cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Oculus Medium Suggestions

slipgatecentral
Explorer
TL&DR: Medium is a very nice toy, but it's hard to be productive in it. 

After playing for few hours with it, I have some ideas that might improve this software for professional artists, without ruining accessibility for beginners.

-Almost very tool needs an alt modifier, that will allow user quickly switch to alternate mode. Example - for clay tool, to cut holes you need to open menu, select "Erase", and close menu. Needs to be faster, preferably holding modifier button on left controller (like the one we got for alternate tool). Every sculpting 3d software has this - primary function can be switched instantly to it's opposite.

- We must be able to select same tools for primary and alternate, but they must not share settings. This will be extremely useful in many cases. Like, you can paint using 2 different brushes with different color.

- Desperately need move/pull tool. Smudge doesn't do much. If there's no room on the palette I suggest removing useless swirl.

- Need an option to customize brushes and my palette. Would be great to have my own selection of saved tools with different settings. Time saver.

- Need bigger color swatch accessible from menu. Right now only 3 colors in it.

- Eyedropper tool takes too long to select. It also needs a button modifier for quick operation, like Alt key in Photoshop.


I am a professional 3d artist and I'm looking forward to work in VR. Those are just first steps but I see tons of potential in VR sculpting. 
323 REPLIES 323

Metrons
Expert Protege
LOVING the update to 2.0!!! After working in 2.0 for about a week now, i have some more suggestions please. 

1. PLEASE let us turn off the brush when sculpting. i can NEVER tell whats going on when i'm trying to cut through something. I always see this red mass, with a white outline. it's impossible to tell at times what i'm doing. i'm begging-begging-begging! PLEASE let us turn this off. if i'm sculpting in real life, i see what i'm taking away with my tools, i dont need some visual representation of my brush in medium when i'm sculpting. it's impossible to see. again, i'm begging you guys, PLEASE, PLEASE let us turn this off. 

2. we really need the ability to scale our stamps!!! i think i've mentioned this before. if i have a tube shape, let me scale that in Z (with incremental snapping as an option) then my tube shape is a pipe, we could get SO MUCH MORE out of EVERY stamp if we could scale them. again, i believe this would be massively important to EVERYONE who uses medium. every stamp now has the potential to be so much more. 

3. PLEASE let there be an option *similar to zbrush* about brush size being relative to my sculpt. I work in cm units and my characters are always a few meters or so in height. in medium though, if i want to have a tiny brush shape. i literally have ZERO fidelity in the size of my brush shape. if i resize up just a TINY bit it explodes in size. this again is a MUST for anyone who sculpts. PLEASE add this. i'm dying not being to get the right brush size i want. 

4. independent mirror planes! If i'm working on a characters armor, lets say he needs some forearm straps or metal plates, shoulder pads. almost always these shapes that are symmetrical, i'd LOVE to create a custom mirror plane, center it on the character arm and start sculpting. this is basically impossible atm, i can only do this in X axis and hope i have the right size for the arm, it's a total guessing game. impossible. this could be so damned useful for so, so  many reasons. 

5. mesh instances please!!! i like working on the origin and having my instances duplicated through out my scene. this is a piece of cake in modo. it would be SO DAMNED USEFUL in medium though. PLEASE let us have instances. If i have to sculpt a grenade or something, i dont want to sculpt that on some rotated axis, i need things to be perfectly symmetrical. this is why you make little props or whatever at 0,0,0 i love starting with a basic shape, instance those all over my character and then continue to work on the parent mesh and see all my instances update. SO DAMNED HANDY. please, please, please give us instances!

6. another thing as a character artist that would be essential to have would be more mirroring tools. radial mirror, radial instances, radial instances with mirroring on X axis *3d coat does this*. any character artist, prop artist will tell you how valuable and amazing mirroring tools are. 

7. everyone says it but masking please! i'd LOVE to mask an area, then extrude that shape out as a separate armor plate for example. 3d coat also does this. i use the masking and extracting tools in zbrush all the time. I also find countless situations in medium where i'd kill to mask off some geo. please add masking, extracting tools with bevel profiles and height please!

8. all of our UI pop ups in medium are almost always occluded by my sculpts at times. instead, i have to zoom out, get a view where i can see what my menu options are. PLEASE turn the UI windows semi transparent or something so if i pull up my layers, i can select my layer through my sculpt because i can SEE what is there. this is so damned tedious. 

9. custom hdr background images please!!! i have a huge collection that i use in substance painter/designer, i'd love to have these as my env in medium. 

rataphract
Honored Guest
I really want to use Medium to kind of, make virtual scale models. Unfortunately I really need the following tools, like, badly:

1 - A ruler. Just. Like. A virtual ruler. Please.

2 - A protractor and set square.

3 - The equivalent of a virtual drill press/lathe. The lathe tool... doesn't work like a lathe. I need to be able to put a tool on a rail, or similar straight line, and sweep it around with some kind of variance. Not just for cuts, but also for textures like putting knurling on something. I need to be able to put objects on a lathe and work on them with a horizontal axis of spin. I also want to be able to precisely position a tool, or a straight line, before sweeping it across the clay.

4 - I need something like a jig or guide. So I could, for instance, do a row of cannons in parallel on the deck of a pirate ship, or whatever. Align objects to a ruler/set square. That kind of thing.

I really like Medium, but I also really want to use it in ways that make me wish I could put my controllers in bench vices so I can get some precision with what I'm trying to do. 😛

Sterling77
Rising Star
All the rulers can be imported as images - and don't scale them. Rescale in meshmixer to the unit dimensions you require. You could set up a physical slide rail in the real world along the vertical lathe axis, and get similar results. Interesting suggestions. 
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/52965/sterlings-sketchbook

Salem2077
Explorer
I don't know if this has come up, but it would be absolutely AMAZING; to have a downloadable stamps section, either in medium itself or on this website. 

DeadlyJoe
Rising Star
Video recording suggestion -- Lock the camera to the sculpture.

Transform the camera's position and orientation into a given layer's coordinate system, so that the camera moves and rotates with the layer, as if it's locked in place relative to the layer. Therefore, when the video is played back, the sculpture will appear to be stable with respect to the camera, and the user's avatar will appear to rotate around it.

I think this would be insanely cool, because it would allow us to produce high-speed time lapse videos that aren't super twitchy. From the camera's point of view, the sculpture would simply evolve without moving.

Sterling77
Rising Star
@DeadlyJoe Agreed - a camera that's independant would be very cool - the ability to track and build sequences in medium would be awesome - shouldn't be that hard 🙂
https://forums.oculus.com/community/discussion/52965/sterlings-sketchbook

Coverop
Explorer
I'm surprised how well designed Oculus Medium Is.

The only thing I can suggest is a mask tool.... like you darken an area where tools (such as Move tool) will not be affected by it.

P3nT4gR4m
Consultant
If you're drag-scrolling the new scene browser panel and you accidentally move off the actual panel with the trigger still down, the currently selected scene element moves. Would be tidy if you could limit focus to the layer panel until trigger release. Not a big issue but it can be annoying

Anonymous
Not applicable
1. Stamps (Color & Clay)
2. Spline guides
3. A way to move through your scene by using the Thump stick as an option. Useful in big scenes and for video recording.

Anonymous
Not applicable

DeadlyJoe said:

Video recording suggestion -- Lock the camera to the sculpture.

Transform the camera's position and orientation into a given layer's coordinate system, so that the camera moves and rotates with the layer, as if it's locked in place relative to the layer. Therefore, when the video is played back, the sculpture will appear to be stable with respect to the camera, and the user's avatar will appear to rotate around it.

I think this would be insanely cool, because it would allow us to produce high-speed time lapse videos that aren't super twitchy. From the camera's point of view, the sculpture would simply evolve without moving.

If this camera position could be saved with the file it would allow for clayanimation style work (Which is something I'd love to do)