Google makes VR painting app Tilt Brush open source and stops development

Google stops developing Tilt Brush, a program that lets people draw and paint in VR. The company says it now wants to put the development in the hands of the users and therefore makes the software open source.

To make Tilt Brush open source, Google has had to adjust or remove some things due to licensing restrictions, the company writes. The company has published a guide to using ‘almost all’ removed features. The open source variant uses, among other things, bloom and fxaa techniques. The published software allows users to compile a working version of Tilt Brush, to which they only need to add the SteamVR Unity SDk. Google emphasizes that Tilt Brush will “always” remain available in the digital stores of supported VR headsets, where it now costs twenty euros.

Tilt Brush is a painting program that allowed users to create works of art in VR. Users hold a palette in one hand and a brush in the other. The program uses the motion controllers of the VR headset for operation. Tilt Brush was first released for the HTC Vive in April 2016. Later, the program also came to the Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality, Valve Index, Playstation VR, and Oculus Quest. In 2017, the program was one of the best-selling VR applications in Steam.