Hasta La Ideas

As we noted earlier, this year’s Autodesk University had an exciting new emphasis on making things just for the sake of making them, as evidenced in their choice of presenters—we’ve got an interview coming up with speaker Saul Griffith of Otherlab—as well as in their new products. As the DIY and Maker movements continue to take firm root, Autodesk has noticed and is addressing the market.

This is perfectly encapsulated in their freaking awesome 123D Sculpt app for iPad (which you should download right now, as it’s free for a limited time). Rather than being a mere time-killer app where you fling birds or solve puzzles, this one actually lets you create things. It provides you with a series of stock forms in various genres–humans, geometric shapes, sneakers, clothing, et cetera—that you can then sculpt and paint into whatever you envision.

You may have seen the original video demo of the product (shown at the bottom of this entry). We went a step further and got the guy who did that video, industrial designer Kyle Runciman—remember his Alias and SketchBook demos from last year?—to walk us through the program and explain the steps, below. (Automotive designers in particular will want to check out the footage starting at 5:50.)

(Hit the jump for the original demo video.)

(more…)