How to Get Started with VR Animation
My first time watching the Emmy-nominated VR animation, Dear Angelica was also the first time I tried out virtual reality, so my mind was blown twice in one sitting. While the VR games I played were also exciting and fun, as a filmmaker, it was really the prospect of VR as a tool for art and content production that opened my eyes to what’s possible. Once I took off the headset, I knew I wanted to tell stories in this medium. Except there was one problem: I had no idea where to start. From finding the ‘right’ software to choosing the proper HMD (head-mounted display) and PC to use, it was tough trying to figure out where to begin. Fortunately, more tools have been released since then, and it is now easier than ever to create professional-looking animations in VR.
Choosing your tools
While there are numerous headsets available, it’s important to point out some of the major differences in terms of how they might affect your ability to animate in VR. You might be tempted to go for headsets like Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, or the Oculus Go because of their portability and affordability, however, you might run into one issue: those headsets only have 3 degrees of freedom (3DOF). This means that even though the headsets can track your orientation or the direction you’re looking, they lack positional tracking, so you cannot lean or move forward in space, you can only look around from a fixed point. Animating in VR requires depth, distance, and the artist’s ability to move, as well as considerably more processing power than 3DOF VR headsets currently possess, hence the lack of supported animation software on these devices.
PC Specs
6DOF VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are more relevant to your VR animation needs. However, these headsets require a PC to run them, and not just any PC. For instance, both Oculus and HTC Vive recommend PCs with graphics cards NVIDIA GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 480 or greater for an ideal VR experience. Even though less expensive GPUs exist (like the NVIDIA GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290) which meet the minimum requirements for running VR games and applications, if you plan on doing professional animation and dealing with heavy complex files down the line, you might want to go for much more powerful graphics cards to avoid your system crashing and to keep your animation experience running smoothly since animation software can be intensive on your PC. In addition, memory and storage space are factors to consider. Using the Rift Compatibility Check Tool, you can find out whether your PC can handle VR, which means if you don’t have a PC that meets these specs, you’ll have to purchase or build one. Yep, I said it’s easier than ever to get into VR animation, never said it was cheap. You can find Oculus-Ready PCs here and Vive-ready PCs here.
VR Headsets
Now back to the headsets, I’m mostly focusing on the more popular ones, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, and while both can be used to achieve the same results, for the most part, there are a few differences to consider in relation to VR animation. Controllers are a good example; the Oculus Rift uses Touch controllers and The HTC Vive uses Wands. Touch controllers are small, lightweight, and have an analogue stick, whereas the Wands are bigger and heavier than the Touch controllers and have a touchpad instead of an analogue stick. Touch controllers have an edge over the Wands in the area of pressure sensitivity, due to the two-stage trigger mechanism on the Vive controllers which can introduce sensitivity spikes when the triggers are fully-pressed.
The HTC Vive also allows for a larger tracking space than the Oculus Rift out of the box, however, you can always buy extra sensors to extend the tracking capabilities of the Rift. Depending on your preferences, these factors can be beneficial or unfavorable, for instance, if you’re animating for long hours, your wrists might thank you for opting for a lightweight controller; similarly, if you also plan on playing video games often and have a large play-space, you might want to go for a headset that enables that easily.
Software
On the software side, things are bit trickier. Although there are several art creation tools, Quill and AnimVR are two of the more polished VR software intended for animation and creating assets for professional animated work. Created by Oculus, Quill is an application that enables users to draw, paint, and animate on an infinite canvas within a virtual 3D space. Here, the artist works within the world of the painting and can walk around, scale and resize artwork as needed without losing quality. AnimVR is developed by NVRMIND, and also includes the ability to animate in 3D space in addition to a host of other features like cameras, editing with timelines and sound, a range of import and export options and more. Both apps have their own strengths and weaknesses but there isn’t a necessary divide between both apps, in fact, they both complement each other since you can usually share some assets between the apps.
However, Quill is exclusive to the Oculus Rift, and as a result, has been optimized for the Touch controllers. Even though workarounds exist for using Quill on the Vive, controller mapping might prove difficult because the software was not developed with the Wands in mind. Furthermore, Quill (along with some other apps and games) is free when the Oculus Rift is purchased with Touch Controllers. On the other hand, AnimVR isn’t restricted to one device and can be used on either device through SteamVR, which the Oculus Rift and many other 6DOF VR headsets can access. For these reasons, choosing which headset to buy also affects the animation software you have access to. Nevertheless, the apps are only tools, and either of them can be used to create great-looking work.
Ultimately, VR animation opens doors in different ways, it’s faster than traditional animation and allows artists to come up with new ways to tell stories. Still, it can take a while to get accustomed to working in VR. It can be difficult drawing in 3D space since there is no hard surface to work on, and it also forces you to think more about how your drawings look at different angles, especially when the intended audience can walk around your animations, so a bit of patience is required. Art creation in VR is new and things are changing every day, so, at the moment, the toolset may be a bit limited compared to traditional tools, but ultimately, it’s a great feeling to be at the forefront of a new medium.
If you want to learn more about animating in VR and create projects alongside other VR animators, visit maddistro.com for a curated collection of resources from around the web, as well as jobs in the VR and AR industry.
Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter @that_cheeseguy if you have any questions!
