Today I put together a helper utility because I was tired of trying to create good perspective grids with shoddy perspective tools. I don't always know exactly what perspective I want for an image; I wanted to be able to experiment with grids in real-time and see what kinds of angles and fields of view are most visually striking or inspiring. Enter Griddle:





It is by no means a technological achievement (it took a few hours to get right, which was probably half GUI tweaking because I'm that kind of person), but I believe it can be potentially useful to others so I'd like to share it anyway.

With Griddle you don't have to fuss with counter-intuitive grid systems in 2D drawing/painting applications that can be a pain to adjust if you want a slight change. Griddle uses Unity3D, and being within a 3D engine means re-adjusting your perspective is as easy as moving the camera. You could always use something like SketchUp, but I feel that having something specifically designed for perspective grids the moment it opens saves much setup time.

There are two background modes, the default grey which is easier on the eyes, and white which can be more useful as a multiply layer in your painting program of choice. To 'export' from Griddle just hit the spacebar (which toggles the GUI), take a printscreen, and paste and crop in Photoshop/Painter/etc. Beneath the Unity applet is an option to reload the applet with a new resolution if the current one is too small or large. Don't overlook the 'Fade' settings if you find the distant overlapping grids become chaotic and distracting.

If you find Griddle useful and post up work made with its help, or have usability feedback, feel free to reply here. If you know of others who could use it, let them know, too! The more time Griddle can save, the more things people can collectively create.