nVidia GET3D auto-generates objects for your 3D Worlds
GET3D (Generate Explicit Textured 3D) generates a wide variety of objects to fill your 3D worlds. It’s soon to be released open source if you want to try out.
Yo Ho Ho and The Fall
The 2006 movie The Fall is an under-rated movie that I really enjoyed for it’s unique story and beautiful, dream-like visuals. Set in 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman (Roy) begins to tell a fantastic story of five mythical heroes to a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality blurs as the tale advances. Roy’s true motives and desperation start coming out as his story progresses.
The making of the movie by Tarsem Singh was a real labor of love. The film was shot in 28 countries over four years. No stages or sets were used, only existing absolutely fabulous and exotic locations were used. Filming locations included the Namibian desert, Cape Town Africa, Hagia Sophia, Palace in Jaipur, Rajasthan India, Fiji, Rome, Bali, Egypt, China, Boliva, and countless others bucket list locations.
With as few people that know The Fall, even fewer know it was based on a 1981 Bulgarian movie called Yo Ho Ho (Bulgarian: Йо-хо-хо). In Yo Ho Ho, an actor crippled after a bad fall on stage befriends a 10 year old boy who is recovering from a broken arm in hospital. The actor starts telling a marvelous fairy tale, inventing stories about a good buccaneer fighting the evil ruler Alvarez that must be punished for his crimes. Little by little the real people in hospital are transformed into the imaginary heroes of the pirate stories that the Actor and the child vanquish by goodness, honesty and self-denial – all the while the actor intends to use the child to provide him with poison to end his life.
Yo Ho Ho (Йо-хо-хо) is terribly hard to find. There is a youtube video, but no subtitles. Even ebay seems to have failed me, but it appears DVDLady has a copy available.
Inside out wood turning
What a clever way to make interesting wood sculptures with interesting insides using wood turning.
Midjourney
Midjourney is another AI based art generation engine. Lamona42 used the engine to generate this fantastic image called Heavenly Meeting
Modern painting
Not a very good painter or artist? You don’t need to be anymore. Like some of my other postings on AI art generation, there are more and better tools creating art every day.
Enter nVidia Canvas AI. It has been offered for free and runs on just about all recent nVidia RTX graphics cards. Give it a shot.
What an interesting new world we live in…
Maillardet Automaton
The Maillardet Automaton was a marvel of its time – and even amazing today. It was able to draw tremendously complex drawings. I can only imagine what people thought about it back in the 1800’s when it was created. It was so famous, exhibitions were held all over Europe.
It’s currently held in the Franklin Institute.
Mirrored video Kaleidoscope
Michael Shainblum uses some camera mirroring to create some mesmerizing effects (though audio warning the music gets a bit much at times).
Someone did this a few years back while riding trains around Tokyo, but I need to find it…
Voyage of Life
Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, but who’s greater ambition was to convey the word of God through sublime landscapes.
The Voyage of Life is a series of four paintings he made in 1842 to great public reception. It is an allegory of the four stages of human life aptly named: Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. They depict a voyager who rides the boat on the River of Life accompanied by a guardian angel. The landscape reflects one of the four seasons of the year that correspond with each phase of life.
In childhood, the infant glides from a dark cave into a rich, green landscape. As a youth, the boy takes control of the boat and aims for a shining castle in the sky. In manhood, the adult relies on prayer and faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity.
It’s a great reminder that our lives here on earth are finite ones. We too have seasons of our lives that once gone, may not be ones we can go back and visit again. That’s why it is so critical that we live our lives in real Truth – not the constantly changing just-for-today truths that society and the world give. Each day we steer our boat by the little decisions we make – like dips of the oar into the river. Those little decisions add up and guide and direct the major course of our life. Our lives are also full of joys and dangers we must navigate.
But without real truth to base one’s life on, we are often rudderless or constantly searching for peace. So much emptiness, sadness, and confusion arise because we have collectively decided that modern truth is just anyone’s particular subjective take on things. The reality is, as science also teaches us (nature herself as Thomas Cole would probably say), that there IS real objective truths about our world whether we want to deny it or not. Just as there is real objective truths about ourselves as well.
We all put our faith in our beliefs – no matter where those beliefs come from. Many of us get our faith and beliefs from politicians, actors, rock stars, and celebrities of all sorts. Faith that those beliefs will bring us to happiness. In whom and where does your faith lie? How true has that turned out to be in a month? A year? A decade? Your lifetime? Eternity?
teamLab Borderless walkthrough
One of the best 4k walkthroughs of the Tokyo installation from Feb 2022. It’s even more mind blowing in person if that seems possible.
Dark Matter
DARK MATTER is an artistic group that does some fascinating and high quality artistic motion and lighting installations.
