:30, he starts showing a bunch of pretty cool works he did in his spare time and said something along the line of:
''these took me one hour in VR but these will take me days if not weeks to sculpt using traditional 3d sculpting tools''.
NOw of course, his models aren't production fit or ready but still, that's pretty amazing. As of now, I only thought artists who played with Oculus , Quill and Tiltbrush were only doing it for fun but it actually seems that some people would like to see it work in real productions..:D
Basically, as the technology will evolve, do you ever see yourself, waking up in the morning, take breakfast, get to your studio and upon your arrival, instead of going straight to your office/station, going to the VR room and start sculpting out your work?
As we all know already, Virtual Reality is taking expansion right now in the industry, being mostly used as an entertainment interactive space. From games, to animated movies, to 3D scenes as well as simulations, the technology let us take a whole new approach at seeing virtual 3D spaces.
However, after watching this convention, I wondered if in the creation process could be used in a real production pipeline.
Don't watch it completely as it's not all that interesting really but there's a few highlight i'd like to talk about.
Here's the vid :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZcYvrbKWJcThe artist seen in the video is Goro Fujita, which was the creator of this popular scene here, using the same workflow he did in the above video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzsG1uqfDTQBut let's look at a few key points from the video here:
At 13:10, we can see him going really far away showing alot of the work he did in the scene and I'm wondering if such a scene could even be used interactively, say if we adopted the same painted art style for a cel shaded game.
Starting from 22 minutes, he start sculpting a robot using a few tools and subtools available in the library. After only about 20 minutes, he creates this kinda average yet cool robot.
Now here's the thing that's bugging me, at 45:30, he starts showing a bunch of pretty cool works he did in his spare time and said something along the line of:
''these took me one hour in VR but these will take me days if not weeks to sculpt using traditional 3d sculpting tools''.
NOw of course, his models aren't production fit or ready but still, that's pretty amazing. As of now, I only thought artists who played with Oculus , Quill and Tiltbrush were only doing it for fun but it actually seems that some people would like to see it work in real productions..:D
Basically, as the technology will evolve, do you ever see yourself, waking up in the morning, take breakfast, get to your studio and upon your arrival, instead of going straight to your office/station, going to the VR room and start sculpting out your work?
Replies
as for the tools shown in the video, I would call that 3D painting rather then 3D modeling/sculpting. so I would compare it to speedpainting/sketching rather then 3D modeling.
with that said, using it as a sketching/concept tool, sure, why not?
however, The biggest problem with VR at the moment is the interface, there is simply no way VR can replace a keyboard and or mouse with multiple keybinding and hotkeys, at least not in its current state.
I really though you were positively serious until I kept on reading til the end.
Lol, if you see he's been repeating the same brush strokes for too long, you may start getting suspicious...
there was a sculpting device in the early 2000's, some sort of robot arm where you'd hold on to it's tip and move it over the virtual asset displayed on your screen, simulating the underlying shape by providing resistance. perhaps something like that. no hand waving, pretty sure.
I think we are a long way off but its already an interesting medium to keep an eye on. I'm not personally a fan of the idea of leaving the real world behind for your whole work day but that's another discussion entirely.
This might be one of those things, but it will need a lot of work before it gets to that point and it's a pretty niche market so I'm not sure it will be "the big one" they need it to be.
but you would still basically wave your hands around, wouldn't you? i think it would be way too jittery and probably quite exhausting after a while, considering you need to perform precision movements in sculpting.
i was thinking of this:
Further than just concepting and standalone tools though, I think there's a lot of potential for 'virtual work spaces' as an alternative or more realistically addition to a standard monitor once the fidelity is up to scratch. I particularly like the idea of having a virtual representation of the desk I am sat at but with a floating representation of my traditional computer desktop and windows. Potentially with camera overlay when I look down at the keyboard area or via shortcut key + mousewheel to control opacity.This gives me all the functionality I have now, and spatial awareness, but then we have the freedom to add so much, we can for example:
Drag windows out of the desktop plane and place them around us anywhere, for example we may desire reference photography all around us while we sculpt (looking at the virtual screen), but then we might decide to pull an instance of the model out of the virtual screen and place it in 3D next to the screen, or behind it scaled to real world scale. Perhaps set it to rotate while we still work traditionally - getting the benefits of old and new. Then comes time to texture it and you decide to switch to VR controllers and bring the 3D representation back to the desk, and start applying airbrush paint to it.
In zbrush I may rough out my model with a tool similar to the 3D sculpting app with the VR controllers, but then switch back to traditional on the virtual screen with my wacom for precision sculpting, and then decide to pull out a 3D representation or two and place them around and see them update in realtime as I continue to work on the virtual screen, or with the controllers, or both.
It requires the big-boy companies building in this functionality but I think they will before long. It's easy to see enthusiasm for these emerging tools and imagine that they aim to completely replace what we have, but I think the more realistic path is that we will see our current workflows evolve and ultimately merge with these new things for the best of both worlds.
It might of course be that we just put the headset on and use specific tools with it, then take it off and go back to our main tools, but I like to think my vision for workspaces could be nice. We could place sculpts at life size all around us, imagery, references and have various web feeds etc stream in and display in a minimal way against a wall or something. Maybe my game has a beautiful location in it, and I decide to sit in that location in VR while i lazily and enjoyably do some concept work while watching npcs walk by - fully immersed in the world while i create for the world, but not necessarily just like sitting in the game editor using its vr functionality, i mean using the game as my workspace while I do whatever. I can do life drawing in my own game hahaha.
There's potential for all sorts, I think it will also in general empower each of us to do more. I'm excited to see what developers do with VR.
I think the general population, outside of consuming entertainment, will use AR more, but for an industry make immersive experiences, it would certainly be useful to be able to immerse yourself in it while you work, and given screen space is something we all always want more of, having the ability to put windows all around you instead of inside a single rectangle will certainly be useful once proper support is there.
First off, VR on the Vive is absolutely amazing. As in ... playing a good game on it is indeed virtual reality in the most literal sense of the word. Extremely accurate tracking, amazing sense of presence within the virtual space - it's that good. The low resolution is a bit off-putting at first but it once things start moving the illusion is totally there.
Now as far as VR art creation is concerned : all I can say is that while there is definitely something exhilarating about laying down VR strokes or VR voxels in Tiltbrush/Kodon/Medium ... this doesn't really bring anything new to the table at all as far as design is concerned. Similarly to the way sketching a powerful, economical line will always be faster on paper than in Zbrush, VR is never going to make anyone better at designing anything. As a matter of fact I find that VR creation apps tend to make artists draw/sculpt things they know how to draw already, because while VR makes gestural creation very intuitive, it is really, really awkward when it comes to editing things down - which is the core of any design task. It's pretty hard to explain but I think anyone who's tried it will see what I mean. Artists who rely a lot on improvisation (ie "finding shapes in the clouds") will definitely be able to get some stuff done out of it ; but this is a long shot from the reality of having to work with a precise design brief, with limitations and constraints.
Now all that said, VR is absolutely amazing when it comes to reviewing one's own 3d creations. Being able to walk around a character model to review it from all angles and at various scales, and being able to walk into a full-on 3d environment as if you were really there is something I wish anyone could experience - it really is that good.
So, my answer to the OP is that yes, it will definitely be used in production pipelines because it is amazing as a review tool. But while it has some interesting/quirky uses for illustration (as demonstrated by the clever stuff currently being done in Quill and TiltBrush), it is, however, not really that interesting as a design/editing environment.
Now that said UX paradigms are definitely in their early infancy, no doubt about that - the Vive controller while fantastic for gaming, is definitely cumbersome in some creation apps. The Touch controllers might be better in that regard, so I can't wait to try the Vive equivalent to them whenever that comes out. But all that said the Achille's heel of the whole VR thing for art content creation is probably (and ironically enough) the 1:1 tracking. If great ideas often start with a napkin sketch, then there's really no equivalent to that in VR ...
@Chimp : for sure, there are definitely some awesome possibilities, no doubt about that. All I am getting at is that as far as pure design work is concerned, VR doesn't necessarily add as much stuff as it may initially seem.
This gentlemen is doing some pretty amazing sculpts: https://www.instagram.com/gionakpil/
I'm not sure where it will land..there are some cool experiments going on though
This question is too broad to not be a yes. Heck, I'm sure someone has already used VR for something in production. I'm inclined to think it will never be the only way, but I think it will definitely serve a purpose in production, and will be used, as soon as the tech makes it truly viable.