I put my head on The Mandalorian and other UGC tales | The DeanBeat

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I put my head on The Mandalorian, and it wasn’t such a hard thing to do. While at the recent CES 2023 tech trade show in Las Vegas, I stopped by the booth of 3D printer company Formlabs.

David Lakatos of Formlabs and Patrick Marr of Hasbro walked me through a demo of the Hasbro Selfie Series, where you can put your head on a 3D-printed action figure of your choice. This is another example of our future that will be filled with user-generated content (UGC).

The common thread about the different forms of UGC, including creations for video games, is that it is getting easier and easier to do. And if it keeps going down this path, I wonder if it will pave the way to the metaverse, the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One. James Gwertzman, who recently left A16z to return to the startup life, penned an article about this trend of generative AI invading games.

All I had to do to place my head on the six-inch body of The Mandalorian was pose. With the smartphone app, they scanned my face and sent the capture off to a 3D printer. It costs $60, which is more than I would otherwise pay for an action figure, and it arrived in the mail a month later with my head in the right place. This is as easy as it gets, and Marr said it plays into the remix culture that is sweeping through so many industries now, like video games. I don’t know if you can call me a “maker” since this is so automated, but I did supply my head.

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