Quill 2.0: Your One-Stop Shop VR Storytelling Animation Tool
Get the Social VR scoop with this Facebook Spaces Interview on the Quill VR updates with VR Animators Daniel Peixe and Nick Ladd.
Quill, as defined on its website, is a VR illustration and animation tool empowering creators to tell immersive stories. Earlier this month, Quill developers created just that — a place where animators could put on a headset and begin telling their stories in a simpler, more visually appealing way. Billed as the new 2.0 Version of Quill, the innovative tool has led to the creation of some pretty incredible and mesmerizing animations.
How and Why?
Because one can now create fuller, longer narratives in one place, with new cone audio sources, 1080p video capture resolution, and much more — making it easier than ever before to create the whole narrative experience within one software tool.
Naturally, to really understand and experience VR, I transported myself into social VR platform Facebook Spaces to talk:
✔️Updates…What’s New?
✔️Quill VR capabilities
✔️Projects that have been created since the update
✔️Perspectives of drawing in 2D vs 3D
✔️ Video Tutorials
✔️Resources and much more!
Who better to share insight than two very talented animators/illustrators Nick Ladd and Daniel Peixe? Check out this Facebook Live Interview with the two recently labeled Quill VR Mentors had to say about the Quill 2.0.
“It’s almost completely different than what it was, before there was no way to scrub through keyframes. Now there is.” — Daniel Peixe & Nick Ladd
Your New Timeline is Available NOW
Now there is a comprehensive timeline with long format animations, along with many more functions to edit and create your animation in VR.
You can hold a key frame for 100 frames, then break it down into small pieces. The way it was before made it almost impossible to create smooth animation. It had layers before making smaller loops but with the new update, it’s more like Adobe Premiere.
The Quill timeline gives a creator an impression of doing 2D animation in a 3D space, so it’s great for people who are used to creating 2D animations such as Flash.
How is Quill 2.0 Easier and More Efficient?
Short loops and lots of 10 Second loops — Quill 2.0 allows you to make any amount at your discretion. You can even do up to an hour now! Quill handles it very well and caters to the user and creator without boundaries.
There was no timeline before and limited space for images and telling a story. Imagine in 50 frames… If you wanted to make something longer than 50 frames, you would need to scroll constantly — a very tedious way to work to create something longer and cumulative.
With this update, the timeline is not just longer but also avails an infinite amount of time you can have along with a much bigger interface similar to Premiere. It allows you to offset different animations and generate a full view of your project in an easier way to create a little narrative. The previous version of Quill was only one image or loop animation that looked animated. This update allows you to create a much more meaningful story with a true narrative. — Daniel Peixe
Will you be able to skip a tool now? TiltBrush, Tvori, Blender, Maya, etc.
Nick Ladd says, “It will depend on what they want from their end result. If the goal is to create a film to be viewed in VR, you can go from concept sketch all the way to finished short film. Quill is the one-stop shop to create a VR short film.
Audio — Lip Syncing
Example 1
This animation only took Nick Ladd a few hours!
You can import an audio clip that was already created and animate that clip to a sequence of images as a reference, whereas before it was only an image.
Nick Ladd Explains The Shape of Audio
You make your words phonetically If you do a pose and you can add specific control of each frame individually.
For example, Nick Ladd created a library of his words by shape, such as saving the audio by the shape of the mouth, like the letter “U” that makes the mouth shape circle. You achieve very specific control in VR because you control every single frame individually.
Creative Audio Use in VR: In this Quill, Daniel Peixe created audio in the walkman of the guy painting the road!
Audio Tips:
- Make sure your sound layers are showing. If they are hidden, they won’t export to Quillustrations for Facebook Spaces. — Matt Schaefer
- Recording the audio for the video: “You have to screen capture it with OBS studio or similar. Resolution is lower but it works. If you want 1080p, you can capture the audio with OBS then match the clip with the high quality capture in an editing tool.” — Goro Fujita, Artist at Residence in Facebook working on Quill.
- One important thing I learned, check how your audio flows in video. The audio was designed for VR, so when I edited the Quill captures for video, it was a little jumpy — which is not how it actually feels in VR. To fix this, I let some of the music bleed from shot-to-shot making the cuts less jarring. This made it feel closer to the VR experience. I definitely recommend checking how your audio flows in video with this mindset. — Matt Schaefer
Transporting into a Portal of their Personal Art
Daniel Peixe: Daniel on his update to one of his previous animations using Quill 2.0 tools.
I did a run cycle for the girl in the animation, done frame-by-frame, sort of like a stop motion process.
You impose the frame, shoot a frame, then shoot another frame — animating in Quill is very similar.
You have your “puppet” and you can divide it into layers, chop it up by arms, legs, torso, head, etc. frame-by-frame putting your “puppet” into different poses, and then hit animate — that is how you see the animated girl running now.
Nick Ladd: Here is Nick’s update on his excitement for this update which he labels:
“In anticipation for my new VR life.”
Perspective 2D vs 3D
In traditional drawing, when you draw your perspective, you have to fake the perspective in VR.
If you come from the 2D drawing world and have started your journey drawing in Quill, you draw a real line. Note where Daniel explains this and how the camera is angled to get that perspective.
The Future of Storytelling in VR
Daniel Peixe: Tools like AnimVR and Quill allow you to create narratives via an all-in-one tool. It opens doors for creators and animators who always wanted to do a 3D short film, and didn’t think they had all the skills such as modeling, rigging, textures, shapes, etc — because all the fancy tools can be hard to learn. Quill allows me to do a whole narrative myself from models to rigging, etc. You don’t need all the extra skills and it truly opens the door for more independent animators.
Nick Ladd: If I could go back to where I was now, in college. This update in Quill would give me more time to work on my creations and illustrate a style. Which is hard to do in traditional CG.
“Quill is a powerful tool that enables me to create such complex scenes that I otherwise couldn’t. Hope you enjoy it! — feeling excited.” — Zeyu Ren On RUNETERRA — A tour around League of Legends’ famous landmarks — created mainly in Quill, and then rendered with Octane renderer for Cinema 4D.
Nick Ladd Using Quill Outside of Virtual Reality
Check out this background video Nick Ladd did for TEDX Talks, pipeline included — below image!
Daniel’s New Project: Concept Comic Book in VR
My new project takes full advantage of the Stop feature (new feature), which allows you to have a narrative that stops where you want, helping with immersion. The audience is able to enjoy the environment in a still moment taking its time before moving on to the next part.
Want to learn more about Quill 2.0? Follow Daniel Peixe and Nick Ladd!
INFOGRAPHIC: Share your Quill VR Animations in these four Facebook Groups:
Get the 411 with Videos
Matt Schaefer’s Detailed Tutorial on “How to Sync Puppeteer Animation to Audio in Quill.”
Goro Fujita Covers Painting, Animation Basics and Advanced Animation techniques using Quill.
Are you ready to start creating in VR?
Here’s what you will need:
These updates and the innovations that will eventually be coming are what gives art in VR endless potential — IRL and in VR, it’s a thrilling time to be a creator.
For more on Quill VR Tips & Tools
