Nils Breunese
Wonder of ScienceThese boxes are not moving. A mind-bending optical illusion by Japanese artist Jagarikin.
More details and source: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/optical-illusion-moving-squares
MegatronicThronBanksShepard Boxes!
Wikinaut
Tor Lillqvist@wonderofscience That didn't actually have many more details. What would be interesting to know is exactly how the edges of the cube are changed between dark to light in order to generate the illusion.
Jernej Simončič �@tml @wonderofscience Right-click the video → Show controls → click ⋮ on the right side → Playback speed → 0.25, and it should become fairly obvious how it's done (edges and centre of the lines fade at different speeds, which creates the illusion; arrows show the direction in which the edge fading is happening).
Miss D@jernej__s @tml @wonderofscience what's wild to me is that if you cover the arrows, you can still tell directionality based on the flash pattern. Way cool.
Ben ToddIf you save it to your phone and load it up in a files/image app you can pause the animation and then drag the progress bar to see the various steps.
Em & future cats 🇺🇦🐈🏳️🌈@wonderofscience
Neat , somehow this reminds me of the effect from watching cuttlefish when they do the “wave” pattern. When I see them doing this dazzling display I seem to have a similar impression as these boxes!
Neat , somehow this reminds me of the effect from watching cuttlefish when they do the “wave” pattern. When I see them doing this dazzling display I seem to have a similar impression as these boxes!
I am Water@em_and_future_cats @wonderofscience Squid are cool too. They do some mind bending color changes. I saw a cuttlefish diving in Australia but sadly it was just chilling not putting on a show. I got the video of this squid somewhere.
I am Jack's Lost 404I'm going to start an optical illusion moving company 👍
Matthias Rex 🦣@float13 @wonderofscience "Optical Illusion Moving Company" would make a great name for a band. #IMNBN
jnthnkl@Meowthias @float13 @wonderofscience This reminds me of this cool band "Nathalie Portman's Shaved Head" (:
JamesTDG@wonderofscience if you watch the pixels closely, you can understand how it works. It just uses some special strobe techniques
Magnus Ahltorp@JamesTDG @wonderofscience Yes, the quote from the article is misleading: “Using squares to cover up the arrows in the middle, the clip (see below) shows that the cubes are completely still.”
But you can still see in which direction they are moving even if you only see a small part. I first thought that the cubes were the same for each direction, but they’re not. They are actually moving. It seems to be something close to the “ever-rising melody” effect.
Andrew@ahltorp @JamesTDG @wonderofscience I've found it's an almost universal constant of viral optical illusions that the given explanation is somewhere between useless and actively wrong
ワンプ八九八@wonderofscience I don't get it. I see them moving even when the pointers are covered.
Dgar
punIssuer@dgar @wonderofscience yes, because the arrows are just an indicator; the magic happens in the frames themselves. They are not simply flashing, they are moving the edge where black and white meet in the direction the artist wants the box to appear to move to
@vamp898
@vamp898
KLARMARX@vamp898 @wonderofscience Because they are in fact moving, but they always skip back to their original position. The strobe effect just covers this up.
Tiffany@wonderofscience I do not believe you. 🤪
●@wonderofscience The boxes aren't moving, it's the strobe lines that are directional. If you zoom in you can see them change along with the line shading.
It's a great optical effect, though. And — if you blink your eyes very fast when viewing it the effect is gone.
Karen Strickholm
klaushipp@wonderofscience what the?!
J.H.NoyesHa. They're not moving. I'm immun...
Götz Hoffart@wonderofscience @mschfr These aren’t optical illusions. THESE ARE BRAIN FAILURES!!! (© by Neil deGrasse Tyson).
Wulfy—Speaker to the machines@goetz @wonderofscience @mschfr
Not brain failures.
Brain adaptation to deal with the real world.
NDT is a fuckwit.
Captain Jack Sparrowaka headfuck
John Kennedy@wonderofscience They are though, aren't they.
Alkaris 
@wonderofscience Imagine this being used in a video game puzzle.
Irina@wonderofscience I thought it was the arrows but when I covered those with my fingers the boxes still seemed to be moving!
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@wonderofscience they kind of are though. the edges change, so the mean centre of the lines that make the boxes moves a little. Crude animation only takes a small movement.
Brokar@wonderofscience This is dark magic! Pretty sure the Biden Administration is behind all this!
Kudos to the artist, that's a new one to twist my brain.
Harry Wood@wonderofscience I wonder what happens if you have some real movement combined? What about if that doesn't agree with the illusion movement? Also I want an interactive version of this, so I can "move" the cube with the arrow keys.
wall-e@wonderofscience what gets me is how you can't even stop them from moving when you put your thumb in the middle and SEE that the edges of the cube don't get closer or move further away 😵💫
JoyceHumphreys
🇨🇦 CowMan 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇲🇽@wonderofscience oh yah that is whacky
After a couple viewings though, pretty sure the arrows move.
vide@wonderofscience
I need one of these shaped like me for work
I need one of these shaped like me for work
joe@wonderofscience
Nice.
I just tried to cross view on the boxes. The result is a non moving, but blinking box.
Nice.
I just tried to cross view on the boxes. The result is a non moving, but blinking box.
Zoidberg For President@wonderofscience They are clearly not moving, I don't get it... :p
DistroWatch@wonderofscience The boxes don't look like they moving at all. What is the illusion?
feliz@distrowatch Did you start the animated GIF?
@feliz No, I am on mobile, it just shows a static image.
Jack Linke 🦄@wonderofscience Wow! Most of these kinds of illusions break if you isolate and view just a small piece. A single edge or corner, for instance.
Not this one! 🤯
Paul Giulan@wonderofscience soften the focus, see more clearly. The mind is good at filling stuff in.
@wonderofscience I can actually see 3 boxes
Jonah Gibberish@wonderofscience if you blink really fast, close to the same rate as the flashing shape, its much easier to see that nothing is moving or changing shape
buo@wonderofscience Here's a good way to see what's going on: right-click on the animation and save it as a video. Then, open it on mpv (or any movie player that allows you to change the frame rate). On mpv, hit `f` and then `[` a few times.
The illusion is based on the shading of the edges. The thick lines joining the vertices just flash, but the _edges_ of those lines are also shaded, and that shade is what induces the motion. It's easier to see it than to explain it.
Tajuyan Tachyon
nilsmielke ⁂@wonderofscience Dang, I love this kind of stuff.
enthraxxx@wonderofscience What's even more impressive is how the arrows inside the cubes don't need to be seen for the eyes to perceive each type of movement.
Quite the mindfuck.
Quite the mindfuck.
azteclady
Wohlfühldrache@wonderofscience WITCHCRAFT! 🤯
complexkosolapoffinteresting if one can create illusion with >2 states?!👨🎓