vr tools: oculus medium
digital artists Bay raitt and glen southern share their experiences with oculus’ sculpting and painting tool, medium
Bay RAITT what were your first impressions of Medium?
Before seeing it, I’d been sculpting in voxels for years, so it was especially cool for me to not feel trapped on the wrong side of the looking glass with a computer monitor. That feeling of really being able to touch the VR clay was profound. I also remember thinking that the VR UX in Medium was staggering. Having the touch controllers come to life in my hand like little transforming gizmos blew my mind – it kind of felt like my old gamepad controller just levelled up and became an industrial art tool that could do Hadouken!
is Medium as close as you’ve come To Real sculpting, BUT done digitally?
I worked at the Weta Workshop in New Zealand with Sir Richard Taylor as a concept artist and sculptor, and so sculpt with Chavant clay, edge loops and voxels natively. But Medium is so much closer to real clay than a flatscreen tool. Smooth in Medium feels like using a heatgun with Chavant or rubbing alcohol with Sculpey clay.
what led To you creating a vr comic and how did Medium help in your work?
My first job was actually working at Olyoptics, colouring on the first Image comic books. Later I was the creature facial lead at Weta Digital on Gollum, and then a Valve employee for nine years, so the idea for a VR comic came out of daydream to merge all that expertise into one bite-sized blast of awesome that would be as much fun to create as consume. Medium is central to this, because it offers that sweet spot between making and playing. It’s wicked, fast 3D technology disguised as a toy.
Glen southern what advice would you Give To anyone starting in Medium?
Just get on and try it. It is very hard to explain how amazing the sculpting experience is until you’ve tried it. There are only a handful of creation tools in VR and Medium has given us the best result. Trust me. Just try it!
how useful is The live Recording function?
It’s useful when you want to demo an idea or a concept to a client who also has an Oculus Rift to hand. I think the recording feature is one of the most exciting aspects of the program. I would love to see it expanded to allow two people to be in the Medium environment at once.