Taxis and street art… do you usually associate one with the other? Well, Yandex, the most well-known Russian IT company and the creator of the most popular search engine on the Russian market, believes that such an uncommon connection can have potential. Imagine a grey joyless day. You order a taxi, and then not an ordinary cab arrives, but something bright, colorful and reassuring. It will certainly light up the mood and draw attention to the company’s car fleet.
With this intention in mind, Yandex proclaimed a contest for artists to create a unique appearance for the cars of its Yandex.Taxi service (a service similar to Uber). If you are gifted, why not try and compete for the prize? But, as you can guess, it was not the contest itself that caught my attention, but rather its promo page.
Yes, the page is integrated with a 3D scene that contains a model of a car that you can rotate in real-time and paint different colors. But the main idea of this application is that a contestant can upload his or her own design masterpiece and find out how it will look on a car model. This gives artists unfamiliar with 3D graphics an easy and convenient way to apply a hand-painted image to the complex geometry. Simply upload a PNG or JPEG file (a template can also be downloaded there) and behold the beauty of the texture applied to the car.
I might also add that the page is created using Blend4Web. The developer is a digital agency JetStyle from Yekaterinburg, a long-time user of the framework and a Blend4Web partner.
The fact that the biggest company in the Russian segment of the Internet has chosen the Blend4Web engine for its project proves the maturity of the technology and its applicability to any task, whether it is the Curiosity Rover visualization by NASA, a jewelry customizer or a virtual exhibition at a royal palace. If you are not yet familiar with this exceptional framework, or if you are hesitant, I would recommend getting a better look at it and checking its impressive track record.
