100 Days of VR Painting
Exploring the Pros and Cons of VR as an Artistic Medium
Over the last two years, I’ve delved into the realm of VR art by creating a series of 3D animations using Quill by Smoothstep. My goal was to explore VR’s potential as a unique medium for artistic expression.
In this article, I’m sharing my personal experience of painting in VR, highlighting both its pros and cons.
My 100-day journey
Day 1–6: Get familiar with Quill
I spent the first few days learning how to navigate Quill’s user interface. I made my first VR scene by following Goro Fujita’s beginner tutorial.
Day 7–83: Climb the learning curve
Once I became comfortable with Quill’s user interface, I began experimenting with various styles and exploring different themes.
I used animbrush to animate a cup of tea.
I created the virtual version of my houseplants.
I learned how to use transform keys to animate characters halfway through the project.
Day 84–100: Publish to Quest TV
I spent the last few weeks of the 100-day-project grouping the artworks by theme and publishing them on Quest TV.
I created a greenhouse in VR to host all the houseplants.
I illustrated four famous Chinese poems with a theme of 花鸟鱼虫 (flowers, birds, fish, and insects).
At the end of the project, I built a party house to celebrate the completion of “100 Days of VR Painting”.
You can visit my Oculus Creator Portfolio and enjoy the animations on your Quest headset.
Advantages of painting in VR
1. Infinite space
My favorite thing about painting in VR is the use of infinite space — it allows me to use as many reference images as I need without running out of monitor screens.
Additionally, with Quill running on my PC, I can pin my desktop browser anywhere in VR to watch tutorials while I work.
2. Immersive environment
VR’s immersive environment enables me to experiment with ideas in a highly interactive and engaging manner. It also reduces distractions and allows me to become deeply absorbed in my work.
Below is my speed painting of “This is fine” meme in VR, where I demonstrated how to manipulate 3D objects, adjust their scale, and zoom in to add details with ease.
3. Ease of use
Quill’s user interface is more intuitive and user-friendly compared to traditional modeling software like Blender. I was able to start creating my own art in Quill within a few days, whereas it took me several months to do the same in Blender.
Although Quill’s button mapping may seem intimidating at first, with frequent use, they would become muscle memory.
4. Content distribution and compatibility
One of the main reasons I chose Quill is its distribution and compatibility with the Quest headset.
Through Meta Quest Media Studio, I can upload my Quill creations to my library, publish them directly to Quest TV, and access analytics to gauge their performance.
This VR-centric content distribution funnel allows for an immersive viewing experience of my artwork in VR, accessible by anyone with a Quest headset.
Additionally, Quill offers flexible export options (e.g. IMM, Unity, glTF, FBX), ensuring compatibility with various applications and platforms.
Challenges of painting in VR
1. Lack of social features
Although it’s easy for me to publish my artwork to Quest TV, the lack of social features on the platform often makes it difficult for me to keep posting.
Social features such as likes, comments, and shares are crucial for the growth of the creator-consumption ecosystem. As a creator, I’d like to receive some kind of external validation from my audience in VR.
As of today, Quest TV only offers “number of views’’ as a metric, which isn’t compelling enough for a creator to continue creating content.
2. Precision control is hard
Compared to traditional drawing where I can feel the resistance of the paper against the pencil, painting in VR feels like drawing in thin air.
There is no tactile feedback to guide my movements, making it difficult to move or rotate objects in a precise manner.
I wish Quill offered more precision control features such as snapping, which would enable me to manipulate objects at specific angles and paint objects against a 2D panel more accurately.
3. Eye strain and discomfort
When I started the project, I needed to take a break every 20 minutes to rest my eyes. Later, I became more accustomed to VR and could spend 1–2 hours in VR per session.
In addition, the foam padding on the VR headset would often mess up my hairstyle, particularly my long bangs, and sometimes smudge my makeup.
Although these downsides may seem minor, they have caused some inconvenience and reduced my overall time spent in VR.
4. Barrier of entry
Quill is a free VR painting and animation tool that runs on PCVR, which requires a high-end gaming PC and VR headset.
While I have the privilege of having access to both equipment (MSI GS65 Stealth and Oculus Rift S), this can be a significant barrier for those who are just beginning and lack access to costly equipment.
Other VR painting apps that don’t require a PC include Open Brush, Gravity Sketch, and Kingspray Graffiti. However, at the time of writing, they don’t offer advanced features such as animation tools and timeline controls, nor do they have built-in community platforms to share work.
Note: You can use Quill on the Oculus Quest headset, but you’d need a PC and a Quest link (tutorial).
Conclusion
Overall, painting in VR has boosted my productivity and allowed me to express myself with more creative freedom. Quill is an intuitive tool with a streamlined content distribution channel. I hope that creativity tools like Quill will be available on a standalone headset so that VR as an art medium will become more accessible to a wider audience.
Final thoughts
In the past two years, while working on this project, I have witnessed the explosive growth of AI technology, which has made me question the purpose of this project:
Why should I learn a new skill when AI can eventually automate everything?
As I reflect on my past 100-day-project, I realized that the most important thing in art is authenticity.
Art is not always about creating pretty things. It’s about expressing who we are, our experiences, and how they shape our lives.
At the end of the day, creators will continue to create. Those with a creative spirit, regardless of their profession, will use any tool or method that helps them simplify and accelerate their creative process.
