What papercraft can do for you
In our tutorial Pixilated Papercraft, we use a simple Scion model from Second Life as an example of what can be created with the tools we’ve collected. The detail that is possible with our process is not nearly displayed with our Scion. Above is a wonderful “Mach 5″ created by Claudio Dias from the show Speed Racer.
Notice the high quality detail on the control panel and the texture of the wheels. Since this piece started as flat sheets of paper, applying textures is much easier than in CNC milling or Rapid Prototyping. More of Claudio’s work can be seen at his blog, Paper Inside.
Recursive Instruments at SLCC06
Simon went to the Second Life Community Convention this past weekend to hob nob it with some of the best SL has to offer. I met amazing people, and learned more in one afternoon about the cultural topography of Second Life than in six months of stumbling through the in-world ’search’ feature.
I presented our tutorial for exporting SL data to papercraft objects on Saturday. The tutorial and my presentation are available here. Thanks to everyone who made my first visit to San Francisco a real treat.
Ink printing the primitive Metaverse
These images are prints from our current show at the Aho Museum in Second Life. Please visit our News section for more information. If you are interested in these or other prints please write us at:
contact {at} recursiveinstruments {dot} com
Mike and I love the analog character of the block printing process. It is facinating to watch the machine introduce its own voice as well. The box that intersects the sail is a combination of the picture frame and the computer’s interpretation of the horizon.
A friend of mine in Second Life confided that she felt physical comfort when her avatar was held in the arms of her digital lover. Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori.
I stumbled across a man hanging himself near a Wild West saloon. He kept falling from the noose and felt compeled to re-hang himself each time. The woman is playing one of Second Life’s most popular games?????”Slingo!
Land owners often pay people to hang around their parcel. This increases traffic at their business and consequently increases their rank in Second Life’s search engine. The man in the upper right had been dancing for 8.5 hours for the meager sum of $68 lindens?????”worth about a quarter of a U.S. dollar.
Recursions opens at the Aho Museum
The delightful folks at the New Media Consortium (NMC) have opened a public version of their Second Life campus called Learning. They have organized a number of shows demonstrating the creative potential of Second Life. In addition to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Eastman-Kodak, Recursive Instruments is represented in one of their exhibit halls.
Entitled Recusions, the works depict situations you will find every day in Second Life, from play to punishment. The trappings of technology are both removed and exploited to examine the evolution of media’s effect on the evolution of self. Snapshots from Second Life are digitally altered to allow a Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) mill to sculpt their contours. The result is a woodblock used for traditional ink printing. More prints can be seen in the Work section, and in Second Life at Learning (24,126,37).
If you are interested in these or other prints please write us at:
contact {at} recursiveinstruments {dot} com
Making pixels palpable
Following up on Mike Frumin’s excellent suggestions, this series shows a day in the life of Sheep Island’s most popular residents?????”her sheep. On the left is a screen shot of Second Life. In the center is Blender’s rendering of the .obj file OGLE created from the previous scene (thanks again to EyeBeam and OpenLab!). Finally, that pink cutie on the right is the end result of our mill’s loving 10,000 rpm embrace.
There is a larger image here:
Digital shepard
The first of our flock.
From the top
More of the same. You can see the image wall from Second Life in the upper left corner. The three small bumps around the lower left corner are spotlights.
R&B Coffee?????”now serving Chicago
There’s just something about this coffeehouse that makes people want to copy it. First the good folks on Sheep Island, and now us. A woman walked in on Saturday night, saw the video of Second Life, and recognized R&B Coffee. When we told her there was a foam copy just behind her, she really flipped. Great moment.
Anyone familiar with R&B Coffee will probably notice that there is a lot of detail missing, most notably on the front face of the store (e.g. no awnings). This is because we milled it out of one large block and had to decide which axis to rotate to give the most detail. In this case we wanted to bring out the depth in the ‘backyard’ of the shop. We will be milling a more exact replica in multiple pieces for another project later this spring.
Thank you Phillip K. Dick
This is a test run of the machine knocking out a translation of the sheep from Sheep Island. The block of foam towards the bottom is a reminder of where to start Mach2 after we paused for the night?????”g code line 1273 I think. Anyone who would like a sheep to remember ol’ Dick by, drop us a line.
Detail of office building
This is a general purpose office building on Sheep Island. Inside would be conference tables and some faux ferns. Faux everything I suppose. Is it just me or do the canyons remind anyone else of Tron?
