Gravity Sketch

Gravity Sketch Logo

This app has completely changed to how I look at design and iterating ideas and 3-D modeling in general.

This app started off as an iPad app. I think it even worked on the phone and it just had a basic concept of sketching a line and then making that into 3-D and it was very intuitive to just quickly dry your ID on the screen and make your lines and curves how you wanted them and then to do 3-D stuff with it later.

They later changed the app, so it worked in virtual reality and that is when the usefulness of this app really hit home. Several companies use GravitySketch in their designing process when designing new products such as Ford and Nike I had read at one point that since Ford started using GravitySketch in their design workflow, the process of designing a new car went from four months to four weeks.

And while I wouldn't say, a Gravity Sketch is a full-blown 3-D app that could compete with something like Cinema 4D, or Blender or Miya it does fill its role very well in being able to very quickly get your ideas out. You're not gonna get a fully rendered 3-D movie out of GravitySketch. It doesn't really do lighting. It does a little bit with textures, and it does not do anything with animation but if you have an idea and you want to get it out very quickly GravitySketch is absolutely perfect for that.

I paid money for the app initially but they later changed it to a freemium model and every user gets I believe one gigabyte of free storage space and they have a system that works kind of like Google Drive where you sign into a separate webpage called landingpad.me and you can upload images 3-D models onto there and access them through the app in your VR headset, which is very nice because that gives you an easier workflow than trying to connect your headset to your computer every time you need to move files around and trust me that is a pain in the butt.

I'm doing most of my 3-D modeling in GravitySketch nowadays using Blender less than less for the actual modeling portion although I do texturing and lighting and UV unwrapping sort of stuff in Blender but I typically start anything I am working on in GravitySketch I've even used it for crazy stuff like making a 3-D model of my shed so I can rearrange the shelving in there virtually to see if I could get them to fit in a decent different way before actually picking anything heavy up.

I would absolutely recommend GravitySketch to anyone who has a VR headset even if you're not into art it's a lot of fun to pick up and play with and it's free to do that. One of the biggest features about GravitySketch is a more recent addition and that is, its Collaborative feature. Each landing pad account also gets one collaborative room. You can invite as many people as you want to your collaborative room but only four people can be in there at a time. Yes you can 3-D model with other people in virtual reality at the same time and it is an absolute blast. Any artist who's ever wanted to collaborate with other people in any way should at least try it out even if you're not into 3-D modeling that experience as an artist to be working with someone on the other side of the globe is absolutely incredible and I think the team at gravity sketch is really on the same thing just with the collaborative work alone is such an amazing thing that I have not really seen in many other places, but I think other apps are going to catch on. This collaborative feature is simply powerful and empowering. I've met so many other artists, just using this collaborative feature that evening from a social aspect alone makes it valuable.