Saving and sharing your Open Brush sketches

When you are finished with your 3D creation, you can save your Open Brush sketch to your computer, or share it to Icosa or Sketchfab. You can also take snapshot, GIFs or videos of your art to send to friends or post online.

Saving a sketch

While painting, you can save your sketch to avoid losing changes.

1. Navigate to the Tools panel in the palette, and select the Save icon:
2. Take a snapshot of your sketch to use as a thumbnail image.

3. Your sketch is now added to your Sketchbook.

4. Your sketch file is saved to your computer at Documents/Open Brush/Sketches.

Trouble saving sketches

If you're having issues saving your sketch, check that you have administration privileges on your machine. Antivirus software can also sometimes interfere with the ability to save sketches.

Sharing your Open Brush sketches

To share your creations outside of Open Brush, click Upload to publish your sketch to Icosa. Once you have published your sketch, you can share the link to your sketch on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Save in various file formats using Cameras

1. While in your sketch, go to Tools > Cameras.

2. With your painting controller, swipe the thumbpad to toggle between Auto GIF, 5-second GiF, video, and snapshot.

3. After selecting your option, your image file will save to the Documents folder on your computer.

4. You can then share photos, videos, and GIFs or your artwork online.

Note: Using Cameras will not save the sketch file to gallery.

Take a 5-second GIF

1. Select 5-second GIF from the Cameras menu.

2. On your painting controller, hold down the trigger to start recording. You can release the trigger to reposition or paint, then hold down the trigger again to continue recording.

3. When the recording hits 5-seconds, the GIF will be saved to your desktop under Documents/Open Brush/Snapshots.

Take a video

1. Select Video from the Cameras menu.

2. On your painting controller, tap the trigger to start recording. Tap the trigger again to stop.

3. Your captured video will be saved to your desktop under Documents/Open Brush/Videos

If you are an advanced user, you can also generate a high resolution video using offline rendering. Detailed instructions can be found in our release notes.

Upload a video to YouTube

1. Select Video from the Cameras menu.

2. On your painting controller, tap the trigger to start recording. Tap the trigger again to stop.

3. Hold down the thumbpad after a video has finished recording to go into Preview mode.

4. If you like the video you’ve captured, hold down the checkmark to upload.

5. If you haven't already, you will need to sign-into your YouTube account in your default desktop browser.

Export your sketch file to .fbx, .obj, .gltf and other formats

.fbx is a popular format for 3D modeling, and can be used in applications like Blender and Maya.

1. From the Tools panel, select "More Options..." > Labs > Export.

2. A folder will be created in Open Brush/exports that contains subfolders for each 3d file format currently supported. Each folder may also contain brush textures

For more information see Exporting Open Brush Sketches to Other Apps

Create a 360 video

To create a 360 video, follow the instructions here. Note: this is an advanced feature, and requires some working knowledge of the command line.