Papercraft 3D Head Costume

This guy Eric Testroete modeled his own head in 3ds Max and used a few other tools to finish it so it could be printed and glued together. See his website for instructions or his flickr page for photos.

It's not the most complicated thing to execute, but it sure has impact. Because the light is hitting the polygons in such a natural way, It looks like it's walking the line between physical reality and digital.

Genius!

NYC 400 Years Ago

An amazing feat of reconstructing and approximating what NYC looked like 400 years ago.

Esquire House [3D]

Very cool 3D effect.

Another Esquire House Effect from steve mason on Vimeo.

[via Steve Mason's blog]

Convert photos to a 3D bump map

Photo


Bump Map


This site turns sets of 2D images into 3D bump maps. To do this, you will need five to fifteen photos of your object that overlap at least 80 to 90 percent. Frames from a video could work well.

Claytronics

Concept video by CMU’s Computer Science Department showing a future display in which molecular voxels, or Moxels, build up display elements physically, in 3D.

3D to cloth pattern [software]

Plushie is a free app that lets you draw a simple 3D character and then calculates a sewing pattern for you to print out and sew a plush toy!
Check out the app »

Plushie's Author, Yuki Igarashi has done some other really cool projects for her P.H.D.





[via 3D Thing]

Fast sketchup model building

LittleBigPlanet [Game]

LittleBigPlanet is a very cool game for the PS3 that allows you to create your own levels. It's like the power of robotic lego's at your fingertips.

I would have never known how cool this game if I didn't have someone show it to me because it takes about 8 hours of playing till you have enough status to really start making anything. Essentially you can make anything out of switches, pistons, motors, shapes, springs etc... It's like a fantasy sandbox of cool capabilities. All this is wrapped up in a nice sonic / visual package that effortlessly reflects the style of Michele Gondry. The videos below highlight some unique uses of the tools.

Last night I went out and bought a PS3, just so I could play this game :)

Gradius (Side-scrolling shooter):


How to make a gravity defying car:


How to make an OR Switch:


Calculator (LittleBigComputer)


Little Big Planet - Playstation 3

Buy a mask of your face for $299

Your face has worked out so far, but in the age of exploding laptop batteries and botched nose jobs, we can all use a spare. ThatsMyFace is a service that will create anything from a life-sized mask ($200) to a full 3D sculpture of your head ($2,000) with just two 2D images from you.

The service appears to first 3Dize your pictures by hand, then use 3D printing technology for the physical production model. At least in this clip, the result is scarily realistic, even if a bit dead looking. Then again, with the lights turned low enough, it may be just enough to test whether or not your spouse would cheat on you for Josh Hartnett. (Saving you the money, we'll just let you know that the answer is yes...be they your wife or husband.) [ThatsMyFace via Gizmodo]

Music to Cardiograph

Music Video: I'll Be Gone

Rapid Prototyping A Building

Research into the concrete-jet printer is being carried out by USC, and their technology can already build up complex concrete structures using technology that's half-CNC machine and half inkjet-like. They've just got funding from Caterpillar to further the research.

[via Gizmodo]

Our Satellites [Google Earth]

A company called Analytical Graphics, monitors of all the satellites orbiting our earth. It tracks over 13,000 objects! They just made there data free and public in the form of a Google Earth add on. It's simply insane how much crap we have floating up there. It's nutty.

To view it follow these instructions:
• Install Google Earth if you haven't already (http://earth.google.com)
• Open Google Earth
• Click on the "Add Content" button within the "Places" pane
• Paste this link into your browser URL:
http://adn.agi.com/SatelliteDatabase/SatelliteDatabase.kmz
• When it asks, choose to open the link in Google Earth

Finish Heavy Metal Squirrel

Cheesy operatic metal seems to be common place in Finnland...as common as Madonna is in the US. Everyone here is familiar with metal and instead of crappy pop music like Britany Spears, the 10 year old kids here like crappy metal instead.

One of the clients I worked with in Finland has a child that begs for this video to be played every night in order to go to bed. This squirrel is not just a one off, but considered a music artist. The US has Barney & the Finnish have a metal squirrel.



More videos from the squirrel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbx6QUoGpdY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxrNyOhld0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnczxedm0L4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCJKKOYalQ

3D Framework tug of war

Artist: Brandon Morse
Tools: Houdini

3D Medical Animations

View Animation »

Amazing medical animations. Now I am re-questioning all those acid trips. Maybe I was just somehow peering into my body instead of visiting other worlds.

Fast 3D in Flash

Click here to view the demo.

Alternativa3D tech specs:
• signals system — only nesessary calculations
• BSP — quality polygon sorting, "sharp" crossings
• n-gons support
• reusing layers (only changed regions redrawing, polygons are independent)
• objects hierarchy
• only necessary matrix, coords and UVs recalculating
• perspective correction — dynamic triangulation
• collision detection

And this is not all. In a future we’ll create and implement some new features:
• dynamic lighting and shadows (point and directional lights)
• bump lighting
• parallax mapping
• automatic UV-mapping
• sprites, 3D-sprites
• sprite lighting
• texture objects
• Global Illumination imitation
• sprite pre-render system (phases render on server using uploaded 3D-models)
• animation system (including inverse kinematics)
• 3D-objects interactivity
• physics simulation

Source code and more info »

[via 3D Thing]

The Making of Wanderlust

The final video »
The final video in crappy 3D »
This and more trippy videos like it were made by EncyclopediaPictura.

I give this video four stars not five because I'm sick of Bjorks voice. It was really neat for the first few albums, but now it just sounds too predictable.

Photo to 3D conversion

Info about the project »
Convert your image into 3D »

Tech behind the new Star Wars game

Star Wars -- The Force Unleashed:

Simulation of evolution