Facebook’s Quill tool now lets you animate in VR.

Facebook’s own VR artistry experience, known as Quill, just got a major update that brings simple, but powerful animation tools to the platform.

Quill update 1.4 brings “animated paint layers” and an “animation clip panel,” as well as “animated brush settings to control how strokes are drawn while clips are playing.”

What this means for those of us that didn’t go to CalArts is that Quill now gives just about anyone the ability to create beautifully animated scenes in Quill’s trademark “sketchy” visual style.

According to the Quill team itself:

These tools open the door for a whole new kind of storytelling, with VR characters who move and perform in scenes and environments that are more alive than ever. Inspired by the early hand-drawn animation of the 1920’s, but powered up with modern technology and native VR workflows, Quill animation brings a new level of freedom to artists in this rapidly emerging medium.

Artistic expression has been one of VR’s “killer applications” since the very beginning of this modern immersive renaissance. Apps like Quill, Medium and the OG immersive art tool, Google’s Tilt Brush, are intuitive, beautiful, immersive and seriously fun. That’s the perfect VR combination.

Wind Vane painted and animated in VR using #Quill. Note it took me 1h30min to create. VR opens a whole new door for creators! pic.twitter.com/amk9eu55Wn — Goro Fujita (@gorosart) February 9, 2018

Quill’s hand drawn aesthetics, layering features and zoom-to-detail functionality gives Quill a slightly more professional feel than any other VR creative platform.

Let’s put it this way: a Quill creation — Dear Angelica — was beautiful and polished enough to be nominated for an Emmy two years ago. No other art app has that on its resume.

Dear Angelica was able to weave a beautiful, emotional narrative that made at least one adult male VR journalist cry into his headset. And it did all that with just drawings and atmospheric audio.

Now that Quill can actually bring its inhabitants to life, my eyes might never be dry again.

We got our first sneak peak of Quill as an animation tool back in April when Goro Fujita teased us with a mind blowing illustration.

Image and Video Credits: Goro Fujita