Spring RTS Engine

Hey guys I'm thinking about a project and searching the interwebs has not helped me so I thought I'd throw the question out there:

I want to make an installation with 3d letters that read as a certain text from one direction but cast the shadow of a different text in an other direction (obviously the shadow comes from a controlled light source).

So basically I have 2 2D patterns and I need a 3D model that has these two as projections (the direction of the projection is not a problem, I can work around that). Is there a way to generate such a model based on the 2D patterns or even to check if such a model is possible?

similar to these btw, but i would need the model itsself to be legible from a direction :

Isn't that basically the problem those various protein folding projects have been working on for all these years?

KDR_11k wrote:Isn't that basically the problem those various protein folding projects have been working on for all these years?

Yep, they've been trying to understand how linkage folding works. Protein folding is a 3-D projection of 2-D linkage folding that is often seen in machines. In linkage folding, you would, for example, turn a circular crank to make another object move in a vertical direction because of the way the folds in the machinery (of any machine such as a robot) are arranged. Scientists want to have a better understanding of that so that they can make medications that can alter the way a protein folds enabling the protein to capture diseases without harming the person with the disease.

MidKnight wrote:Make a game about it!

That is really awesome! Thank you for posting this link!

I read newscientist article about it few months ago. It explained roughly how it works and linked the original research.

I think it was using brute force to discover the pattern. It started from wanted 2d projects and then tried to create angles+3d pattern that matches by brute force dividing space into small cubes and checking which must be empty and which filled eliminating those hard to manufacture.

Thanks for the replies guys!

I think I may just make them non-continuous, that should make the problem much easier. That, or I dick around with some modelling programs more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14986013

Beeb article suggests its as much to do with human spatial awareness as brute force

just wondering what was wrong with my solution?

(light at an oblique angle, letters attached 1:1, back letters scaled/skewed to appear normal in shadowform)

my suggestion would be to create the 3d text for the primary letters, and then apply the second letters as a bitmap to the background block... then add the second letters in 3d form perpendicular to the backs of the primary letters and adjust the vertices so that the shadow falls directly on the "textured" letters

once the shadows are aligned, remove the texture and bang you're done

3D letters is called packet

BaNa wrote:Is there a way to generate such a model based on the 2D patterns or even to check if such a model is possible?

It's trivial if you put a right angle between the patterns. Not really even 3D, just two 2D surfaces casting the shadows, at a right angle to each other.

similar...in a way

turned out to be rly easy to do in 3d program for custom angles too.

Those letters are too cool.

...Why didn't we think of that method earlier?