Dipping my toes into 3D

This week I am a bit at a loss what to write about - I had drafts on the weaponization of meta-research, how to write an R package in 2022 (but the year's almost out), the consequences of owning your digital infrastructure.

But none of it really fell into place enough yet. So I'm happy to chat about how I've been trying out 3D design – as an experiment to see what is feasible for an amateur like me.

Honestly, I have come to realise 3D may actually be easier than I expected nowadays. I thought I would have to learn the infamously difficult to learn Blender software, which always put me off. I ended up trying Spline instead and it's honestly like MS Paint for 3D.

After messing around for an hour or so I was able to recreate the Einstein's Foundation award introduction. Here's the original:

And this is what I recreated without too much effort if I say so myself:

Sure, it is not the exact same thing, I would be a bit afraid if it was. For an hour worth of rummaging in the software this is a pretty good result. It takes a bit of getting used to moving things in three dimensional space, and to understand that you can animate by transitioning smoothly between two states.

So if you have thought about trying out 3D, I encourage you to try it with Spline (I did not get the paid plan for this). Hopefully I will come back next week with a bit more inspired of a post.