Pilowlava 3D

Earlier this year we introduced you to new kind of projects we wanted to release under the Velvetyne umbrella. We gave these projects the name of Non-Fonts Objets or NFOs. Now is time for a new NFO, or Almost Font Object. Let us introduce you to Pilowlava 3D!

Vienna based designer Vincent Wagner of Studio Brot contacted us at the beginning of last summer, offering us something we have never done nore released: to create 3D meshes from one of our fonts and to release them under an open-source license. We were extactic from day one. This project would fit in our project of releasing creative open-source projects that would go beyond fonts while being rooted in our practice. These 3D meshes, as well as our font files, are a tool given to the community. They can be used in 3d renderings, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) projects, video games, or even cast in plastic or concrete if you want to give it a try.

For his first Velvetyne 3D font, Vincent chose to work with Pilowlava. Its bulbuous shapes directly make you think to inflatable ballons and seemed that they would handle well the constraints coming with 3D rendering. Vincent then created independent 3D models for a wide selection of latin glyphs of the Pilowlava font. Note that this work is not like a simple automatic extrusion. Vincent carefully sculpted every glyph, achieving the rounder and puffier rendering you could get. Note how the z-thickness of the strokes is not uniform, increasing and decreasing with the width of the strokes, but not linearly. The achieved effect is such as the one you would get by bending a metal tube. This work brings Pilowlava into the haptic world.

Those 3D glyphs have been modeled for subdivision. Each single glyph is made from 76 to 786 polygons. This work is released under the Free Art License, meaning that it’s freely usable for any personal or commercial use as long as you credit its author, and modifiable as long as you share the modifications under the same license.

Files are available under the .blend .c4d .fbx and .obj formats.

Download Pilowlava 3D

Get/fork the source files here. And find the Pilowalava 2D sources and fonts here.

All images above by Vincent Wagner