As part of the design aspect of looking at 3D art programs, I looked at Paint 3D on my computer. It came free with the Windows Creator update.
It’s much more than an expansion of their original drawing program, Microsoft Paint. There’s a ton of new and convenient features.

3D objects
-Pre-made ones in the program
-Online library you can download from
-Draw your own, and choose from hard or soft edges

Colouring them
-You select an object or the background, and it locks on
-So you can only draw on one or the other at a time, which makes it a lot easier to do cleanly
-Easy to turn object on all axis
-You can use all of the tools, even the default stickers, on the 3D objects

Other things
-There’s lighting effects, and you can choose the colour of the light and a place for it to be coming from
-There is an array of different brushes, which you can change the size and opacity of
-There is a colour pick tool, a colour wheel, hex code input, and RGB input, as well as default colours you can choose from
-All brushes can be changed to matte, gloss, dull metal, or polished metal finishes

It’s a really powerful and useful program. Actual layers would be nice, but that’s more working in two dimensions, so they aren’t really necessary here. It’s a lot of fun to use!

Medium is a lot more complicated, and a lot more customizable than the others, but with less of the fun features. It’s more serious. The background can only be a sky or a flat colour, and there isn’t the objects like a pre-built snowman base, the little Android guy and dress form as there is in Sketch Up. It also doesn’t seem to have a movement feature, which sucks because the teleport feature was convenient. The area in medium is relatively small, as well, and you can move the objects through it instead of yourself. Quill also doesn’t have a movement feature, so you drag things around you and turn.

In terms of different brushes, Tilt Brush is far more varied, with sparkle, fire, bubble, and regular brushes. Quill only has basic brushes, and Medium has more tools. In erasing, they work quite differently. In Medium, its hard to erase because it takes out part and fades the area around it, though it’s possible that there is a way to change this. Quill erases more of a chunk, which can get annoying, but it’s more precise than Tilt Brush which erases the whole stroke.

A nice feature in Tilt Brush is adding in references, which you can move, change the size of, and colour pick from. You can do the same in Quill except you have to compare the colours yourself, unfortunately.

All of the programs have their own strengths and weaknesses, and are used best to create different sorts of things. Tilt Brush, for a drawing or painting, Medium for a sculpture or figure, and Quill for an immersive environment.

Quill-
Quill by Story Studio walks you through a sort of story in it’s tutorials, having you connect dots (who are in love), and then connecting other dots (to make the place where they live), and other such activities. There’s also little colouring pages. You have a menu where you can choose colours and such, but it gives you a palette for simplicity.
Things you can change: colour opacity, brush (ex. Thin flat, square, round), brush size and line width.
You move through dragging and pulling, and it moves the canvas around you. Turning does turn the camera, though.
There’s also a straight line tool, for simplicity.
It also has some really stunning scenes you can move your way though, complete with music. They are very surreal.
The blank canvas and backgrounds are off white, so they aren’t too glaring and you can add white details.
To select things, you have to like push your hand down through the menu, which feels a little weird.

Medium-
Oculus Medium is rather complicated, and feels professional. The background can only be a sky or a flat colour of your choice. There is no movement feature, though you can move objects around you. The area you have to work in is relatively small, so you can reach everything.
There are a lot of precise tools in Medium, but it’s difficult and kind of confusing, because its more tuned to sculpting than painting. It’s easier to scrape away chunks of what you made than erase. Colours in Medium seem kind of dull, as well.

Tilt Brush-
Celina’s favourite, Tilt brush is less professional than Medium. You can chose from a range of environments, like sky, snow, and pink lemonade. There are pre built bases, like shapes you can draw on and others, like a dress form, snowman, and the little Android gun. Movement is done with a teleport feature, which allows you to move through the large area.
It has a mirror feature, which works in three dimensions if you like, but erasing from one side does not erase from the other which is odd. There is numerous different effects for brushes. Sparkles, air can, traditional paint brush, smooth, and more, and you select colour off of a grid. You paint with one hand, and hold the menu on the other, and can leave it on what you’d like for easy access.
Another interesting feature is when you scale things, it gives you an idea of it in relation to real life-human sized, elephant sized, etc. And one of the best features is that you can input your own pictures into the program, move them around, and even colour pick from them! We brought one in so Celina could try drawing a Magikarp (which I will upload pictures of after with the design part of this project).

For ICTX, I am working with a classmate on a project that is sort of a combination of interface and design, comparing three VR 3D art programs, Medium, Tilt Brush, and Quill, all of which are available for the Oculus Rift.

I finished the full tutorial, and after a long time of trying to fix an issue with the code, the app works! It’s a lot simpler then I thought it would be, because the UI Kit takes care of all the code behind displaying images and randomization, and you just need to write out a few words.

It went through stages. Last update, it was sort of empty, just a template to fill in. Now, upon pressing the deal button, it displays two cards at random, and tallies the score based on the assigned number value of the cards (ace being high). The score doesn’t change at all for ties.

I’ve done well over a hundred dealings, and the CPU seems to have a higher win rate, but I suppose that’s just luck as it is the same code behind both sides. Here are a few pictures of it working in the simulator:

I’m not sure exactly what I will try and do next, but I’m having a lot of fun with Xcode so I’m excited to play around with it more.