Today is a rapid-prototyping kind of day it seems. For starters an entry I wrote for WorldChanging has been posted (Link). I don’t doubt some readers will wonder about the subject (btw, the title isn’t mine). The idea of a glue composite somehow being a replacement material for all the technolust items on regular parade on sites like Gizmodo, Gizmag, Engadget and the rest, is probably not going to register with them. And that’s really the point. Everyone has expectations based on some pretty unfriendly processes.

To round things off, I just got off the phone with someone from MCP Metalspecialties. Turns out they’ve not sold a single SLM machine in the U.S. and appear to be having trouble getting potential buyers past the sticker shock. They don’t even have a machine at their office that I could see. What a huge bummer. I was hoping that the advantages of the process would help drive adoption. Guess I’m hoping for too much.

The folks at Industreal (Link) started off a neat thing with 2004’s “In Dust We Trust” rapid-prototype design show. Last year they continued the tradition with “Model Ideas” (sample image on the right). Now they’re presenting their newest installment, “Dreams” (sample image on the left). To be honest, if what they’re showing is what creative people are dreaming about, it’s time to hand over the tools to someone else.

Oh wait, that’s partly why I’m interested in virtual world modeling; it puts 3D tools into the hands of a whole new group of people. My money is on the new blood.

via Archinect

{Left Image Copyright © 2006 Zolton Almodo ; Right Image Copyright © 2005 Carlo Trevisani}

Via Blue’s News I caught this news over on gameinfowire (Link):

the Xbox Movie Showcase will feature free, high-definition, downloadable content from two of the most highly anticipated films of the summer:
…
The Xbox Movie Showcase content includes HD movie trailers, exclusive theme packs, and graphics allowing Xbox gamers to customize their gaming experiences

Now I don’t know specifically what it is that they’re including, but to be honest, I can’t imagine anything that holds a candle to this:

In addition, as part of this first-of-its kind agreement, stars of Paramount films, including Jack Black, will participate in Xbox’s “Game with Fame,” where gamers can enter for a chance to play a game online against their favorite celebrities.

That is how content will generate revenue. Marry it to an experience. Make it so special and memorable that people would enter a raffle to win it.

What someone needs to do now is make a toy head representing the actor which the celebrity can autograph. It’s something that is tangible and which people can’t easily forge. If the player wins their encounter, they get the autographed head; a trophy representing their experience.

Go hang that on your custom gaming rig.

{Update: I have to add this because it really shows the monetary power of fame. Via Boing Boing comes word of the trading power of an afternoon with an aging rock star – Link. Good trade by the red paperclip dude. Good PR for Mr. Nice Guy and one of my old favorites, Alice Cooper.}

Second Life’s once-officially embedded journalist, Wagner James Au reports (Link 1, Link 2) on the use of the virtual space to provide design feedback to filmmakers. In this case, the tools were apparently used to prototype a character used in the Disney film “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. From his comments:

…you have through Fizik’s client Disney another international corporation indirectly financing a Second Life project. But even beyond that, you have that giant media company using SL to create assets for use in their own IP.

In the meantime, you have tiny, unknown individuals using SL to create assets using Disney’s IP for their own use. Hmmmm. Is the opposite of Avalon an island called Erotica?

via Boing Boing

Here’s something fun coming on the heels of those morphing architecture posts from last week. Wired has a brief story (Link) on Mixed Reality Lab of Singapore’s effort to bring people and their pets together on the playing field, so to speak. From the Wired article:

Computerized movements in Mice Arena are mapped to and from the real world, where an actual predator (your hamster) gives chase to a digital avatar (you) by pursuing a real piece of bait. The avatar’s movements in the virtual environment direct the bait around a small tank fitted with actuators that mold and twist an elastic latex floor into the changing terrain of the game map.

Not quite as exciting as “giant” pets chasing miniature owner-morsels around a cheesy b-movie set, but still pretty neat.

{Image source: Mixed Reality Lab, Singapore}