Adobe acquires Oculus Medium VR sculpting app

Adobe is the new home for the Oculus Medium sculpting app, which Facebook originally launched three years ago.

The surprising move raises intriguing questions about the ongoing strategies in VR and AR by some of the world’s largest creative and technology companies. Medium was seen as a groundbreaking sculpting app on the PC-based Rift headset when it launched and has been updated a number of times over the last three years.

A blog post from Sebastien Deguy, the former CEO of Allegorithmic (and now vice president of Adobe’s 3D and immersive efforts after the acquisition of the company and its Substance tools), describes Medium’s shaping “as something we’d love to tackle. The redoubled investment of Adobe in the 3D and AR space finally allowed us to join forces and bring our complementary talents together. The Substance and Medium teams are ready to work together on the next generation of 3D tools.”

According to a tweet from the Substance Twitter account, and supported by additional tweets from Medium team members, “several members of the Medium team are moving to Adobe.”

The addition of Medium to Adobe’s range of creative tools gives the company a custom engine that can maximize visible detail while sculpting and may strengthen Adobe’s position offering a suite of creative tools for VR and AR creators.

The move raises intriguing questions also about the future of other creative VR tools, like the animation and 3D drawing app Quill at Facebook, as well as the Blocks and Tilt Brush tools at Google.