Paint 3D: Getting Creative

As we mentioned elsewhere, Paint 3D is genuinely one of the most impressive additions included with the Creators Update. When seeing it first-hand, creating three-dimensional pieces of art truly is as simple as Microsoft demonstrated at the update’s reveal event last year.

Then again, it’s clear that this app has the capacity to allow for quite a bit of complexity, too. Most of that simplicity comes down to how intuitively the app communicates three dimensions in a twodimensional space. Clever, minimalist use of sliders and other toggles enables you to shift your creation’s position on either axis.

Of course, a wide selection of pre-loaded creation templates—such as goldfish—will help newcomers out immensely. Naturally, it wouldn’t be Paint without the ability to freehand in 3D, and thus comes the desire to share those custom creations. That’s where Remix.com, Microsoft’s online portal for sharing these Paint 3D projects, comes into play.

The way in which Paint 3D communicates how to create in a new dimension so easily for the average user, yet offers the depth to please them as they increase in skill, could do a lot of good for the 3D printing scene, as well as VR, and so many other fields further down the road—such as being able to add our creations to games.

Granted, Paint 3D is by no means a professional-grade 3D modeling app—this is purely meant for the vast majority of Windows 10 users who would just like to dabble. You can also export anything created in Paint 3D as 3D-ready FBX or 3MF files for 3D printers.

Regardless, we’re already impressed with what Paint 3D can do, and only hope it grows from here. Oh, and don’t worry, the old Paint remains untouched.