Ever since Tilt Brush from Google first released earlier this year on Steam with official support for the HTC Vive, thousands of people have created amazing works of art. The app lets you paint in the air using brushes and strokes that actually occupy the 3D space that surrounds you. Game developers have prototyped levels in the app and we continue to see more amazing creations every day. Today, Google is taking the TiltBrush art scene a step further by announcing the Tilt Brush Artist in Residence Program.
The best way to improve a piece of software is to hand it over to an end-user or expert in a respective field and let them use it. Watch what they do, how they do it, and what their pain points are. Focus tests, beta tests, and quality assurance are all huge parts of software development, but when you’re creating something that also lets other people create something themselves, it gets a lot more complicated.
In the company’s own words:
Google recently teamed up with various artists, painters, cartoonists, dancers, designers, and other creators for a unique Artist in Residence program. Each artist was given the chance to work with Tilt Brush – a new virtual reality tool that let’s you draw and create in 3D space.
The Google team worked closely with each artist to further develop the tool and ultimately better understand the potential of this new form of art creation.
According to Google, these artists include 60 passionate creators specializing in a variety of disciplines. The AiR program includes, “graffiti artists, painters, illustrators, graphic designers, dancers, concept artists, creative technologists and cartoonists”.
The purpose of the AiR program seems to be community-driven product development. According to an official Google blog post, these 60 creators have already begun collaboratively solving some of Tilt Brush’s problems together.
According to the post, When two of the artists noticed that exporting their creations was difficult they suggested fixes that now make animation easier in VR. A longtime Disney animator served to inspire the Media Library feature which allows 3D models to be imported into TiltBrush sketches. Even the new YouTube export feature came about as a result of the clamor generated by the AiR participants.
Google isn’t done receiving feedback either. According to the company:
“There’s much more to come from Tilt Brush and our Artists in Residence. We’ll continue working with more artists over time and updating our site with what they create. If you’re using Tilt Brush, we’d love to see what you’ve made — share it with us using #TiltBrush.”
You can visit the AiR program’s website anytime to see the most recent works of its members.
Additional reporting on this article was performed by Games Editor David Jagneaux.
