Around 2023 recap & 6.1 Release Notes
In this week’s blog post, we’ll be going through some of our top picks across both days of the Gravity Sketch 2023 Around Festival and pulling out key moments and interesting topics! The festival brings together design enthusiasts, professionals, and industry leaders to discuss all things Gravity Sketch, ranging from workflows to product implementation. The festival featured a series of exciting announcements, insightful webinars, and interactive sessions that showcased the future of industrial design within Virtual Reality.
Find out more about the festival, the speakers and access session recordings here: https://around.gravitysketch.com/
Day 1: November 29th
Accessories design workflow disruption - Puma
The Gravity Sketch team kicks things off with Puma, a major player in the sportswear and accessories market who have recently integrated Gravity Sketch into their workflow. The team emphasises how they’ve utilised the software to create a faster, leaner, and better service to produce innovative products for their target market. They noticed the speed in which a design gets approved for released has significantly reduced as key decisions are made earlier in the design process during collaborative design sessions. Their workflow also became leaner as their new immersive workflow reduced the number of sample rounds required, further reducing costs and supporting a sustainable design process. All in all, this adaptation has improved their customer relations both internally and externally, which is a key driving factor within the company.
I recommend watching their promotional/highlight video at 11m38s in the replay to find out more about how Gravity Sketch boosted their creative process.
Vanguard - Nick Baker
Nick Baker (@NickPBaker/baker.studio) is a leading independent designer based in New York. His presentation showcased his career journey from humble beginnings as a designer for a pet toy company to his transition to becoming a freelancer and consultant within the homewares and furniture industry oriented around one objective: to ‘design objects that embrace a delightful future.’ Nick’s keynote is presented across five lessons from his career:
Be optimistic.
Share your ideas.
Tell stories, even small ones.
Play, experiment, and make mistakes.
Embrace technology.
During the final section, Nick shared the story of how the ‘SuperChair’ came to life from what became a ‘simple’ concept in Gravity Sketch to being picked up by a furniture manufacture and exhibited at Salonemilano, a Milan-based design exhibition. Jump to 23:29 in the presentation recording to watch the full story.
Day 2: November 30th
Designing chocolate - Mondelez International
Mondelez International’s presentation was one of the most interesting and highlighted one of Gravity Sketch’s many unique use cases. The global brand oversees numerous recognized confectionary brand names, from Cadburys to Toblerone, and it was a fantastic opportunity to see how they implement VR technology within their design process. Manisha, the digital innovation manager, shared how the team utilizes 3D workflows and design in a CPG (consumer package goods) organisation and integrates design and digital innovation to build a higher-quality product to improve the consumer’s experience. The presentation goes on to share how VR provides a meaningful collaboration with the international brand through constant communication and live design development.
AI powered 3D modelling - Kaedim
Kaedim is an AI modelling platform that provides 'game-ready, on-demand 3D assets’. This presentation was something to be amazed by as they exhibited their platform in real time, converting newly generated 2D images from Midjourney and converting them into an editable, 3D model to create a presentation room within Blender. Although there is a fairly steep price point, there is a lot of potential for the platform to significantly reduce the time taken for designers, developers, and creatives to produce 3D assets. One standout feature was the ability to map a 2D image (including the one used as a reference image) onto the 3D model in a matter of minutes and then export it in several file formats. What previously may have taken designers and modelers hours to create is now cut down to minutes and seconds. Live demonstrations begin 16 minutes in and are shared during a model overview at 28 minutes. This is definitely one to watch.
Joey Khamis footwear workflow - Joey Khamis
Joey (@khamisstudio) is an independent footwear designer based in Indianapolis whose presentation focused on communication, intuition, and workflow. We’ve been following his journey since we jumped into Gravity Sketch in 2021, as he’s worked with Reebok and published designs on Zellerfeld. There were a few similarities in his design workflow to that of Puma’s and probably most of the sportwear industry too, but he emphasizes the importance of strong 3D skills to provide better communication to suppliers, marketing teams, and decision-makers to produce a higher-quality product. That said, he emphasises that this skillset does not replace the fundamental knowledge required to produce a good design that benefits the end user. One unique method that he implements within his design process is to create a 3D techpack as opposed to a standard 2D technical drawing. He highlights its advantage to creating live revisions and producing minimal interpretations with more execution. He would often find that designs got lost in translation when meeting new suppliers or manufacturers; however, when he could show the final design in a 3D space, defined by colours, lineweights, and exploded views, they could get to producing samples in a much shorter timeframe.
Gravity Sketch Keynote - Gravity Sketch
The end of day 2 brought the main event; the Gravity Sketch keynote, exhibiting what has changed over the last year and what changes are coming. The keynote, hosted by both co-founders of Gravity Sketch, Oluwaseyi Sosanya and Daniela Paredes and community lead, Daniel Cocking was packed with information, so we highly recommend you rewatch the session. The team kick off by recapping how Gravity Sketch has become a systematic change in the way design is done as more industries and sectors begin to integrate their software. However, this is only the start and they want to begin to delve deeper into the knowledge of different fields within VR, by for example, looking to AR implementation at an advanced level and creating a virtual studio space. Throughout this festival, communication has been a highlighted topic, with many companies and designers utilising the software to work collaboratively on an international scale and in real time, not only to talk to each other but also to design in 3D. This is recognised by the Gravity Sketch team and has become a key element of their software.
The past year has seen the software being utilised across numerous industry’s from scene development within Avatar 2, game development within Walkabout Minigolf and football boot design in Adidas’ Adizero RS15. These latest implementations are a result and driving factor of Gravity Sketch’s T shaped business approach, where the team are exploring commincation across the top and as wide as possible but only supported by creation which provides depth and structure. Some hinted features with the communication strand include; creating a reliable invite flow, a improved multi-platform experience and reviewer specific tools to strengthened authoring, import and export tools and surface texturing.
The team go on to talk about how Gravity Sketch fits into the design workflow where each software currently available provides a specific niche such as Procreate’s sketching ability and KeyShot’s rendering facilities within a workshop tool analogy. The team see the software as a tool box, containing a selection of tools allowing you to do a job and take it where-ever you need to go, no matter the job. Over the coming months and years, Gravity Sketch looks towards advanced technologies such as utilising cloud GPU rendering and improved content sharing capabilites to be integrated within their design eco-system where landingpad, iPad sketching and VR are used synonymously within the product design workflow.
This keynote also announces the launch of Gravity Sketch 6.1, providing users with the ability to add shadows and shaders to creations (finally!), a new glossy material texture and a rework of file import and exports. Full release notes can be found here: https://help.gravitysketch.com/hc/en-us/articles/15239040243997-December-2023
It is evident that Gravity Sketch want to retain and support the community aspect of the software and hosting events such as Around is clear evidence of that. The two day festival has been a fantastic event to hear from various industries and designers around the globe. We look forward to next year’s event with new announcements, workflows and creative insights.
