3D Modeling Comes to Mixed Reality on the HoloLens with Verto Studio 3D

3D modeling is usually a very long and complicated process.

Manipulating the thousands to millions of vertices, faces, and triangles to the correct shape you want is just the first part of the process, and can take a good while depending on the level of detail needed. From there, you need to texture the model by applying the UV coordinates and placing the textures in the correct places. And all of this isn't even including the process of creating normal maps.

Users of 3D modeling programs like 3ds Max pand Maya know these difficulties all too well. Perhaps these complexities come from trying to build 3D objects in what is essentially a 2D environment, so how well would a 3D environment fare instead? A new 3D modeling application for Microsoft HoloLens will help us answer that.

The app in question is called Verto Studio 3D, created by developer Mike Farrell. From all of the recent videos Farrell has been showing off, the software appears to be a full-featured solution covering all of the standard tools a 3D modeler might need—with a mixed reality twist, of course. It is three-dimensional, so you can walk around the model and change it in that context, which seems amazing.

Verto Studio 3D, which already has iOS and Mac apps, appears to be the first to try this type of software in mixed reality (in public, anyways). I asked Farrell when HoloLens users would have a chance to try it out, and he responded, "Hoping for Q1 2017 version 1.0 release."

Let me temper my excitement for this application just a little bit. As a long time user of Autodesk 3ds Max, when I imagine modeling in a true 3D environment, I picture a completely new type of process. Something more akin to carpentry, construction, sculpting, or all of the above. Currently, these look like the same tools that have been around for 25 years.

Now, I am sure Farrell has thought about what direction he wants to aim his mixed reality 3D modeling for version 2.0. And to use programming as a metaphor, the low-level assembly must be working before the high-level language can do its part. The reason for that metaphor is that I think the current styles of 3D modeling will eventually be equivalent to programming in assembly. We will see, of course.

What do you picture 3D modeling in 3D to be like? What other tools like this are you looking for in mixed reality?

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Cover image by Verto Studio 3D