Frequently Asked Questions

We're taking digital modelling out of the dark ages of working two-dimensionally via a monitor and mouse, and taking it into the fully three-dimensional present — where we can literally project full-size digital models into our surroundings, walk around them, and reach out and edit them directly using 3D controllers. And we can do this in real time with other collaborators who beam into the same space from all over the world.

Finally, technology has caught up and given us an affordable 3D digital interface — the VR headset — which means we can once again develop models at full size with true human perspective, like we did with clay, while keeping the amazing advantages of working digitally.

This is a paradigm shift in digital design modelling. It enables us to work more efficiently, more collaboratively, more accurately, more sustainably — and crucially, it eliminates that surprising difference between the digital model on the screen and the real-world model. That gap has been so problematic for digital models created through a 2D interface: you were looking at the model on the CAD screen, but what you actually saw in real space was different. You'd go round it in three-quarter view and things just weren't as you saw them on the CAD system.

I currently work with some of the world's leading motorcycle OEMs and design consultancies who are open to innovation — in order to save time, money, and improve design quality. Some engage me on a project basis, where I work alongside their designers to build beautifully resolved design models on live projects. Others come to me for training, where I upskill their internal teams through my unique and advanced training programmes.

Every design studio is different, so I work with you to give whatever support is required — to both prove the efficacy of VR modelling and then integrate this unfair advantage into your own workflow.

VR modelling combines the visual clarity of physical models with the efficiency of digital models, dramatically accelerating concept development. It shortens timelines, reduces reliance on costly physical prototypes, and enhances cross-functional collaboration. We now achieve in a matter of days what used to take weeks or even months — that goes for both the digital concept-modelling phase and any subsequent physical clay-modelling phase.

With globally dispersed teams now working together in real time within the same virtual space, it eliminates the need for travel and enables faster design validation and iteration. The result is a faster path to market, and a leaner, more cost-effective development process — a significant ROI.

With the ability to evaluate the design at full size and in three dimensions — and understand how a model will feel as a real product — it opens the door to huge leaps in design quality. Coupled with that: the enhanced collaboration between the designer and modeller, the ability to work accurately to engineering inputs, and the speed at which we can deploy real 3D craftsmanship. It all adds up to far superior design quality, delivered faster than ever.

“I was pretty sceptical of how the clay would come out. A week later, visiting you in your clay workshop and seeing a milled clay in front of me that was shockingly close to the perception I had in Gravity Sketch — I couldn't believe the speed at which we were able to turn traditional, emotional sketch work into emotional models you could interact with fully. It's blown my mind, actually, the last couple of months. It's been an incredible journey, and it's just the start.”

— Design director, after first VR programme

Working in VR enables real dialogue between stakeholders — designers, modellers, engineers, managers. The ability for many people to come together around a single VR model and feel so present with one another, despite being in different locations, is a powerful experience. You can grab the model and edit it directly, or you can annotate and draw 3D curves in space to convey your point.

We can shrink ourselves down to the size of an ant and go inside the model alongside our colleagues to discuss a technical clearance issue. In VR, collaborating on the model is not just intuitive and clear — it's actually fun and empowering. Easy communication directly on the model removes opportunities for misunderstandings and conflict.

The only reason we've used 2D monitors to model 3D objects for so long is simply because, until recently, a 2D monitor was the only viable technology available. Now we are reintroducing real 3D craftsmanship back into the development process — something I believe has been sorely lacking, and which is evident when you look at the current automotive design landscape. It's a direct result of an over-reliance on modelling via a 2D interface, which utterly disables the designer-and-modeller team.

On a 2D monitor, we look through a small window at models at a shrunk-down scale, with no depth perception or sense of proximity to the model. Then there's the mouse — which moves only in two dimensions — with which we have to change our view, make selections, and manipulate those selections. Just not really simultaneously. And let's not get into how hard it is for the designers to effectively communicate and collaborate with the modeller.

Occasionally, the design teams do get to view the model in VR or as a milled clay model. But with this snapshot of the model in 3D, the modeller is then expected to fix the problems back on the 2D screen — without being able to really perceive the result of their actions. Re-mill, rinse, and repeat.

This is a slow, inefficient and expensive process — which now, thanks to VR modelling, is completely obsolete.

As an award-winning motorcycle designer and experienced clay modeller, over the course of some two decades, I've hand-sculpted dozens of full-size clay models of motorcycles, cars and other products. This has been a 20-year education in design sensitivity and 3D craftsmanship.

So when I discovered, in 2020, that VR headsets provided a means to finally express this craftsmanship digitally, I've been leading the way at Sculpt 3D — merging that hands-on practical knowledge with VR modelling processes, which have proven incredibly valuable for developing such emotional, dynamic and complex products as motorcycles.

To me, three-dimensional craftsmanship is more than just the skill to hold and manipulate a tool. It's the actual process through which we evolve and discover the model's final form. 3D craftsmanship is the intuitive understanding of where to add and where to remove material.

Key to this is being able to perceive the model properly in three dimensions: to look across surfaces, see how the form develops as we move around it, and then to interact with the model directly with our hands in three dimensions.

Craftsmanship is an exercise in patience — the patience to make tens of thousands of tiny tweaks as you define proportions, untwist surfaces, refine surface intersections, and evolve the flow of the surfaces until the design intent is achieved with the most simple and elegant expression of volumes.

A VR headset allows us to experience digital models as if they are real products in the real world. The model is magically projected right there next to us at full scale, rendered in the right materials with reflections and shadows. Every move of our head changes our perspective on the model completely naturally — allowing us to look across surfaces and down curves as we did with clay models.

In addition to this, we have two 3D controllers to navigate around the model and to interact with and edit the model in three dimensions. I can easily move edit points in any direction and see immediately, interactively, how that change influences the form.

This combination of highly informative visual feedback and the freedom to interact with the model creates a digital interface sophisticated enough to replicate real-world experiences — enabling us to deploy our three-dimensional craftsmanship in a digital environment.

“Nick has been the first to show me that VR-modelling thing — and seriously, what has been seen cannot be unseen. It's just incredible. It feels like we are there together, exactly like before, around the clay models we were working on together. I mean really — it's just mind-blowing.”

— Fabien Rougemont, Redster Design — on the Lightfighter project

As a modeller, my job is to empower designers by balancing their design direction with the technical and tooling requirements — sculpting beautiful things that actually work, and doing it in the most efficient way possible. I love making cool stuff with cool people.

I absolutely loved — and still love — to work on clay models. To many who have worked on designs using clay models, it is a process held very dear, so to suggest there may be an alternative way of doing things is seen by some as blasphemy.

My own opinion is that clay was always a means to an end. It was the best technology we had to realise what a design will look and feel like in the real world. For a century, designers have collaborated closely with skilled modellers to bring their ideas to life as beautifully crafted clay models. It was a tangible thing that a designer and modeller worked on together. It was enjoyable, and it was effective. But unfortunately, despite all its virtues, it's slow, expensive, and messy.

Now that VR hardware can project models into our surroundings that feel so real, the clay model becomes much less of a medium to do design development in — and more one for physical ergonomic validation or final design presentations. Typically we see month-long clay development phases being replaced by a couple of weeks of VR modelling, a couple of days of clay modelling, followed by a couple more weeks of VR refinement and then a presentation clay. The exact process is very client-dependent — and I've done several projects very successfully without any clay models at all.

“It is a disadvantage now to actually do it the conservative way with a classic clay model. I can be quite a bit faster, and I don't have the feeling I'm losing quality — because the VR image, by now, is so good that you really have the feeling you are looking at a real car. It's like a real car. It's really not much off.”

— Design lead, OEM partner

Modelling using Sub-D, we have a highly malleable, highly controllable digital medium. Sub-D gives us the flexibility to try out ideas in a way that is just not possible with NURBS modelling. In the same way that clay can be used to make both rough models and highly controlled sculptures in the hands of a skilled craftsman, Sub-D models can be highly sophisticated in their surface fidelity — and the design more completely resolved than with any other process.

On our beautifully evolved Sub-D models, every point sits in a very specific location within the model's topology, where it has a very specific and deliberate influence on the form. So we're able to create highly controlled, highlight-clean surface models that meet all aesthetic and technical requirements. Not A-class perhaps, but bloody close.

Most people are surprised by how quickly they can pick up VR modelling. The interface is so intuitive — you're working with both hands at full scale in real space, without loads of drop-down menus and tick boxes. It just makes sense.

My own kids were using it competently by age seven, and most adults are productive within a couple of days. Once you try it, your brain clicks into this spatial way of working and suddenly the old 2D screen feels incredibly limiting and clunky.

As AI improves at generating 3D meshes, human craftsmanship becomes even more essential. The difference between an unrefined and a refined surface often comes down to just a couple of millimetres everywhere. That level of judgement comes from experience — and, crucially, a human perspective.

VR allows us to integrate that perspective directly into the digital workflow. I don't see AI replacing modellers. Instead, it raises the bar and helps accelerate the process. The future belongs to those who combine AI speed with human sensitivity — and VR is the platform where that balance comes to life.

I'm Nick Graveley, the founder of Sculpt 3D, and I believe that the development of 3D products should take place in three dimensions. I work with design studios to implement VR modelling workflows that cut months off product-development timelines and save our partner studios many tens of thousands of pounds on each project. In addition, we are making even more beautifully crafted and technically compliant models than was ever before possible.

This is a truly disruptive change to the way we do product development — both in the motorcycle industry, where we are the go-to experts for design modelling, but also across all industrial design. Building 3D digital models spatially, in real 3D space, offers us advantages so numerous that its widespread adoption is absolutely inevitable.

Not yet convinced? No problem. Check out the video answers to the common questions on this page for the reasons I make this bold claim — and consider how your own workflow measures up.