Google is stopping the development of the virtual reality painting app Tilt Brush – one of the most well-known VR applications – and making it open source. Tilt Brush was acquired by Google in 2015 after being introduced for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and it was quickly folded into the company’s larger VR plans, such as its Google Cardboard and Daydream headset.
Tilt Brush’s main feature is three-dimensional paintings in VR, but the app has received interesting updates over its tenure at Google, including support for multiplayer and an open source toolkit that offers the ability to execute Tilt Brush drawings for use in animation . With this latest announcement, the development comes to an end, and the future support of Tilt Brush is in the hands of the community that still uses it.
Tilt Brush’s code can now be obtained on GitHub, but Google says some features had to be removed from the open source release due to license restrictions. If you want to try to tinker with open source Tilt Brush, the company gives detailed instructions on how to rebuild the missing features in the app. In addition, Tilt Brush will still be available to download in all the major VR app stores.
Tilt Brush is just the latest in a series of discontinued Google VR projects. Daydream VR headsets have been discontinued around the launch of the Pixel 4, Google Cardboard got a similar open source launch in 2019, the Jump camera and video service are 86s the same year and the VR field trip software Expeditions is driving away in the sunset in 2020. The projects that still exist include VR versions of YouTube and Google Earth, as well as the game development studio Owlchemy Labs.
Google and Alphabet are no strangers to killing former darlings and other people’s current ones. (Look no further than Loon for a strange and exciting project that recently ended.) But moving things to the open source seems like a sensible compromise for the people who still use these products every day. Without Google resources, everything that goes next for Tilt Brush would still be a way, but it’s nice that the cemetery has a new tombstone spared.