Try out Xtranormal, a 3D movie building startup that launched last week, and there’s a good chance you won’t get any work done for the rest of the afternoon. As Ouriel Ohayon reported on TechCrunch France last night, the site allows users to quickly build their own 3D video clips out of a variety of models and backdrops using an intuitive drag and drop interface.
To begin creating a scene, you choose from either a set of “realistic” actors that resemble the characters in the Sims, or a set of Lego-like cartoony models. The site then presents you with a “script”, which you can fill out with text that you’d like the actors to recite in a computer-generated voice. You can also drag and drop actions for each character into the script, like facial emotions and gestures. And if you’d really like total control over the scene, you can manually position the camera (the site will automatically place it if you’d rather not deal with this).
Xtranormal clips don’t look anything like the 3D movies you see from the likes of Pixar or Dreamworks – characters look goofy, backgrounds are minimally detailed, and there are a limited number of possible animations. But the movies have a certain charm to them that makes their quality irrelevant. And because you can make them say whatever you want, they have endless possibility. Friends could easily recreate some of the classic memories they’ve shared with hilarious effect, and it’s hard not to crack up when a familiar movie scene is acted out by some Lego-like characters (see above for a great example).
There are a number of other sites like Oddcast, Gizmoz, and Beema that let users create their own 3D characters, but most of them are confined to avatars, not entire scenes.
I guess they couldn’t handle getting Techcrunch’ed… looks like they’re down.
I recommend a look at http://www.zencub3d.com/
Cool
Great find Jason. This is a wonderful example of doing just enough with a basic 3D interface to be dangerous. I posted my first video, The Singularity Movie, over at Scenario Land. Check it out if you’re bored and want to nerd-out for three minutes.
http://www.scen...vie-web-release
so cool!
http://12tb.com
they seem to be having some problems..need to download my animated apology..to lazy to fire up 3Ds Max for that
very very very slow.
looking forward to see what they are all about
Real cool!
Oh, so now I know why I was getting offers for extranormal.com last year.
How will they make money? Can’t see a tail long enough for them to monetize…
Their monetization strategy is to charge for video creation and hosting, essentially a micro-server model, kinda like a pee-wee version of Linden Labs’.
another 3d avtars s***? come on TC guys, didn’t you hear about the end of the good times?
Their website is extremely slow!
It’s so cool!
I think I will give it a try… plus it looks cute lol.
this website is amazing, thenks you for the information,excellent blog
If you have two separate views of the 3D slightly shifted the way two separate eyes would see them, you can come up with not only 3D, but Stereoscopic images and vides. I have some samples!!
gegegegegeggegg
Is this free to download?
this stuff sucks