Disney has shown off an internal tool for posing and animating 3D models from inside VR. Called PoseVR, the tool is an experimental project exploring the potential of VR for 3D creation. Disney has not indicated that this will be released or even further developed.
Disney describes the tool as:
Removing inefficiency and distractions to allow artists to focus on their craft is one of our core tenets that drives innovation. PoseVR is an experimental project established to demonstrate the potential of VR as a tool to pose and animate CG characters.
A multidisciplinary team composed of engineers and animators developed and tested PoseVR to invent a functioning, posable rig in VR and to test assumptions on design and workflow. This informed us how to expand our current workflows while also showing the benefits and potential of VR for our future animation toolsets.
Animation was also a core focus of MARUI’s VR plugins for Maya and Blender. Using your hands to directly manipulate parts of the model that should move can be far more intuitive than the current approach of trying to move and rotate elements in 3D space with a mouse & keyboard.
Companies across the 3D creation industry are coming to the same conclusion: VR is perfectly suited for animation. While this tool isn’t being released publicly, we expect many like it to emerge in the coming years. This is a workflow which VR will almost certainly disrupt.
