Early Christmas present for the Open Brush community. v2.13 has just been released with tons of amazing new features. Powerful plugin system, .vox and Open Blocks import, publish to Viverse and lots more. Free and open source forever!

Plugins

Possibly our most powerful new feature ever and several years in the making. Plugins are small lua scripts that can hook into Open Brush to modify how existing painting tools work or create entirely new tools.

We've shipped an extensive range of examples that expand the creative palette you have available and serve as jumping off points for those of you that would like to create your own plugins and share them with the community. Read our docs on how to use plugins and then dive into writing plugins.

Splitting 3D Models

Using imported 3D models to construct or enhance your sketches is incredibly useful but often 3D models contain multiple elements and those elements are not easily separated.

We've added the ability to break apart imported models - even if the model was built as a single mesh. We check for connected parts and allow you to break apart any elements that are visually separate.

Saved Stroke Gallery

We previously had a feature that allowed you to export selected parts of your sketch as 3d models. This had several drawbacks: it was PC-only, brush strokes ceased to be editable or selectable and their appearance often changed due to the conversion process.

We've now implemented the ability to save any selected brush strokes without converting them into a 3d mesh. Now when they are added back to your scene they are grouped strokes and can be un-grouped, re-colored, re-brushed and anything else you can do with regular brush strokes.

VOX File Import

The Magicavoxel .vox format is the standard file format for models created in a wide range of voxel editing apps. You can now import them like you can other 3d model formats and construct entire scenes from them. if you want them to remain aligned to their original grid then set grid snap to 0.1 and angle snap to 90 before importing.

Publish Worlds to Viverse

You can now publish Open Brush sketches directly to Viverse with a couple of clicks. Viverse allows you to build and share 3D worlds in a web browser so people can visit from nearly any device: phone, tablets, PC, Mac and of course VR headsets. Worlds are social and multiplayer and can optionally be monetized to help support artists (that's you...).

Import Open Blocks Models

Our sibling application Open Blocks is an incredibly intuitive low-poly 3d modelling app for PC, Quest and other standalone VR devices. If you've already got it then any models you create and save locally can easily be imported via the standard 3D model library browser.

Camera Path Rendering on All Devices

Camera paths are a powerful way to render a standard or 360 video fly-through of your creations. However we only support rendering video directly on desktop (PC or Mac) and it was fiddly to copy sketches off standalone headsets such as the Quest and then render videos using the generated scripts.

We've now made the process easier. You can now render the video frames directly on devices that don't support generating video files directly. These frames can be converted into a regular video in multiple ways - uploading to a web service, importing into a video editing app etc. Read about camera paths here.

More Selection Tools for Quest/standalone VR

Previously mobile VR devices such as the Quest had less selection tools available than PC VR devices. This was due to performance issues when we first launched for the Quest 1. Newer devices are more powerful so we've made the full range of tools available on all devices giving you access to "Select All" and "Invert Selection". Complex scenes might stutter when using these but we wanted to give you the choice.

View-only Mode Improvements

Not enough people realise that Open Brush runs as sketch viewer on all Mac, PC, Android devices even when those devices have no VR support. This release has improved the navigation controls. Touch support on phones is more intuitive and standard gamepads should work as expected. Try installing from Steam on Steam Deck or similar handheld devices.

Furthermore you can now browse more sample sketches which are loaded directly from the Icosa Gallery. Non-VR devices also support interacting with Open Brush via the Web API or monoscopic mode.

Release Notes