3D
Design stunning characters and show them off to the world. Best of all, it’s absolutely free!
After revealing her big secret last year, the popular schoolgirl is back and she’s undergone some impressive improvements.
One of the artists for popular light novel and manga series Gosick posted these amazing popup-style drawings on Twitter recently, where they were immediately shared hundreds of times by impressed otaku. Using just pencil, paper, and an open book they’ve been able to bring the characters into the 3D world with clever techniques.
There’s nothing cuter than cute animal goods, is there? Whether it’s hamster cheek coin purses or panda earmuffs, we just can’t resist wasting our hard-earned cash on adorable things to make us feel all fuzzy inside. Especially if they’re a little unusual or quirky in ways that make us feel like we’ve got something really original on our hands.
Take, for example, these new three-dimensional animal head cushions by Hot Seal JP. The full range features Akita ken, husky, poodle, pug and boxer breed dogs, as well as a variety of cutesome kitties, all with massive bulging eyes and protruding snouts that somehow manage to be creepy and cute at the same time!
Little, fat, round, lucky – Daruma dolls are an instantly recognisable Japanese trinket that also serve as a source of inspiration, encouraging people to achieve their goals. Daruma dolls usually come with two blank white eyes. You paint on one eye as you set yourself an objective (pass an exam, get a promotion, etc) and then paint on the second eye once you achieve your goal. As such, Daruma are a popular gift given to students cramming for exam season. But wouldn’t it be amazing if you could buy a Daruma doll crafted in the likeness of your own ugly face? Well, now you can, and what’s more – they’re three dimensional!
What happens when you take the merits of both 2-D and 3-D animation and combine them to make a new hybrid form of animation technology? Unfathomable as it may seem, that’s precisely the type of technology that Japanese company Live2D is in the midst of developing. Their latest achievement, known as “Live2D Euclid,” is software that is able to transform your 2-D drawings into a 3-D reality while still retaining the look and details of a pen and paper illustration. In other words, it looks like “a hand-drawn picture that will move in the way you want it to.”
Still confused? Check out the introductory video after the jump to see this new technology that is revolutionizing the way we animate characters in anime and video games!
Mt. Fuji is Japan’s iconic mountain. Known and admired the world over, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site not as a natural site as one would expect, but as a cultural site due to its historical importance as a muse to artists of all kinds.
The snow-capped mountain has been depicted in every artistic medium you could imagine: wood-block prints, photos, video, stories and more. And now it’s been recreated in what may be my favorite form to date: 3D, laser-cut, 360-degree, miniature picture books!
Just a few weeks ago, this writer excitedly introduced you to Omote 3D Shashin Kan, the new 3D photography and modelling studio in Tokyo that immortalizes customers as tiny, intricately detailed figurines for just a couple of hundred dollars apiece.
Despite wanting to head down to the fancy new studio myself and decorate my apartment with a collection of mini mes, after much discussion in the office and comments being made like “too handsome” and “they might not have enough plastic to model your nose,” the RocketNews24 crew decided it best to send reporting legend Mr. Sato to do the honours instead.
This is no ordinary photoshoot.
A video released on NicoNico Video by a group going by the name of Shichoukaku iinkai “The Audiovisual committee” has wowed Japanese internet users this week by managing to create a pseudo 3-D effect on 2-D monitors.
The video has since gone viral and, as of this afternoon, has reached more than 100,000 views.
Of course, it probably helps that digital idol Hatsune Miku is the star of the video, which sees the character dancing around while surrounded by thousands of (3-D!) shards of glass.
With a little concentration, the video’s 3-D effect actually works, even if it does require the user to look faintly ridiculous to see it…
For expecting couples, visiting the gynecologist for an ultrasound scan can be a memorable experience as it is often their first look at the precious life waiting to be born in the world. Many soon-to-be parents even ask for a black-and-white printout of the scan to commemorate the occasion and then later to embarrass their child in front of his or her friends.
Now, Japanese engineering firm Fasotec has taken prenatal memorabilia to literally the next dimension with “Shape of an Angel,” a miniature 3D replica of the fetus as it lay in the womb.
A couple months ago when Tupac “appeared” at the Coachella Festival, they incorrectly called it a “hologram” when in fact it was a style of 3D projection—the same that is used when Hatsune Miku makes live appearances. Now you can make your favorite murdered rapper or vocaloid come to life with similar 3D projections using your tablet computer and “Hakoani!”
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