 So, hi everybody, my name is Akangelo Dalesando, I'm an architect and designer, and I'm using Blender since 2003, not just for making visualization or to visualize my project, rather to turn them into real objects. We are going to talk today about a project that's which name is Design by Food. What is Design by Food? It's a design project that takes inspiration from the food tradition. And it began in 2012, but it's roots are a little bit older, because when I was a young boy I was used to watch my grandmother making noodles, and she was cooking every day like there would be no future. And she was making a lot of noodles and whatever, it was like a machine. And I was just watching her hands and what each piece of noodle that she was making. And I was as a young boy just imagining and scaling the objects and thinking how would be to live inside a macaroni or maybe like sleeping in a kjeta and so on. So in these, there was just remaining in my head, and in 2012, playing around with Blender, I started making some design objects. So the inspiration can start from maybe a color or the shape or just the texture, but all the way I would say can come from every sparkle in the food tradition. Till now I made a lot of objects, but we are going to talk today about only two that are to me more representative. Object number one is inspired by Las Corseta, it's a street from south of Italy, and the inspiring factor was mainly the shape. The shape and the colors of this object. So as usual, I started to think about the main shape just sketching around and thinking what I want to do, I would like to make a desk lamp, not a technical one, rather like ambient light for the living spaces. So those are the sketches. And since I didn't know about the shape, the weights, at that time I wanted to keep an open process, a sort of parametrical way of thinking. So I made the first rendering, and after that I started modeling it. This is a quiet classical approach to the design. That means I have in my head an idea of a shape, and I try to control it all the way. So I just needed a low poly geometry with maybe a subdivision surface modifier, and after that I put some booleans just to locate the lighting fixture, as well as a weight to balance the shape, and a curve modifier just to master the final geometry. Till now that's fine, I was happy with it, but I had to think in the backwards. That means I had to think about what I have to give to the people that are going to produce this lamp, and it was quite easy. I had to give them a 2D shape. How could I send it or deliver it to the production? It was quite easy. I made a picture, a background image, and I was using the UV layout editor just to export the UV layout as a SVG file, and turn it into a CAD shape, ready to be used in a laser cut, or CNC machine, whatever. This is still a step. That means the production needed a shape to curve the geometry. I already had the most geometry in my file, so I just had to produce those two pieces just to give the shape to the metal sheet. And as you see, this is the final result. It's a very, I love it. I have many in my apartment. And it's handcrafted. It's hand-sewed. And you can use it for many purposes, like ambient light, or just a place where you put your mobile phone or your jewelry, whatever. Let's jump to the second object. The second object, I love it. It has a very nice taste, and it's a Cacio Cavallo. It's a food that is present in Italy in many different kind of variation. This object is very important to me, because it has a funny and sensual shape, and I love the texture outside. So I wanted to make, again, a desk lamp, but this time I would like to, I wanted to make a little bit more or just go further, or beyond the standard design process. So I made a couple of sketches, and after that, I modeled the first exemplar. And since I got my first 3D printer, that was the wrong decision, because my living room looks like an industry, I made it, but I was happy, but not really, you know, it's like you make a shape, it's that and it's going to stay always the same. And with the 3D fabrication processes, actually you don't need the industrial standard, so you can think in another way. Basically, I wanted to turn this shape into this to the right. Let's say having a sort of variation that keeps the main geometry, but it's changing. Without controlling it too much. So, back. How could I achieve this target, this task? I was thinking about what I can use in Blender, so weight paints, displays modifier, subdivisions to phase, decimate modifier and so on. At that time the geometry node was not there, not yet. So, first of all, I needed to remake my basic geometry, a low poly, but in a different way, a subdivision modifier, then a weight paint just to focus the areas where I put at the end my displays modifier in order to give a texture outside on the outer skin of the object. Now, the problem is how I can variate this object, how can I change the shape. It was quite easy. Here to the right you see my modifier stack. It's quite easy. I have three levels of subdivisions to phase, but the very important part is the bend and on the X axis. At the end, as you can see, we have the solidify modifier before the displays modifier. So, I just animated with just one keyframe, the bend on the X and on the Y axis and I did the same on a shape key modifier just to influence the scale of the mesh in edit mode and not outside. Just to get something like this and you can see here in the not graph editor I could reach something like that. Like a sort of variation in a certain range. So, now the problem is how can I deliver this to the 3D printer. It was quite easy. The animation is OBJ file, so I get for every frame a single object. Already ready to be 3D printed and assembled at the end. Now, since I got to be addicted to this object, so, OK, what I can put on the outside of the object and I love science fiction and space stuff and planets and so I started to think, OK, I can put maybe stuff like texture of Mars, Moon, Jupiter and whatever. And this is the final output. This object is produced only with the 3D printer process in FTM and with a small data. In the slicer I use a fuzzy skin function that gives to the outer skin a sort of roughness. So, but I wanted to get more out of this object so I started to think about, OK, I can make some bottles, I can make jewelry, I can make oil bottles, I can make perfume bottles and so on. And at the end and because I was thinking in small scale, what about the change of scale? Think something bigger. OK, I would like to have a Kachokavallo chair in my living room. So, this is, of course, nothing to do with the digital fabrication, but it's a classical process of making and producing objects. So, I have the basic geometry already. I just had to put some seam cut on the geometry and open it into the UV map editor. At this time, you can see in the middle up in the UV map editor a square shape because when you do this, you don't know the scale of the object, you cannot master it. So, I needed a geometry with a known dimension that I could use as a scale reference in a CAD file. So, it's more colorful, but it's almost the same. The blue one is the reference shape and at the end I exported it and prepared it in a CAD file for the CNC machine in the fabric industry. And this is another one. I had to make many different kind of templates and this is, those are a couple of screenshots about the first prototyping process. I'm not really happy with the final output. We have to make some changes, but we will get it. So, since this function of opening a 2D geometry on a UV map editor is this little problem that I have to scale or to have some reference, I was thinking, ok, Blender can do more. I'm not able to program in any language, but I got to know in the Blender word community, Fabrizio, that is going to talk after me. And we were just talking about this project and I asked him if you could develop an add-on that could open already in scale the geometry with maybe a control of the offset of the outer contour and maybe taking also in charge in all the considering the tension of the fabric, whatever. And he did it. It's not yet at the final stage, let's say in pre-alpha, but it's a very nice one. So, now I can get rid of and I was thinking, ok, I would like to make another scale change. What about this? Fabrizio is taking my place and is going to tell about the spin-off project. Thank you, Arcangelo. This is the conjunction point between me and him, because we have really worked together you know, so, who I am, first of all. So, my name is Fabrizio Loreto, I'm Italian as well. I'm an electronics engineer by education. I am a marketing manager by profession and I am an artist and 3D artist by passion. How all these three things fit together, well, this is the challenge of my life, but you know, putting together things very diverse and sometimes gives space to creativity. So, then I got to know Arcangelo and he described to me his research. I started to think, ok, he started from food, then he derived from food abstract shapes and those abstract shapes turned into design objects from jewels to houses. Now, can we do something else with those abstract shapes because I was stroke as well on how beautiful can be shapes of food if you put them in an abstract environment. And, ok, I will show you what I've done. I think you've put the wrong slide, but that's fine, ok. So, this this is the first one. This is the first one, so I put some irony in it and, yeah, I mean, it was just fun between me and Arcangelo to think of how nice would it be to see this Kachokavali flying in the air in the Magritte style. Next. Ok, next, I moved to Escher. So, these are starting too fast. Ok, Escher and here we have then another one. Now, there were a couple of technical challenges in it. The first was that I wanted to spread these gears into the space with geometry nodes and still avoiding that they collide with the shapes and then I used geometry nodes for animating them and, ok, this was relatively easy. A little bit more challenging was to create this feeling of pencil drawing on rough paper and to do this I had to develop a procedural a procedural texture this is a kind of tune shader, very few nodes I think I got an interesting graphical result. So, like with Arcangelo's research, Blender is always part of the creative process because when I see something then I started to think, ok, is this something where Blender could add something to the final work and so it's really a dialogue you get some inspiration then you look at the tool and the final result is always surprising in a way Oh, this was a challenge this was a challenge unfortunately I don't know how to stop this thing this shouldn't start automatically but I think you all know this I don't know if I can go back just to show again ok, I show it to show again this ok, this is a very well known drawing from Escher you know, this was a challenge because how can you imagine to realising with a tool that represents real geometry an object that is impossible a stair where you are continuously climbing up or continuously climbing down always coming back to the same point I mean, when you draw on paper you can do but with a 3D tool how can you do this now of course so all these Kachuka valley that are jumping up and down on the stairs they are remaining and you see I managed to get a convincing effect now how did I do well, basically does it start now now it starts the point is that this stair looks like a continuous object only from one specific point of view if you change point of view then everything is different and then you can see that some of these Kachuka valley are jumping into the air or from the air to the stairs so it was challenging from the concept to the realisation when I started to render this I also realised that I had another challenge that shadows were not convincing because objects that are next to each other in this illusion they are quite far away from one another so I had to use visual effects technique so the shadow casters that were placed in the right place so that shadows are all convincing so it's always there is always a technical challenge behind these objects ok now if this goes and if I can stop it ok so this was then this is the final piece and I'm going to show you this was a big challenge so now why this painting first of all because Piero della Francesca is a very famous Italian painter in Italian Renaissance the golden age of Italian art and culture I love him a lot second because I want to remind everybody that Piero della Francesca was one of those artists together with some before him honestly that has invented geometric perspective so they are those who have first studied and represent a geometry a 3D geometry on a 2D screen and without the study of people like this today we wouldn't have blender we wouldn't have the possibility of representing on a 2D screen 3D objects so thank to this guy and geometry in this painting is quite important this is not just the background the geometry is part of the painting this all this church represents gives the message perfection and harmony of universe and it's full of symbols that shell over there with this oysterish egg that is painting there the symbols of maternity fertility of perfection again so geometry is an important part of the painting and just the next thing before showing how this results into a cacciocavallo magic transformation all these guys over there who are they basically you can recognize them not from their face because nobody knows what was the face of Saint John the Baptist but from the symbols they are holding or wearing so this shepherd's stick on the left represents Saint John the Baptist or this stone that was used to hit the breast character tells us that this is Saint Jerome those guys in the background that are also staying on a higher level they have jewels on the forehand and on the necklace so these are angels and on the right among other people you can see Saint Francis from the stigma that he has on the breast so at the end of the day if you replace all these guys with cacciocavalli there is the same irony as all the other pieces but at the end of the day you recognize exactly those people you recognize exactly those people a lot of fun to do this technically very challenging because the geometry is complex and the shaders and all the textures are from a very famous artist in the renaissance but I was quite happy about that just a technical note to reproduce the geometry I had to use I used f-spy but it was not straightforward because with f-spy usually you have to input the focal lens and without the focal lens everything can be stretched in the depth direction either very narrow or very deep so since I had the reference of those squares on the roof then I used this to play with the focal lens until I got the right proportions and then all the geometry came out of it ok, this was the last that I wanted to show if you want to see more just follow us and there will be other coming because this is a project that just triggers a lot of ideas I want to close with this clip just to remind everybody that what we see on this screen at the end of the day they are just numbers flowing on a screen and you can recognize them only because they've been turned into pixels but at the end of the day we are only seeing always numbers flowing on a screen and that's it thank you very much it's coming we did it