Now, print video game characters in 3D

A team of American scientists has developed a new software that allows people to turn video game characters into real-life figures using a 3D printer.

A-visitor-plays-a-video-game-during-a-visit-at-the-Paris-Games-Week-show

A team of American scientists has developed a new software that allows people to turn video game characters into real-life figures using a 3D printer.

Harvard computer scientists developed the software that identifies the ideal locations for a computer game figure''s joints.

The software then optimises the location and the size of the joints for the physical world and generates the best possible model.

The software also analyses a computer character''s skin and enhances the texture, making it possible for details such as scales on a snake to show up on a printed object, the BBC reports.

Moritz Bacher, one of the researchers, said that although most video game characters are created with skeletons that help animators turn the figures around on the screen, these skeletons are different from those in real-life objects.

"In animation you''re not necessarily trying to model the physical world perfectly; the model only has to be good enough to convince your eye,' the report quoted Bacher, as saying.

"You can make a character so anatomically skewed that it would never be able to stand up in real life, and you can make deformations that aren''t physically possible," he added.

According to the researchers, the tool may be useful for artists and animators to experiment with a moving character.

The report also quoted a lawyer, as saying that if the technology gets on the market, copyright issues could arise.