The artist definitely captured the atmosphere of the recent movies. Bravo!
One thing that immediately jumps out at me about this chessboard is the use of varied ground plane -- how the back rows are high up, whereas the middle of the board is down below. The high ground really evokes a sense of power of the "senior" pieces, and casts the middle rows below as the inevitable battleground. One can imagine pieces mounting an uphill attack in the later stages of the game. Such a simple thing, and so effective!
It's a beautiful set, I like how each side was translated to smooth/rippled and the textures are very pleasing to look at - like a miniature playable cast of desert characters. I agree the pieces are a bit difficult to distinguish though, especially the queen and bishops which seem to mostly differ in height but not so much in form.
Upvoted because as a work of art it's beautiful and as a product of technology it's neat to see that printing with quartz is possible. But it must be said that the distinguishability of the pieces is lacking.
Just beautiful. We are experimenting with ceramic gelcasting lately[1]. It involves the use of a gel-based slurry, typically made by mixing ceramic powders (such as zirconia, alumina, or silicon carbide) with a liquid binder and a gelling agent in a 3D printed mold. It is a versatile manufacturing method used to create complex ceramic parts.
Upon reading the article it occurred to me that the same method could be used to make those kinds of "dune core" pieces, with sand instead of ceramic powders. There must be a sand-binder-gelling solution formulation that can handle the task.
That's a great idea. Do you have any other ideas for finishing the other half of the pieces. Graphite seems too messy, and I'm not sure the different sands will look different enough.
I imagine the details that currently (and insufficiently in my opinion) distinguish the colors would be obliterated.
Glue on silica carbide. It's usually darker colored and has a very aggressive texture (used for grips on pistol handles and skateboards among other things).
I thought the same in picture but in the article author says he used different texture (one smooth and one rippled) for both parties. I give I’m the benefit of the doubt because fine texture can appear very different in reality than photo.
Edit:
> For a game of chess to function effectively it’s crucial you clearly differentiate between both opposition pieces, and, the alternate spaces on which those pieces play. In a mono-material set such as this, a binary contrast between rippled and smooth surfaces (reflective of the contrasting states of sand) become the primary signifier of this difference.
I see the rippling and the smooth pieces, that one is ok. For me what is hard to distinguish are the individual pieces from each other within one colour. The knight from the bishop from the pawn, etc. It is possible to figure them out, but at least for me I can't see it at a glance. I have to think about it and compare them. (whereas with a more traditional set I see it immediately)
Insofar as one of the defining characteristics of art is the constraints you impose upon yourself, one of the fundamental constraints of making an art piece out of something functional is that you should either preserve its usability, or break it in a way that makes a statement. This does neither.
The concept is great, the board is absolutely beautiful, and, at first glance, the curve is aesthetically pleasing while not getting in the way of reading the board. Texture as the "colour" works great. The figures, though, just look like they ran out of steam, it's like the "horse drawing" meme. They're not evocative of chess pieces, they're not particularly evocative of sand structures either. They're just... there. They're pretty enough, I guess, but in a generic way.
When you add to that that the photos have an impossible pawn formation, it kind of screams of "I don't actually care about the subject of my art piece".
The standard set optimizes for mass production. All pieces except the knight can be turned on a lathe, with minor post-processing to cut notches in the rook and bishop.
Older chess sets like the Lewis Chessmen from the 1200s look substantially different, having both better aesthetics and usability than the currently popular set. Like having a bishop that is recognizable as a bishop, not a medium-height round thing with a notch in the top.
If you don't want to imitate the standard chess set, improving on it isn't that difficult as long as you don't care about mass production from wood. This set somehow manages to be worse
Arguably, every non-standard set is made for aesthetics (and provides a worse playing experience).
If you are a chess player, you are thinking strategy and tactics, and the pieces (at best) blend into the mental background, and (at worst) are a distraction from the game.
Which leaves custom sets to the realm of the collector and the enthusiast, people who like to have and think about, but not so much to do.
Just aziaziazi's comment made it sound like the only aspect where distinguisability matters is the colour. So I pointed out that I don't have a problem telling the sides apart, while have more of a problem distinguishing the piece's type.
But as you say this is a decorative chess set, and in that regard I think it is a very sucesfull one.
Novelty sets like these are deeply unpleasant for regular chess players, because they interfere with normal pattern recognition. There's a huge difference between being able to tell the pieces apart and being able to read the board at a glance. It's like reading a book in bad handwriting instead of clear type - you can decode it with enough effort, but you can't read fluently or scan the text.
I think the parent commenter did read that and their concern is that tournament chess has a touch-move rule (if you touch a piece you have to move it).
This set is certainly a cool art piece, but not particularly functional if a player has trouble distinguishing pieces visually.
The queen looks like a slightly larger version of the bishop (or is that the knight?), I could see someone confusing them if they're sitting at different levels.
More decorative than functional but beautiful nontheless and could be iterated to make it a better chess set. Maybe mixing different types of sand as a finishing coat on the pieces? (vocanic and coral for the pieces and quartz sand for the board)
> Amidst this decline of everyday physical sensation; the Dune Chess Set represents an investigation into themes of tactility and intimacy in an attempt to catalyse connection between users, their bodies, and the world around them
This is either a human writing overly complex, abstract prose, or an LLM. I’d hoped for interesting text to accompany the admittedly very unique chess set, but this is just overwrought and abstract for no good reason.
I won't discredit how beautiful this set turned out, but by my eyes the pieces are not particularly easy to (quickly) distinguish from one another (i.e. rook vs pawn vs bishop). Gorgeous to look at though!
I imagine it might take a bit to get used to the different shapes but I quite like the idea of having different elevation for the ranks. I think that would help learners develop a more intuitive understanding of their importance. Something I'm only acquiring now as I'm teaching my children.
Gorgeous, but I'd love to see some actual differentiation of form between the various pieces - going to the obvious source of inspiration, sand worms, stillsuits, the rocks of the seitch, and the insect-like forms of the ornithopter all could lend form to the pieces.
The critique and the suggestion I made are not one and the same. The critique is that the design of the pieces are far too similar for this chess set to be comfortable to play. The suggestion is one possible direction in which one could go to rectify the critique (thus the hyphen, and the mention of possible inspiration).
Dito on the upvote, esthetics are pleasing and I love the transition of the board. Not sure if that was sand or not… but now in hunting for the files… would make a nice gift for a friend that has it all, rated at 2000+ in chest.
1. Aesthetics completely annihilates function. I mean good luck figuring the pieces apart.
2. To me it looks like shit. I mean the pieces look ok-ish (I don't really like the curve stuff, I think they could be a lot better, but ok), but the board, oh my god it's hideous. The idea of the curved board is so bad. ugh. It's sad though cause the material is awesome.
Come on architects, you can do a lot better than that.
> 1. Aesthetics completely annihilates function. I mean good luck figuring the pieces apart.
It's very modern. Like those web sites that are light grey on darker grey. And the fact that you can't see if a square is white or black when a piece is on it is like they hide interactable elements in web 3.99 or whatever they're at now.
they could’ve made the board have different texture as well?
Well, there’s no STL so no one will ever even be able to use this might as well have left it as a 3-D render
Sure, the article positions it as an art piece, but you're right. The fact that there is no STL puts this in the "ok cool. Next." bucket for the the vast majority of the 3d printing community.
One thing that immediately jumps out at me about this chessboard is the use of varied ground plane -- how the back rows are high up, whereas the middle of the board is down below. The high ground really evokes a sense of power of the "senior" pieces, and casts the middle rows below as the inevitable battleground. One can imagine pieces mounting an uphill attack in the later stages of the game. Such a simple thing, and so effective!