Co-creators of Tilt Brush Patrick Hackett and Drew Skillman will be at VRDC Fall 2017 to present their talk, Three Years of Tilt Brush, where they will discuss the origins of the popular VR application and how it came be developed. Here, Hackett gives VRDC a bit of background on himself and Skillman, and offers his thoughts on the broader VR market.

VRDC: Tell us about yourself and your work in VR/AR

Drew and I are veterans of the game industry, Double Fine Productions being our alma mater.  At Double Fine we spent a good amount of time exploring game concepts with non-traditional hardware and we’re really excited about the Oculus Rift Kickstarter and the industry's push toward VR.  We left Double Fine in 2014 to form a VR design and consulting company where, in addition to a series of various prototypes, came up with the idea for Tilt Brush, a VR painting application.

Without spoiling it too much, tell us what you'll be talking about at VRDC

Our talk at VRDC will focus largely on Tilt Brush, and more specifically, the early days of building the product, bringing it over to Google, and further development inside of Google.  Our talk is a recap of our past 3 years, through the lens of the Tilt Brush application.

What excites you most about VR/AR?

Immersive computing is an evolution of the platforms we use daily.  It allows us to rethink and reimagine products and services that we're already familiar with.  The hope is that the advancement in technology will make these products and services better, and we love to be in a position to challenge ourselves to find ways to make this hope come true.

What do you think is the biggest challenge to realizing VR/AR’s potential?

It's a combination of things that are all trending in the right direction.  A cost that makes sense to a large demographic, applications that benefit users on a daily basis, and the social acceptance of computing finding its way in to new parts of our lives.

What inspired you two to create Tilt Brush?

Tilt Brush was born out of a variety of failed prototypes.  We drew inspiration from a number of places and we'll discuss this is much greater detail during our talk.

How do you feel about the works of art users have created using Tilt Brush? Were you expecting it?

It's a great feeling to create something that allows users to build content that you could have never expected.  This has happened many, many times with Tilt Brush and the feeling never gets old.  Our goal, at this point, is to keep finding ways to let users surprise us.

Register for VRDC Fall 2017 to hear more about Tilt Brush from Patrick and Drew, and join other creators of amazing, immersive experiences at the premier industry event. Gamasutra, VRDC, and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.