sculpting
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VRClay marries the Oculus Rift and motion control for easy 3D sculpting
In case you needed yet another reminder that we live in the future, take a look at what happens when someone mashes up the Oculus Rift and Razer's handheld Hydra motion controllers with some nifty homebrew sculpting software. The end result is VRClay, an awfully nifty way to virtually manipulate and craft three-dimensional objects right in front of your face. Watching one of the developers making a faux-clay spider out of nothing is undeniably cool (check out the video after the break), and despite all the additional hardware that makes it possible, the process of actually creating the thing still seems just a little more natural than rotating and poking with a keyboard and mouse. Alas, VRClay doesn't seem to be ready for primetime yet: it's not clear how precise and meticulous you can get with your designs, and the developers are keeping mum over on the official site. Still, this is the latest in a long line of technical achievements meant to make creating easier. British game developer Media Molecule showed off something very similar for the PS4 in early 2013, and Microsoft's Project Spark aims to get us sculpting landscapes and the like -- the latter will finally debut in a few short weeks.
Disney Research's latest tech will accurately 3D print your mullet
Printing in three dimensions allows for a ton of really cool (and life-saving) stuff, but one area it apparently hasn't conquered just yet is realistically reproducing human hair. The masterminds at Disney Research think they have a solution for that conundrum. Instead of trying to capture individual strands of someone's coif, the team is taking a similar approach to that of Michelangelo, and attempting to capture an overall "essence" of a person's hairstyle by fitting it on a bust like a helmet. And while the applications for most of what Walt's science department cooks up are a bit ambiguous, it seems pretty likely this tech'll be found in the myriad souvenir shops lining The Magic Kingdom. Disney says that the ultimate goal is to make more realistic (and possibly nightmare-inducing) figurines that accurately capture the subject's personality. What's more, the outfit has pointed out that it's even capable of accurately capturing facial hair. I might be a tad biased, but here's to hoping that means sideburns too.
Daily iPad App: 123D Sculpt
123D Sculpt is a virtual sculpture program designed by Autodesk, a software company known for its 3D business software like AutoCAD. Though Autodesk has a rich history of creating professional applications, 123D Sculpt is designed to the artist inside all of us. The iPad application lets you sculpt a 3D model out of a lump of virtual clay. It supports multi-touch so you can use all your fingers to mold thel clay into any shape you like. For the beginning artist, 123D Sculpt includes several pre-defined shapes that include animals, objects like cars and shapes like a cube. Once you decide on a shape, you can use a suite of tools to manipulate the clay by pulling, smoothing, pushing, pinching, flattening it and more. You can even apply textures and add color to each creation. And if you want a personal touch, you can import a photo from your camera or photo library and use it a custom texture. When you 're done with your sculpture, you can export it to a transparent PNG. It's unfortunate the app does not let you export the creation to a 3D file format. Though I am not an artist, I found 123D Sculpt to be very easy to use and enjoyable. The interface is intuitive and the app has a nice help section to explain what each tool and menu bar contains. A multiple undo feature lets you backtrack when you realize you've made some design mistakes. If you are a budding Michelangelo, then you should check out 123D Sculpt. It' s available for free from the App Store and ships with 15-20 clay models. Additional models are available as an in-app purchase.
Sculpt a 3D model using the iPad's touchscreen and accelerometer
This is very cool -- Beautiful Modeler is a software tool used between an iPad and a MacBook above to gesturally sculpt a 3D model using the iPad's touchscreen. As you can see, the iPad works as a controller for the app running on the MacBook, and not only is touchscreen information passed on to the 3D modeling program (I like that multitouch works as well, so you can mold five different points in the sculpture at once), but accelerometer information is also passed across, so tilting the iPad around also tilts the onscreen view. The source code for the project is readily available on the site, and while the gesture control currently hooks up to just one kind of form modeling, technically you could hook this up to any 3D sculpting program and sculpt away. The app even outputs a special 3D format that can be connected directly into a 3D printer, so you can make a form with the iPad and the modeling app, and then turn it into a real 3D object by printing it out. Very impressive. Even Apple probably never envisioned using the iPad as this kind of interface, but that's what happens when you have such a relatively cheap and powerful touchscreen computer available to almost anyone.
World of WarCrafts: Sculpting an interest in art
World of WarCrafts spotlights art and creativity by WoW players, including fan art, cooking, comics, cosplay, music and fan fiction. Show us how you express yourself; contact our tips line (attention: World of WarCrafts) with your not-for-profit, WoW-inspired creations. It's all about making time for what you love to do -- so says Jason Babler, a former WoW player who's nurturing a love for sculpting fantasy and gaming characters, with eye-popping results. It took four months of patient, part-time work to create this troll hunter, based on artwork from Upper Deck. Jason's managed to combine a passion for gaming with a lifelong interest in fantasy, carving out a hobby that he describes as his way to get away from the computer and develop the art skills he's always wanted. Read more about Jason's sculpture, after the gallery and break. %Gallery-83882%
Amateur sculptor molding Illidan into shape
This is awesome -- Jason Babler (who apparently works as a Creative Director at a videogame company during the day and sculpts for Mantle Studios at night) is putting together a sculpture of everyone's second favorite baddie, Illidan (Arthas is number one, right?), and as you can see above, it's coming along nicely. He started using a material called ProClay, but found it wasn't hard enough, so he's now using a wax called FUSE. It sounds like it's been quite a journey -- he says that he's resculpted every part of the figure at least twice. That's a lot of work.But it does look good. As professional as his site looks, this is just a hobby for him, so unfortunately we probably won't get a chance to someday get a copy of this. But then again, you can really tell that Jason is doing this just because he loves it so much. The finished product will probably turn out great, but you can tell he's more interested in doing it the way he wants to rather than getting it done fast.
World of WarCrafts: Giant yeti
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Ever get lonely sitting at your computer doing all those wonderfully redundant dailies? Need someone cute and cuddly to pass the time with? Use this easy to learn, but hard to master method to bring your favorite in-game companion or NPC into the real world.Here is what you will need: Sculpey Clay (blue, white, brown, black) Clay tools (or a toothpick) Oven Optional supplies: High gloss acrylic spray Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-23926%
Sculptor crafting 3D replicas of your Mii
We know, you've been catching up on a world of news this morning thanks to the Wii News Channel going live, but if you're one of those folks who snapped up your Mii on a Tee just as soon as you found the funds, this is for you. Sculptor and illustrator Paul Thiel crafted a 3D figure of a friend's Mii as a Christmas gift, but soon realized that geeks like us would hit up the Ramen diet for a few days in order to have one of our own, so now he's hard at work constructing a proper way to take and process orders. Even though no prices have been set just yet, you can take one look at this masterpiece and see how priceless your very own could be, so be sure to hit the read link for the full skinny of how to get your pre-order in and secure yet another piece of obscure, albeit nifty, video game art.[Via Joystiq]
