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3D Modelling for Kids
An anonymous reader writes "E4engineering has a story on Cosmic Blobs, a 3D modelling tool designed for kids and marketed as a game. Blobs breaks new ground both on the UI side (for instance, the UI has no text whatsoever) and on the modelling side: an object stays smooth as it is pushed and pulled, and animations are automatically adapted to arbitrary shapes. I tried the demo and it's fun, but sometimes unintuitive (
tutorials on the website are useful). I could make animals and get them to hop around with relative ease even though I have no artistic talent. Could this be the way real artists model in the future?"
Blobs breaks new ground both on the UI side (for instance, the UI has no text whatsoever)
I'm pretty sure that isn't new ground.
It sucks when I have to figure out what the icon artists were thinking when I'm trying to learn a new interface, telepathy or something like that would come in handy there. There's a standard way to express symbolically- it's called letters and words. At the very least, make hovering the pointer for some amount of time over a purely graphical icon have some text popup to explain what it does.
i suspect real artists will model the same way they do today: nude.
If modelling becomes this easy, paying for "real artists" won't even be necessary. You can hire fake artists. In India.
schild
editor, f13.net
LEGO anyone?
I know the devs for this rather well. The technology behind the modeling is quite astounding, and I recommend trying out the demo yourself (Win only now, although Mac OS X soon). I'd like to see them move it to a real product that artists can use in a useful way rather than a kids' product though.
There is a professional production 3D modelling software which has been doing this for years, it's called Z-Brush. Of course its UI is much more sophisticated (and complicated), but you can already see on its website that the results which can be achieved by its use are impressive to say the least.
BTW the colors for this slashdot section are _horrible_.
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Great... just another excuse to keep a generation of socially deprived, physically stagnant kids glued to the computer when they should be playing racket ball or bikes with their friends outside.
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The fact that Indians are paid poorly compared to US corporate graphic designers doesn't make them "fake artists".
India is actually full of artists, craftsmen, and designers that will create whatever you like (physical or virtual) at a fraction of the cost that the US corporate designer gets paid.
Bah! I'm one step ahead of this curve. I don't even bother with images: I do all my art in the command line of MATLAB!
...
No, really, I'm serious.
...and the things I draw come true!
Stop the world; I need to get off.
So can I build my own Matrix-like movie with this, and merge myself in as an actor? I would be an interesting twist to home movies to merge 3d animations and real video!
Referring to highly skilled, underpaid, and overworked artists as "fake" is no joke, it's degrading and totally inappropriate.
As are your insults.
This is not really off-topic if you think about it...
Here is a product for Windows ONLY. The poster asks if 3D will become so simple... My answer: this is akin to the Windows "Wizard" which feigns an attempt to help the user complete a task, when in reality it hides the real questions and answers and complexities the user should be able to realize and learn.
You've got to ask yoursefl: Would you rather have a Wizard or an Assistant?
I choose the Assistant every day...
The best children's apps are the ones where the grown-ups want to play with it as much as the kids
There's a really interesting app called Groboto that allows you to algorithmically "grow" 3d forms. You can create magnets or plants to attract or repel the forms you are creating, and it's got animation capablilites and for the big kids, .obj export and alpha channels. Difficult not to make an interesting image with it.
The down side? It's Mac OS9 only.
As a 3D artist I had to laugh pretty hard at this question because anyone who works with a 3D application jokes about the mythical "Make Art" button that will produce photorealistic super art for whatever XYZ application is being paid fan service by zealots.
The simple answer to the question though is NEVER. A tool, or an application in this case, does not make art, it's the talent driving the application (no not your computer) that produces good work.
Or perhaps Play-Doh?
... adapted to arbitrary shapes
for instance, the UI has no text whatsoever
as it is pushed and pulled,
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There was once a Mario-branded 3d modelling tool for Nintendo-64. I forget what it was called, probably Mario Scuplt or Mario Paint or something, but it was based on the Nendo codebase. It was only released in Japan, and required the hard drive addon. Actually, I'm not sure it was actually released, I may have played it only on pre-release hardware. It was cute and fun. There was maddening cute background music.
I hate to break it to all of you idiots who think people care about what you are saying, but almost all of you know absolutely nothing about 3d modelling or animation. To the person who mentioned the social habits of kids no one gives a shit about your opinions on the social workings of the country so keep your opinions to yourself. To everyone else who even attempted to make commentary on the program congratulations, you failed. Go and research something than maybe youll learn something and make commentary that sounds like it came from a person with an IQ over 30. I thought people who read slashdot were supposed to be intelligent. Thanks for proving me wrong.
I think you ment "most hated". There is an open sourceTeddy clone, but it seems to have gone windows only...
It sure doesn't look as "clean" as Teddy, a modeling program based on drawing 2d shapes and projecting them into 3D. The demonstration video is very impressive.
There's a newer version called SmoothTeddy, but the additional features have made the interface a little tougher, and the demonstration video spends the whole first half talking about technical improvements over the original Teddy.
Teddy was the 3D modeling system used for Alice, a 3D programming environment designed for grade school children.
All of this software is free to download.