Updated 3D Animations of Volcano Bank & Pen and Pencil Holder D
One of my goals this year is to updated many of the very old 3D animations present on CNCKing.com that I made almost 10 years ago! It’s amazing how much technology has evolved since then, what one looks AWESOME really looks dated, time to bring it back to AWESOME along with a trip down memory lane.
Although I really like the volcano bank I designed a while back, I just really enjoy the esthetics of my pen and pencil holder more, it’s just so simple and elegant in my opinion.
If you are wondering why I don’t just reprocess these 3D animations with the updated CNCKing.com branding, the answer is simple, the render outputs I used to generate these videos are long since gone. I get rid of them as they take-up space on the computer for no reason but keep the original design files so I can remake them anytime. The second is that it gives me a chance to do a fresh 3D animation using TODAY’s resolutions and f/x.
I can make things better now than I did back then so why not do both at the same time.
Volcano Bank Digital File
I designed this volcano bank many years ago and uploaded the 3D animation of it September 2008! My goal with this site, was to showcase what CNC machines can make, back then, most project files were really just junk and CNC wasn’t anywhere near as mainstream as they are now.
Believe it or not, this was CUTTING EDGE way back then, and if it wasn’t for the never-ending updates in resolution and our perception of what is “quality” in the digital medium, would still look fantastic.
It’s really hard to showcase just how much of a mark these 3D animations made not only for myself and my customers but the whole way I went about designing way back then was just something not many people even knew about. I began as a 3D animation studio making industrial animations, so to me, 9 years ago, this was old-hat!
You can see how massive the difference in clarity of the exact same animation has evolved right here! The textures are far more photorealistic, back then, I could have technically rendered things to this quality but it would have taken WEEKS what I can now do in DAYS.
I can only imagine how much of a leap forward things will take with VR and even higher resolutions coming-up such as 8K!
Pen and Pencil Holder D
Another woodworking (or any material) project I updated the 3D assembly animation of is my pen and pencil holder D, again, it has been available on CNCKing.com for almost a decade!
My goal with most of my designs is actually to NOT introduce engraving details, what I like is the contrast between the wood that’s laser cut edge and untouched front surface. I really like just keeping things minimalistic and simple in this manner without engravings getting in the way.
For this design, my goal was to show just a simple build method for a pen and pencil holder that would be fine on any desk and, like the volcano bank above, just something you can drop into place. Assembly is a breeze and each piece is “obvious” as to placement.
Some designer like to make their projects incredibly complex, what I prefer is to make each piece important and fit within another important part in an obvious manner using a few pieces as possible and these two projects are prime examples of this.
I hope these two projects give you additional insight as to how all this began and how true it is when I tell people that designs don’t really “age”, a CNC machine 20 years ago could have just as easily cut these projects as the ones 20 years from now.
Creating the illusion of complexity is an art that takes a very long time to develop a sens for. It’s all a matter of perception and I’d easily argue that these two projects are ageless if it wasn’t for our constant march towards higher resolutions.