Quick Start Video

We recommend watching this video first! It’s just a few minutes, and will get you up and running right away.

When you hunger for more knowledge, you can dig into the Documentation further below 🙂 Or just post your questions online, that’s great for everyone to learn from!

Documentation

General Guidelines

Hey left-handed users! 🙂 You can swap the controls to “Lefty Mode”, from the main menu (home), or while editing a scene, via the on-hand menu. The images and videos here will right-handed mode, but the text should state both left and right. Also, once you swap the controls, all the on-hand tooltips will also swap, so you can always see which buttons do what 🙂

These general rules are a great place to start:

Interacting with Objects

Main Gripper will usually grab things, so you can move and duplicate them
Main Trigger will usually create or draw
“A” will usually select (X for lefty)
“B” will usually delete (Y for lefty)

Navigating the Scene

Pull and hold the secondary Gripper, then also the main Gripper
Now you are “holding” the scene
Push your hands forward and backward to move the scene around you
Stretch your hands apart, or closer together, to stretch or shrink the scene
Rotate your hands to to rotate the scene and view from a new angle

Interacting with Menus

Point the main controller at the menu
A laser line will appear, and clickable items will highlight blue
Use the main Trigger to “click” the item

Tooltips!

Most importantly, the on-hand tooltips are always there to help!
The Trigger and Gripper buttons always show tooltips
Touch (but don’t press) the A, B, X, Y buttons to see their tooltips
Using these, you can always check exactly what actions and tools are available 🙂

Create, Save, and Load Scenes

Create a new Scene

To create a new Scene, click a + icon in the grid
Now begin creating!

Saving your Scene

To save your Scene, press the Menu button on the left controller, then click the “Save” button

Left-Handed users: Yes, you still use the left-side button, but the menu will open on the right side. The “Menu” and “Oculus” buttons are set by Oculus and we can’t change them, sorry! Hopefully we can change this one day!

Setting the Scene Icon

To set the Scene icon, select any object, then open the Hand Menu and choose “Set Icon”
Now, if you return to the Main Menu, you’ll see this object representing the Scene

Returning to the Main Menu

To save and exit, open the Hand Menu and click “Home”

Loading a Scene

Hover on any existing scene in the Grid, and click to load it

Deleting a Scene

Hover on an existing scene in the Grid, and press B
A pop-up will appear in the Scene box
Click the checkmark to delete the scene, or the cancel icon to cancel

Polysketch autosaves a backup when you open a file, and every few minutes while working. To access these backups, first you must understand a little of our save file structure. We save all scenes into a file called scene.txt inside a unique folder for each scene. By default that folder will be named for the day the scene was created, but you can rename that folder to better organize your files anytime. To access and restore files:

Connect your headset via USB to your PC
In your headset, click “Allow” to the data permission pop-up
From your PC, navigate to the polysketch data location:
This PC\Quest 2\Internal shared storage\android\data\com.PolysketchLLC.polysketch\files
We will refer to this as \home\ in further path instructions
If you do not know the name of your scene, navigate one more directory into \home\SaveFiles\ and determine the scene you are after. Likely it will hold the last-edited file. Again, “scene name” is the name of the folder within SaveFiles that holds the appropriate scene.txt
Navigate to \home\AutoSave or \home\PreOpenBackup\ for the files created during autosave or before beginning editing respectively. These folders will contain a number of files named for the timestamp at which they were created.
From within Autosave or PreOpenBackup, navigate to the folder matching your scene name (determined in step 4)
Select the backup you wish to restore, likely the most recent timestamp file
Copy it into \home\SaveFiles\YourSceneName\
Navigate to \home\SaveFiles\YourSceneName\
Either delete scene.txt, or keep to it around for safety, rename it to any other name
Rename your restored <Timestamp>.txt to scene.txt
Relaunch Polysketch on your headset.

Special note: Yes, you can rename your scenes! Also, you can copy-paste as a new folder, to duplicate scenes, etc. Polysketch will simply load up whatever it sees here. You could even share files with friends this way … and yes, we intend to make all this much easier, soon!

Poly Drawing

Create a new Poly Object to Edit

Create a new object by pressing the Menu button on the left hand, then clicking “Create”

Drawing Simple Lines

Pull and hold main Trigger, to begin drawing a line from the marker tip
Move your hand, then release the trigger to complete your line

Moving Parts Around

Hover on a point, line, surface, or Selection
Pull and hold the main Gripper to grab the hovered item
Now, just move the items with your hand, as if holding them

Connecting Lines

Hover the marker tip on a point – you should see the point light up, and the controller will vibrate
Now pull the main Trigger to draw a line as usual – it will start connected to that hovered point
Release the trigger while hovering on another point, and it will connected as well

Adding Points While Drawing

Start drawing a line as usual, but don’t release the trigger
Instead, keep the trigger held and press “A” to place a point without ending the line
Place as many points as you like, then release the trigger to place the final point

Special note – don’t go crazy with those points! Try to keep your shapes simple and minimal, especially at first.

If you’ve placed all the necessary points, press “B” to discard the last point and end your drawing

Drawing Surfaces

Pull and hold the main Trigger to start a line as usual
Use the “A” button to place points
End the line (by releasing the Trigger) back on the first point
Polysketch will automatically fill in the surface

Filling in Surfaces

First, ensure you have a complete, looping outline to fill in
Pull and hold the secondary Trigger to activate the “Special” tools
Notice that the “A” button has changed to “Outline”
Hover on any point in the loop, then hold “A” to being Outlining it
Trace the outline with your hand, highlighting each point
When you come back to the first point, completing the Outline, it will fill in

Cutting into Surfaces

Hover on the surface, or a connected edge/point
Press and hold the Trigger to draw as usual
Keeping the marker tip inside the surface, place more points as desired
Release the Trigger when done

When doing this, you will see the surface turn semi-transparent – this is to help you see your new lines as you sketch on the surface!

Selecting

Selecting multiple points allows you resize, extrude, duplicate, and other useful actions

Hover on an unselected point, then press “A” to Select it
You can also press and hold “A”, then wave your hand across more points, to select them all
Selected points will show a bright white sphere
To deselect a point, hover on it and press “A”
Or, hover on it, then press and hold “A”, then wave your hand across more points to deselect them all
To deselect all points, hover on nothing, then press “A”

Extruding

Pull and hold the secondary Trigger to activate the “Special” tools
Notice that the main Trigger has changed to “Extrude”
Hover on a line, surface, or selection
Pull and hold the trigger, then move your hand to Extrude
Similar to drawing regular lines, press “A” to place intermediate sections, then release the Trigger to place the final section

If you go too far … simply press “B” to cancel the last-extruded section, and complete the action 🙂

Duplicating

Pull and hold the secondary Trigger to activate the “Special” tools
Notice that the main Gripper has changed to “Duplicate”
Hover on a line, surface, or selection
Pull and hold the gripper, then move your hand – you are now holding a duplicate
As always when holding items, press “A” to place a copy, and release the Gripper to place the held item

If you placed all the duplicates you need, press “B” to delete the held object

Resizing

Hover on a point, line, surface, or Selection
Pull and hold the main Gripper to grab the hovered item
Note that the secondary Gripper now shows “Resize”
Pull and hold secondary Gripper, so that both grippers are now held
Move your hands apart or closer together, stretching or squashing the item to resize it

Guide Snapping

While drawing your Poly, you can use Guide Snapping to line up parts

Enable this by pressing the Menu button on the secondary hand, then toggling “Guide Snapping” ON
Now, when you draw lines, guides will appear and snap your points to alignment with other points
Special Note: if you need to limit the snapping, select the points you wish to snap to – now the snapping will only consider these.

Removing Points and Lines

Hover on the point, line or selection you wish to remove
Press the “B” button to remove these

Clearing Surfaces

Hover on the surface you wish to clear
Press the “B” button, and the surface will be cleared

Exiting the Object

When you are done editing an object, you can Exit it

Press the Menu button on the left controller, then choose “Exit Object”
Now, you will be able to interact with all objects in your scene
Remember, you can always dive back into any object
Just hover on it, and tap the main Joystick forward once

Special Note: Tap the main Joystick backward anytime to Exit, if you’d like a faster method than using the Menu!

Objects

Manipulate

Hover on an object or selection
Pull and hold the main Gripper to grab the item
Now, just move the item with your hand, as if holding it

Select

Hover on an unselected object, then press “A” to Select it
You can also press and hold “A”, then wave your hand across more objects, to select them all
Selected objects will be colored bright white
To deselect an object, hover on it and press “A”
Or, hover on it, then press and hold “A”, then wave your hand across more objects to deselect them all
To deselect all objects, hover on nothing, then press “A”

Delete

Hover on an object or selection, then press “B” to delete it

Edit

Hover on the object you wish to edit
Tap the main joystick forward
Now, you can edit the points, lines, and surfaces on this object

Note: You can also select the object, then open the on-hand menu and click the “Edit” button

Pickup and Copy

Hover on an object or selection
Pull the main Gripper to pick it up
Now, press “A” to place a copy, repeat as needed
Release the Gripper to place the final copy

Duplicate

Pull the secondary Gripper to activate “Special” tools
Note that the main Gripper now shows “Duplicate”
Hover on an object or selection
Pull the main Gripper to pick up a duplicate of that item
Now, press “A” to place a copy, repeat as needed
Release the Gripper to place the final copy

Setting Object Color

Select the objects you wish to apply a color to
Press the menu button on the left controller
Click the “Set Color” button in the on-hand menu
Use the color setting to pick a new color

Visual Settings

Wireframe

Press the menu button on the left controller
Disable “Show Solid”

Passthrough

Press the menu button on the left controller
Enable “Show Passthrough”

Using Reference Images

Place and view images in your Polysketch scene! This is a great way to build from reference, certainly much better than taking the headset on and off! We hope to add web browsing and downloading soon as well.

Learn to use this feature on the Reference Images page!

Importing 3D models for Retopology, or Reference

Yes, you can import a 3D model from Blender, etc into Polysketch! This is great for using Polysketch to retopo a higher poly mesh, or just for reference.

This is an experimental feature, so you can read all about it on the Danger Zone page!

Importing other 3D models, into Polysketch

Yes, you can import a 3D model from Blender, etc into Polysketch! This is great for using Polysketch to retopo a higher poly mesh, or just for reference.

Note: this feature is in a very early, very experimental stage. Please forgive the current clunky setup, we wanted to get this working ASAP for the many people who requested it- much work to come!

Connect your headset to your computer via USB
In the headset, you may need to answer “Allow” to enable the USB connection
Open a file browser window on your computer, and navigate to the Polysketch OBJ folder:
This PC\Quest 2\Internal shared storage\Polysketch\ModelsToImport
Copy any .obj file into that folder, optionally you can include referenced .mtl files
Polysketch will place the first object it finds within that folder into all scenes. The object is not moveable or editable (feature coming soon) within the scene

Exporting and Using in Other Applications

Exporting allows you to use your creations in just about any other application … Blender, Unity, Unreal, Roblox, 3D printing … just about anything!

Exporting the Entire Scene

This will create a single file, with the center of the grid as the center point.

Ensure you have no objects selected
Press the menu button on the left controller
Choose “Export” in the on-hand menu
This will export all objects in the current scene, as a single GLB file, into the folder:
Quest 2\Internal shared storage\Polysketch\Exports

Exporting Specific Objects

If multiple objects are selected, this will create a single file, with the center of the grid as the center point.

If only one object is selected, this will create a single file, with object’s first-created vertex as the center point.

Select the objects you wish to export
Press the menu button on the left controller
Choose “Export” in the on-hand menu
This will export all selected objects, as a single GLB file, into the folder:
Quest 2\Internal shared storage\Polysketch\Exports

Using the Exported file in Other Applications

Connect your headset to your computer via USB
In the headset, you may need to answer “Allow” to enable the USB connection
Open a file browser window on your computer, and navigate to the Polysketch exports folder:
This PC\Quest 2\Internal shared storage\Documents\Polysketch\Exports
Select the files you wish to use, and copy them to a location on your computer
In the desktop application (eg, Blender, Unity, etc), import the GLB file

Special Note: For Unity, we recommend the gLTFast Plugin