The test pieces in this video were printed in a contex 310 3d printer. Each model is just under an inch tall and comprised of at least 200 printed layers. The process involves printing a bonding solution onto a thin layer of powder about 0.09mm thick.
The test run turned out pretty great, Although these were scaled down to less that 20% of their intended modeled size to make printing quicker they still had lots of detail. The printer has a build plate just short of the size of an A4 sheet and can print models up to 11 inches tall, so you can imagine how big the models can be. I will grab some footage of it actually printing next week.
Making a presentation can be dificult, but making an eye catching multimedia presentation is even more dificult. Animoto.com is a website that lets you create short snappy montages, they recently updated it to include video clips up to 10 seconds (you can also upload longer videos and choose your 1 to 10 second snipets in anomoto). Siply sign up, upload some pictures and videos then pick an MP3 from their music library (you can also upload your own MP3 if you like). When you press save it syncronises it all to the music and emails you when its done… What could be easier?
Free accounts let you create 30 second clips while for a small fee Unlimited accounts let you create longer more advanced videos, you even get the option to download or embed the videos. If you like the final video that much you can pay $5 (which is probably about £20 in our current state of econemy) to download a DVD Quality version of your Animoto video for keeps…
It dosent take very long to do at all and I think you will agree that the result is very, very cool… Give it a go yourself
Quick Fail Rating: 4 out of 5
Are you up for some fun? Well Creative Fail has produced 4 fun time wasting “what can you make of these?” Printables called – The Creative Fail Print n Draw Collection (1.33mb Download)
The Idea is to Download and Print the Ready Made Templates, then let your Creative Self run wild! Trust me this is addictive once you get going! Try to use each starting image as a base for something that will completely hide its initial existence… as you can see my attempts were not brilliant, but I’m sure you can do much better! In actual fact I Dare you to do better!
If your a busy person like me or dont have a printer, dont worrie we have also produced a “Take Away” Collection of the 4 Templates for you to edit on your Iphone, called – The Creative Fail Copy n Draw Iphone Collection (615K Download). I have been using ”Auto desk Sketchbook Mobil Express” which is available free on the app store, No more boring bus rides! See the example Below…
Don’t forget to Post your Creations online on places like Facebook etc for all to see and tell them where you got the templates from! Let us know what you have been drawing by leaveing links to your images in the comments below!!!
Ever needed to edit a photo but not had the software to do it? I know, I Know, we use photoshop (or similar packages) all the time so why would I not have one when I need it? Well sometimes your not at your own computer or your at college and the Graphics suite is fully booked or even out of action…
The “very short term” Answer is Picnik, www.Picnik.com is photo editing awesomeness online, in your browser (so the gumph on the FAQ page says anyway). It’s one of the easiest ways on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. A bunch of the editing tools are one-click fixes, including auto- fix, exposure, colors, and red-eye. And the others, like rotate, crop, re-size, and sharpening, can be controlled with easy-to-use sliders.
Its free for the minor features (which includes most of the above), and does charge $2 a month for access to the Premium features. The Premium features are mostly effects and frames etc. Its perfect for fixing your face book photos or happy snaps but I wouldn’t trust it with Professional work without reading the Full Terms and Conditions first…
All in all another handy freebie to remember for when your working away from your own desk…
Quick Fail Rating: 3 out of 5
Have trouble getting your Ideas across? Do you wish you had a better way to present your Projects and Ideas to “Other People?”. I guess you usually settle for something drab like power point, Well what about Zooming?
Microsoft’s offering is called Deep Zoom Composer. It’s free but does require Microsoft Silver-light to be installed. Once you get the hang of it you can produce quite amazing visual experiences with lots to explore… all is revealed below.
Don’t worry, your speakers aren’t broken! There was no sound to this video but I bet most of you were checking your speakers
Microsoft Deep Zoom Looks fantastic & Professional, there is a wealth of features like Hotlinks, Pages and External links however its ease of use lets it down badley…
Quick Fail Rating: 3 out of 5
Now I’m not big on installing loads of software and plugins if I don’t need to, so the second offering I have been using myself is called Prezi and its all web based!
I was actually lucky enough to be involved in the beta testing of this fantastic presentation tool, Instantly recognising its potential for conveying Creative Ideas in an exciting way.
The Idea is to place all of your content, be it images or videos on one open plane and then rotate & resize to your liking. Then the cleaver bit… you set a path between all of the content and prezy takes care of making sure that your content is the correct way up when focused on. You can add text, group content and even use frames instead to bring more than one piece of content into focus.
The fact that its all web based and easier than tying your shoe laces make it one of my favorite tools but I just cant bring myself to give it a 5.
Quick Fail Rating: 4 out of 5
This is the first post in a series of Quick Fail Recommendations. These will be creative websites or open source applications that you can bookmark and add to your toolkit for next to nothing.
Lets get started with a real easy one – Wordle.net is basically a super quick way to produce text based art like the image to the left, that you can use on T Shirts, Posters or even Blog Posts… Just visit the site, click “Create” then paste in a block of text, or you can use a websites URL and let it grab the most common words itself. You can even change the font, colour & orientation of the text if you really want to.
The best part is that its FREE… Go on have a go, I know you want to… Like most of you I entered a whole bunch of swear words the first time I used it, but its ease of use and quality means that it does have potential beyond that…
