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u/arafella 6d ago
This isn't impossible, it's 3 mobius strips stacked on top of each other. It would be annoying as hell but you could physically make this.
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u/neuenono 5d ago
I don't think that's quite right. If we think of the ring as a sandwich, the two "bread" pieces are connected to each other while the "meat" piece is not. I don't think that could physically exist.
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u/arafella 5d ago edited 4d ago
I just tried it, you are correct - if you have the strips stacked, when you twist them and go to connect you need to tape the top strip on the left to the bottom strip on the right, but then you can't tape the remaining strips together.
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u/TwentyTwoTwelve 5d ago
Watch the wide flat faces on the center line and you can see quite clearly the visible deformation of the 3D object.
You could animate this physically with something like clay but the real trick is in the forced perspective and the shapes only appearing to retain their original shape when you don't look too closely.
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u/neuenono 4d ago
you can see quite clearly the visible deformation of the 3D object
Thanks for pointing that out - super interesting. I wonder if we can distinguish between [actual change in shape] vs. [change in appearance based on perspective shift]. Because this object can't exist, it might be impossible to try and pin this down.
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u/TwentyTwoTwelve 4d ago
It can exist, the fact you think it can't is an optical illusion caused by the forced perspective.
You could stop motion animated this entire project so it's not an impossible shape, only the illusion of one.
When the pieces line up to create a perfectly flat edge, it cuts to a different 3d model where you're actually seeing huge pieces far away and small pieces up close set up in such a way to make them look uniform from that specific perspective.
When the layers shift, those big background bits flatten and shrink while along that line segment we see, which hides the transformation.
The visible bits of distortion you're looking at that I pointed to before are just the deformation remaining on the up & down/left & right axis of the model.
I constructed a 3d model similar to this years ago as a college project but I used the impossible triangle instead as it had much less geometry to account for.
This is a few steps up in complexity to what I did, but follows the same basic principle with a second camera angle and a cut to a different model that reinforces the viewers belief of a certain kind of shape being on screen.
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u/Strange_Night 5d ago
Morbius strips
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u/Azreaal 5d ago
u/redditspeedbot 0.5x
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u/neuenono 5d ago
I just learned (remembered?) that on PC I can bring up some GIF controls and slow it down that way. Full-screen, too!
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u/Telandria 6d ago
Neat. An animated reconfiguring Möbius strip?
Or well, something like a double one? Not sure if there’s a name for it. Looks like there’s essentially 2 because instead of being flat plane its got an additional dimension.
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u/Veggieleezy 5d ago
Why does it sound like stones grinding together in my head? Like a heavy stone door guarding some ancient tomb or something.
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u/kushwaha_sparsh 5d ago
Bro really loved your gifs, specially on your website. Could you make them in such a way, so I can keep them as my full screen wallpaper? Currently if I put them, then the animation gets stretches and destroys the purpose. Thanks!
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u/johnnyphotog 4d ago
So you have a link to the gif so I can save it for my PC AIO cooler?
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u/_Diskreet_ 6d ago
This hurts my eyes.