Google has acquired its groundbreaking art app Tilt Brush, which is the latest step by the technology giant to halt the development of its first attempts at virtual reality.
Google named the developers behind the art app in 2015 as hype surrounding VR built before the release of Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. It has become the best VR art application in recent years and a regular showpiece for VR demo givers who wanted to show that the medium has potential outside of games. Google has also integrated Tilt Brush tightly with its Poly 3D object hosting service, which the company had earlier announced it would discontinue in late June.
Today is my last day at Google. (!!!)
Next week I start with @quarkcannon and the @i_illusions crew on a very, very special VR thing.
I will be independent again, so I would like to hear if you have a board project you would like to work on.
2021, let’s get it !! 🎉🎉🎉
– Patrick Hackett (@phacktweets) 8 January 2021
The addition of Tilt Brush to an open source repository on Github is a gift to the VR development community, along with other VR developers crawling through the code for insights or ideas.
“Tiltbrush has inspired Modbox more than any other project, so I will definitely look at their source. “Or I’ll learn something or find out I’m better coded than Google – no matter how worth it,” Lee Modeulen, creator of Modbox, wrote in an instant message.
‘Tilt Brush’ open source ‘, although sad that it has reached the end of official development, is the greatest gift Google has been able to make for the community. There is a long list of features the community wants to add, such as multiplayer support and more brushes, we can now free to add anything we want! Personally, I am very much looking forward to LIV integration for my work for mixed reality, and we will also be able to add support for a community replacement for Poly, called Icosa Gallery, ”he wrote. VR artist Rosie Summers in an instant message.
Patrick Hackett, co-creator of the original software, left Google earlier this month to join Space Pirate Trainer developer I-Illusions ‘about a very, very special VR thing.’ The head of Google-owned Owlchemy Labs – the studio behind Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator – wrote in a tweet: ‘We continue to grow, build great games for everyone, innovate and push VR forward! We also can not wait to announce our next big thing! ”
With the announcement of Tilt Brush, some people have asked if it will change anything at Owlchemy. It’s not going to happen, we continue to grow, build great games for everyone, innovate and push VR forward! We also can not wait to announce our next big thing!
– Devin Reimer (@DevinReimer) 26 January 2021
The announcement comes a day after Gravity Sketch switched to a pricing model free for individual use on all devices. The transition from Tilt Brush to an open source saltier Gravity Sketch as the art app for VR.
“To some, it may seem like the end of Tilt Brush,” Hackett said. wrote. “To me, it’s immortality.”