Inside Oculus Medium

Oculus Medium’s creator Brian Sharp explains how sculpting in virtual reality could shape the future of CG art.

- Brian Sharp

With the launch of the Oculus Touch controllers in December 2016 came a unique, new in-VR sculpting software called Medium. This is not a gimmick, but a fully formed sculpting software aimed at offering artists the tools to create concept sculpts in a virtual space.

Developed over the course of two and half years by Brian Sharp and small team of initially four, with a further 10-15 artists and programers coming on board in the last six months, Medium could be the next essential CG art tool.

“My background is in video games and a lot of my work in games was creating tools for the artists – it’s what I did at Bungie for five years before I came to Oculus,” says Brian, who says he would observe artists using VR headsets, and then jiggle the windows on their monitors back and forth to try to get an idea of the shape of the model being worked on. He then struck on the idea for Medium. “In these headsets you can look around and you get a sense of the model, and I thought this was going to be a big thing, and would be perfect for modelling. People told me I was crazy. I pitched it to Oculus and they convinced me to be part of the company and have been super-generous with resources. We’re pretty psyched to be able to ship it finally.”

The future of scuplting

Oculus Medium enables you to sculpt directly in virtual reality, because, as Brian explains: “You can make content in VR that works anywhere, but it’s hard to make content on a monitor that works well in VR; it’s difficult work.”