That’s mathematics, son. You can argue with me, but you can’t argue with figures.

Commentary and code follows.
Continued »

Another visualization of an octree expanding to encompass an increasingly wide-spread array of points, coded in Python for Maya using Pymel.

Normally octrees start large and subdivide. This is fine for static scenes, or scenes in which the boundaries are known, or scenes managed by reasonable people.

Being perverse, I decided to make an octree that could adapt to its circumstances, and grow extra layers if necessary to accommodate objects beyond its limits.

This, my friends, is what we are witnessing here today. The first live, growing octree ever captured on film. By me.

As locators generate, this octree subdivides to keep any node from holding more than 10 at once. If a locator generates outside of the octree, the tree grows super-nodes until the point is contained.

As my cubitecture expands, brute-force collision detection becomes ever more ridiculous. Above is a test visualization of an octree space-partitioning scheme, which I’ll modify for use in my block-placement code.

Code follows:
Continued »

2500 iterations, each one hand-polished and placed by skilled craftsmen in Singapore.

No overhangs, finally. I know *I’m* relieved.

Vaults are just arches who don’t know when to quit.

A technical demo posted by Arman Yahin, vfx director and head of Moscow studio main road|post.

A convoluted cacophony of cantilevered cubitecture.

Gobelins keeping it real for Annecy 2009.

Awesome bloopy 2D animation, very heavily Ren-and-Stimpified — such a relief after so much 3D. I would trade a million high-tech 3D pieces for a few more like this.

I do miss Ren and Stimpy.

[Via Motionographer.]

This outpost was poorly-constructed and very difficult to defend, and consequently was sacked repeatedly by cyan and magenta spotlights.

Looks like Parasol Island in Düsseldorf has already taken this cube-world thing much further than I had planned to… and even in the same colors. I smell zeitgeist.

Their cubes are interesting, but they are not my dwelling.

High rez quicktime here.

[Via Motionographer.]