Some days you wrap the universe around you like a magic cloak
The threads of life aligned just right and flowing
Some days all energy flows out in sacred bloom, exploding in the sky
And you are spent, but gloriously so
Some days you hibernate and just recharge
In semi-conscious dreams of future bliss
And then the cycle starts again, in everchanging grace
To paint your life into the stars
To paint the stars into your life
Originally designed as a logo for a community meeting of Softimage XSI users, this sculpture has been with Thomas for 2 decades and so far had only been rendered as images in different styles (see below video).
But there always had been the idea to make the figure into a wall lamp with light coming out from behind the body. For this project, we finally decided to 3D-print a version in white PLA in four parts to achieve a size of 67 x 60cm and a depth of 10cm on our Ender 5 Plus.
We connected the four parts of this prototype with wooden dowels. On the backside we constructed an elongated extrusion around which we wound an LED strip. As an outer layer there is another extruded part that is translucent and both keeps the LED strip covered as well as making the light softer and more even.
Since we used the so called 'lightning' pattern for the infill of the hollow parts of the 3D-print, its very organic generative pattern becomes visible through the semi-translucent PLA when backlit by the LED strip. This wasn't planned, but worked out great.
Each extremity has a slip-hole on the backside that allows to slip it over a screw-head for wall mounting.
It was extremely satisfying to hold this sculpture in our hands after all those years of only virtual existence.
The animation was created in our favourite realtime animation software Tooll3. With the help of 'NEWEMKA' and 'Pixtur' from the Tooll3 community, Thomas was able to write a HLSL compute shader that creates a SDF of the outline of the figure which in turn allows us to have the 4 million particles follow those contours.
Varying that direction then led to the 3 main states that make this animation into such a potent image for the energies in our lifes.
You can also watch the videos on YouTube in higher resolution:
· The Tides · Of Life ·