Tilt Brush is a fantastic art application like you've never used before. Straight out of science fiction, Tilt Brush lets you move and paint in a 3D space using motion controllers. It's a powerful tool that anyone can utilize with just a little practice, but might be daunting at first.

This guide will help you with tips and tricks to getting the most out of Tilt Brush. It's not an advanced guide; most of what I'll be covering here is common sense, but it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the experience of painting in virtual reality. I hope this guide will help you get off the ground and comfortable with the interface more quickly.

Because the VR experience is so immersive, your natural impulse may be to stay outside of your art and walk around it. Try to remember that your art isn't solid and there is no reason why you can't stick your head right into the middle of it. When I was painting a 5-foot wide Death Star, I spent the first half-hour clumsily walking around the sphere to paint the shell, before it occured to me I could just walk into the center and paint it from the inside. This was much easier and faster to paint from. Your strokes are two-sided, so no one will be able to tell whether you painted your sculpture from the outside or the inside.

Like real-life illustration, it helps greatly to start out with a sketch to establish the shape of your object. This way, you can get an idea of the layout and proportions before you start on the detail work. When I was painting a Death Star, it kept coming out lopsided until I sketched out some circles to establish the perimeter of the battle station. Use a bright and conspicuous color with a low brush width - I prefer using the Light brush with pure white so that my outline stands out and is easy to find and delete later.

It's surprisingly easy to write in the air with the Vive's motion controllers. Don't be afraid to jot down floating notes if you have an idea you want to save for later, or need to take a break. You can easily erase your notes later.

It's very difficult to draw a freehand straight line over a long distance. Tilt Brush has a tool named "Straight Edge" that lets you draw a perfectly straight line between two points. With the Straight Edge tool and your preferred brush activated, press down the trigger where you want to start, and release it where you want to end. Tilt Brush will connect the two points with a line. Much easier than trying to move your arm straight in three dimensions!

Tilt Brush has around a dozen different background scenes you can use to add atmosphere to your art. Each of the backgrounds will subtly change the lighting on and color of your artwork, so it's best to pick a background early. With my first image, I didn't pick a background until I was nearly finished painting, and found that the background I liked the best didn't work well with the colors I had selected. If I had picked my background first, I could have used more appropriate colors in my art.

I tend to use long strokes when painting in 3D. If I'm not thinking about it, I might draw continuously for 10 - 20 seconds before releasing the trigger. The biggest problem here is that if you hold down the trigger for 19 seconds and make a mistake in the last second, pressing undo will erase all of those last 20 seconds. If you divide your work into a larger number of short brush strokes, you won't lose too much when you hit the undo button. Another problem is that you can't delete only part of a stroke with the delete tool. If you draw a 5x5 floor with one stroke and decide you want to delete the corner later, you'll have to delete the whole floor and start over because it's all one piece.

You can Undo and Redo by pressing down on the left and right side of the left-hand controller's circle pad. This used to be a secret feature, but it's shown on the controller now.

If you squeeze the grip buttons of both controllers at the same time and move your hands towards or away from each other, you can quickly shrink or grow your artwork. While holding the grip buttons, you can also move both arms in the same direction to drag your artwork around yourself. These features make it possible to zoom in and adjust fine details, or zoom out and take in the big picture. If you're making something elaborate, I highly suggest viewing it at different sizes and perspectives - you might find that your elaborate mural looks better at an entirely different angle than you had in mind when you started!

While holding the 'cursor' part of the right controller over one of the menus on the left controller, you can actually grab the menus and move them around. You can change where they are attached to the left controller, or even move them off of the controller and stick them in a fixed position in the world, if you prefer. Very handy for those who like to customize their workspace!