Our second annual 3D Jam kicks off in just a few weeks, and it’s bigger than ever! Today we’re excited to announce new prizes for competitors, bringing up our prize total to over $75,000. And we’re just getting started. Beginning September 28th, developers around the world will compete to build the most amazing motion-controlled experiences […]
// Unity
As the 3D Jam approaches, developers around the globe are already getting a headstart on their projects. Zach Kinstner, the creator behind Hovercast and Firework Factory, has been sharing his latest project through a series of videos – a virtual reality guitar! We caught up with Zach this week to talk about his design process, especially the guitar’s unique combination of visual depth cues.
Boom! The white globe in front of you explodes into an array of color and light. A fraction of a second later – whoosh! – glowing stars streak past your head, leaving you in their colorful wake.
Reaching toward the holographic interface, with the motion of a single finger, you take control of time itself. The firework slows. Stops. Then it begins to recede back to the center. You slow time again as the stars ease past you, watching as the firework surrounds you. Entropy turns on its head again, and the firework calmly implodes into a single white globe.
But how would this firework look in orange and yellow? Exploding in a spiral pattern? You casually switch between holographic menu panels to make some changes. You’re about to find out.
Music videos have evolved significantly since TRL. Last week, we were thrilled to come across a new release from Darwin Deez called Kill Your Attitude, where the perils of modern love take some truly bizarre emotional and technical twists. Love (literally) becomes a battlefield when Darwin’s angry girlfriend becomes the player in a first-person shooter, taking the central conflict to some vividly imaginative heights as she hunts him down for great justice.
In yesterday’s post, I talked about the need for 3D design tools for VR that can match the power of our imaginations. After being inspired by street artists like Sergio Odeith, I made sketches and notes outlining the functionality I wanted. From there I researched the space, hoping that someone had created and released exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately I didn’t find it; either the output was not compatible with DK2, the system was extremely limited, the input relied on a device I didn’t own, or it was extremely expensive.
What if you could create art outside the boundaries of physics, but still within the real world? For artists like Sergio Odeith, this means playing tricks with perspective. Sergio makes stunning anamorphic (3D-perspective-based) art using spray paint, a surface with a right angle, and his imagination.
Creative 3D thinkers like Odeith should have the ability to use their freehand art skills to craft beautiful volumetric pieces. Not just illusions on the corners of walls, but three-dimensional works that that people can share the same space with. This was what inspired me to create Graffiti 3D – a VR demo that I entered into the Leap Motion 3D Jam. It’s available free for Windows, Mac, and Linux on my itch.io site.
What if you could disassemble a robot at a touch? Motion control opens up exciting possibilities for manipulating 3D designs, with VR adding a whole new dimension to the mix. Recently, Battleship VR and Robot Chess developer Nathan Beattie showcased a small CAD experiment at the Avalon Airshow. Supported by the School of Engineering, Deakin University, the demo lets users take apart a small spherical robot created by engineering student Daniel Howard.
Nathan has since open sourced the project, although the laboratory environment is only available in the executable demo for licensing reasons. Check out the source code at github.com/Zaeran/CAD-Demo.
Over the next several weeks, we’re spotlighting the top 20 3D Jam experiences chosen by the jury and community votes. These spotlights will focus on game design, interaction design, and the big ideas driving our community forward.
Let’s Make Fried Rice puts you in the shoes of a short order cook. Using tool tracking, grab your pan, extract ingredients, and churn out plates of hot fried rice as fast as your customers can order them. Download the desktop version for Mac and Windows, or the Rift version for Windows.