Archive 2012: iBook Authoring and 3D

Inspiration has an expiration date. Act on it immediately.

When Apple introduced iBooks Author in 2012, the demo material was compelling — rich graphics, embedded video, interactive 3D objects, all inside a book format on iPad. I had all the ingredients already: the TomyTones animation, the 3D models, the Cinema4D workflow. The connection was immediate.

So I tried it straight away. The software turned out to be more limited than the showcase suggested — the authoring experience was underwhelming and the creative constraints too tight to make it worth pushing further. I made the prototype, embedded the 3D character, confirmed the concept worked, and moved on.

That's a valid outcome for an experiment. Not every tool earns a second session.