animation

3D laser-etched acrylic zoetrope

From the Design Media Lab at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, this “crystal zoetrope” technology involves spinning a cylinder of acrylic with internally etched 3D designs. The disk is surrounded by an array of LEDs that can flash in time with the rotation, or slightly asynchronously, to make the designs appear to move in space, and, additionally, to gradually rotate around the center of the cylinder in one direction or another. The direction and speed of rotation can be controlled by gestural movements on the tabletop. [via Dude Craft]

Continue Reading

Fake TV camera trend takes over elementary school

This fascinating piece, from This American Life (animated by Chris Ware), tells the story of an elementary school where a couple of kids made a TV camera out of cardboard and tempera paint. Soon, the cardboard camera craze went viral and it seemed like every kid was either a camera operator, an anchor, or some […]

Continue Reading
Animated knots

Animated knots

Photo from Animated Knots One of the challenges with learning knots is that it’s often difficult to interpret written directions and sometimes it’s tough to follow photos. Animated Knots by Grog has a neat collection of knot-tying animations. There are loads of variations, and the interface allows you to invert, flip, and rotate some of […]

Continue Reading

Hangar No. 5: Blender-made action movie

Nathan sent this tip in via the comments: “Hangar No. 5“: The story of two treasure-hunting teens sneaking into an abandoned military base looking for a rumored gold cache. Once inside, they accidentally activate a top secret relic of the Cold War – a huge mobile weapons system bent on protecting the base from all […]

Continue Reading

Solve a Rubik’s Cube with Blender

Youtube user Petitblenderman has a great video of a Rubik’s Cube solved in a Blender animation. Danny says this looks reasonably solid. You may remember Danny’s laser cut tactile cube post by Collin. Looks pretty legit to me. The cube’s colors are all in the right place, although I was a little confused at about […]

Continue Reading

Night of the Living Dead Pixels

Peter writes in the comments about Blender. He and his mates did an independent study to learn Blender, an open source software platform for 3D design and animation. The results of their work is a clever short film titled The Night of the Living Dead Pixels. Their video animation was awarded best short film at […]

Continue Reading

Fluid sims in Blender

Blender is an open source software project that allows users to create three dimensional objects which can then be rendered into animation sequences and more. From ~kronick Does your school use Blender? What great things have you designed with Blender? What is the best way to get started learning Blender? Add your ideas to the […]

Continue Reading