Black 3.0 – The blackest black acrylic paint | Hacker News Reader

Black 3.0 – The blackest black acrylic paint

culturehustle.com

260 pointswoliveirajr146 comments

A neat material. I had a decorative mirror that unfortunately shattered, I was able to paint the backing with this and mount the shards atop. Creates a cool contrast, with the mirror reflecting nearly 100% of visible light and the the backing nearly 0%.

I also took some shards of the mirror and coated them with the black, then mounted them throughout the house. It makes it look as if some of my universe's texture shards didn't fully load or the backface culling algorithm is buggy. :)

It an interesting material to look at, the uniformity gives your eye nothing to hold on to, making it hard to focus. I recommend trying it out it for anyone interested, the small bottle is pretty cheap and covers just over a square meter. (I needed a few coats, if you preprocess the surface according to the instructions you'd probably lose less to absorption and get more coverage)

I would love to see a picture of this

Second this

Yes, photos, please :-)!

A photo could not possibly capture the effect. Turn your monitor off and you will see what a digital photo of this black would look like.

Sure it would. And capturing the contrast between the regular wall and the black would give you much better results that turning your monitor off too.

There are lots of cool photos out there of super black material.

I turned my monitor off and saw the most disgusting creature staring back at me. No idea why you'd want to paint that around your house.

A common mistake. You need to look at your monitor straight on, not at a 45 degree angle where it can pick up a reflection of your child.

If the camera has sufficient dynamic range, then it can give a sense of the effect, even if it's not as cool as the real thing. I thought I remembered reading that small sensors are worse at dynamic range than other cameras though, so a phone picture is least likely to capture it compared to other devices.

The camera can't capture it fully of course, but here's the gist: https://imgur.com/a/zPGrkNp

I've got just enough imagination to convert the black to void so it's a very helpful picture, thanks!

Ah yes... phantasia :)

What a strange image! I fully expected the black painted portions to just be ... completely black, since after all the whole point is that it reflects nearly zero light. But that's seemingly not the case at all.

You can download the image and put a black stripe over the top of it to compare, and the difference is quite striking. My color picker tells me that the black in the center of the mirror has a lightness of about 17 out of 100 (that's L in the LCH cylindrical color space), which is really just a medium gray all things considered.

I wonder if this is due to imperfections in the paint and surface, or if the camera used just has an extremely high black level for some reason.

I imagine its a limitation of the sensor capturing the image. When you use a tiny sensor on a phone its doing lots of post-processing, including bumping saturation and brightness.

The apparent haze in the black portion of these photographs appears to be a product of inexpensive camera optics, likely a smartphone with a bit of finger grease on the lens. If you know what you're looking for, this haze is noticeable across the entire image but especially the left third.

This is a common artefact of cheap lenses (or, for that matter, a lens of any quality that is smudged or dirty) but it goes unnoticed by most people in most circumstances.

Good explanation - that does seem pretty likely. I hadn't really considered the possibility that it was a phone camera.

Yep, "Shot on iPhone 12 Mini" :)

Tried again after giving the lens the a nice rub of my shirt, the luminance seems to be approx 1/10th. https://imgur.com/a/5tbeJZT

Thanks for sharing, this must be a really fun conversation piece

If you’re wondering why this substance is not available to Anish Kapoor, from Wikipedia:

In 2014 Kapoor began working with Vantablack, a substance thought to be one of the least reflective substances known. Vantablack S-VIS, a sprayable paint which uses randomly-aligned carbon nanotubes and only has high absorption in the visible light band, also called the "blackest black" colour, has been exclusively licensed to Anish Kapoor's studio for artistic use.[63] His exclusive licence to the material has been criticized in the art world, but he has defended the agreement, saying: "Why exclusive? Because it's a collaboration, because I am wanting to push them to a certain use for it. I've collaborated with people who make things out of stainless steel for years and that's exclusive."[64]

Artists like Christian Furr and Stuart Semple have criticised Kapoor for what they perceive as an appropriation of a unique material, to the exclusion of others.[65][66] In retaliation, Semple developed a pigment called the "pinkest pink" and specifically made it available to everyone, except Anish Kapoor and anyone affiliated with him.[67][68] He later stated that the move was itself intended as something like performance art and that he did not anticipate the amount of attention it received.[69] In December 2016, Kapoor posted an Image on Instagram of his extended middle finger which had been dipped in Semple's pink.[70] Semple developed more products such as "Black 2.0" and "Black 3.0", which has similar qualities to Vantablack despite being acrylic, and "Diamond Dust," an extremely reflective glitter made of glass shards, all of which were released with the same restriction against Kapoor as the "pinkest pink".[71][72]

The whole "feud" is stupid. As pointed out, Kapoor has purposefully and publicly violated the terms of sale and Semple has taken no action. I can picture the two of them sharing a laugh together in an oak-paneled study over expensive cognac, amazed at how well the publicity stunt has worked.

Vantablank application is very difficult/technical, it has the usual nanoparticle health concerns, and it's used for defense applications like satellite optical camouflage so the company doesn't just sell it to any yahoo anyway. Kapoor went to the trouble of getting approved and his staff trained. Him getting exclusive approval to it is a yawn.

If you think Semple doesn't know that, well...bridge, NYC, etc.

Now that said, Kapoor is still a gigantic twatwaffle whose entire career could be best described as "physically executing all the stupid shit we did in POVRay as kids."

The Bean in Chicago? He forced the City of Chicago to station police around the Bean chasing down tourists taking pictures of themselves because it would violate his copyright.

>As pointed out, Kapoor has purposefully and publicly violated the terms of sale

Or someone affiliated with Kapoor did, if he didn't purchase it himself he's not bound to any terms.

> "That," he said, "that... is really bad for the eyes."

> It was a ship of classic, simple design, like a flattened salmon, twenty yards long, very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.

> "It's so... black!" said Ford Prefect. "You can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it!"

> The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it.

> "Your eyes just slide off it..." said Ford in wonder

> "Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow."

This line always perplexed me as a kid.

I got (still get) stuck on the overlap between moving, and steering. Moving like a fish seems to include sinuous paths, schooling with sudden acceleration and darts to the side, etc... nimbleness and speed.

I understood it was a proxy for "accelerates like/is as fast as" but found that unsatisfying.

Also, cow works to evoke large, stubborn perhaps, unresponsive... but was an odd choice in as much as few try to steer cows. Shepherd, maybe. A water buffalo or ox or even mule felt like a missed opportunity, since they are prototypically steered and there is a sense of their owners/drivers laboring against their desire to not labor...

Total Nicolson Baker rabbit hole, just a specific reading experience that has always stood out from that series. I have uttered that line countless times over the years in various contexts, including while dancing late at night on the playa.

Yikes. It means young (neutered) male cattle prefer a cow.

Hah, somehow I never once made that connection. "Flies like a banana" has been an old favorite, but out of context I just never picked up on this version despite many re-reads.

Time flies like an arrow / Fruit flies like a banana.

Time flies are utterly terrifying; avoid them at all costs.

Whilst the flight of fruit, though short lived, resembles that of a banana (which apparently is a berry)

I know that the second half is intended to convey that bananas are liked by fruit flies, but within the context of that saying, my brain steadfastly refuses to read it that way.

Indeed.

Face-palm.

Reminds me of another ‘joke’ I never got which, for all I know, might have been obvious to everyone else:

“Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.”

I never knew that “the other side” was referring to death... like, at a seance when you contact the “other side”.

Apparently the joke was a big hit in the days of the Spiritist movement (back with Houdini, Doyle, and all the others promoting or debunking seances.)

I thought it was some intentionally stupid joke about crossing a road. Doh.

TIL…

I think the "intentionally stupid" interpretation is correct. I think the original answer was "to get from the left to the right", which later got shortened.

You may be correct. I got sucked down that rabbit hole years ago. The ‘death’ explanation was in the minority.

A quick Google shows that at least one guy — some person named Nick on Twitter — and his followers subscribe to the suicide version: https://www.esquire.com/uk/life/news/a12346/the-upsetting-tr...

I had two jokes in a jokebook at my grandparents place that stumped me as a kid.

Waiter: How did you find your steak sir? Man: I looked under a mushroom and there it was

I could only put it down to a terrible, Christmas cracker level pun on "much room".

The second was something like "What has three feet but no legs? A yard stick" with a picture of a ruler with three feet on it. I found that utterly perplexing... the joys of living in a metric country with predominantly imported imperial system based media!

Both took me probably over a decade to understand.

France is bacon...

I disagree, that does not seem to fit Adams's style of humour and wordplay in the books. grandparent is just overthinking it; the image is of a ship that glides through space like a fish gliding through water, but turns clumsy and lumbering when you actually try to steer it.

My suspicion is that 'cow' was chosen for its natural contrast with a fish, its onomatopoeic nature, and the mental slam of unexpected absurdism.

Or in other words, it was funny.

I have always interpreted "moves" in this context to relate to straight line acceleration, like when somebody says a sports car "really moves" they mean it's got quick straight-line acceleration.

Immediately after this quote Ford (or maybe Zaphod?) says something about how he had been passed by some ship at great speed, and shortly after it crashed into a planet or something. I can't remember off the top of my head. But that seems to support the interpretation that it can move fast but can't steer.

Nigel Tufnel: "It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none -- none more black."

This Is Spinal Tap (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds7FRivVMgA)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fuligin

"the hue fuligin, which is darker than black, admirably erases all folds, bunchings and gatherings so far as the eye is concerned, showing only a featureless dark.

When I got my Black 3.0 bottles via the Kickstarter I turned two wooden eggs and painted one with their gold and one with Black 3.0. Here's a picture of the two taken in a very well lit workshop: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159690521351509&set=a...

It looks like the black egg was Photoshopped out of the picture, but I promise it looked the same in person and that table used as a background is painted 20% gray.

All I see is a white egg and a blue egg.

Jokes aside, it must feel surreal to see it in person, a "photoshopped out" piece of reality of you will.

I own a bottle of this stuff, and it's not really as amazingly black as it looks on camera. Sure, it's pretty damn black. But it's easy to see the imperfections and stuff up close. There was a video that compared it to black felt, which is pretty similar.

And no, this is not Vantablack. It's just some special acrylic that can hold a lot of black pigment, and a lot of black pigment. Vantablack needs to be "grown" with high temperatures so its usually seen on aluminum foil and such.

Overall, this is pretty cool. I could definitely believe that it's the blackest acrylic paint in the world. However it doesn't create a "black hole" or anything.

> And no, this is not Vantablack.

you may have missed the bit where they mention that this paint is available to everyone who is not Kapoor - Anish Kapoor signed a contract that grants him exclusive rights to use Vantablack for art projects.

I think OP means "this is nowhere close to Vantablack", not "do not think this is actually Vantablack".

I understood that - but this paint wouldn't exist if Kapoor didn't exclusively license Vantablack: Stuart Semple (maker of paint in TFA) is good-naturedly salty about it, he set out to exclude Kapoor from using his paints

Right... And all GP was saying was that this is not as black as Vantablack.

> Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it's way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

I love drama...

For people not in on the drama: Anish Kapoor somehow has exclusive rights to Vanta Black, the blackest black paint, so in return, the pinkest pink and now the blackest acrylic paint are banning Anish Kapoor, who for some reason was petty enough to break the ban. I mean, if you want other people to respect your exclusive rights to vanta black, you should at least respect other color exclusivity clauses.

https://www.dezeen.com/2016/12/30/anish-kapoor-uses-stuart-s...

A very fun, very NSFW podcast that goes deep into the drama

http://citationpod.com/episode/the-blackest-black/

There's a Tom Scott video about another one of Stuart's products, and an explanation for the Anish Kapoor message: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVmtbPOrM

The Stuart Semple vs. Anish Kapoor “beef” is one of my favorites to read about, utterly harmless and unbelievably petty, it entertains me to no end.

Thanks, came back for this hehe

I used Black 2.0 and Black 3.0 and kinda prefer 2.0 for most things - easier to use.

My favorite project was making a weird edge disappear in the apartment. Notice how the edge and white draw the eye away and create visual noise:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UydkPpEZJUL3jtaF9

When I applied a regular black on the top and 3.0 in the edge, it blends in with the dark window framing, even during the day:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gqjco8jWN5gsKTWf6

seems it absorbs a bit less light than vantablack but the comeback at Kapoor is quite fun https://www.dezeen.com/2019/02/05/black-3-0-stuart-semple-an...

This is in the feature list of the OP too:

  • Not available to Kapoor

Nice, a niche topic I am in on. I've experimented with a few of these materials for photography.

One thing that is good to know is that the extreme darkness you typically see in demonstration videos where any sense of depth disappears, is not true to life.

Even indoors, with plain daylight shining inwards, and judging the object with your own eyes, will not give the effect. You'll perceive it as gray and extremely matte.

The difference can be explained by Youtubers picking favorable light conditions, but also because the camera capturing said video tends to have a smaller dynamic range compared to your own eyes. I believe it has been experimentally established that human beings can detect even a single photon:

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-human-e...

So don't expect full magic. Fun can still be had though, like half-magic. I have a background painted with a very dark paint (more on the brand in a minute) with inside of it a figure painted with the same paint. With artificial lighting in my office, you can't see the figure at all. When picking up the figure, even directly looking at it won't give away any sense of depth.

Anyway, the paint I use is Musou Black, which is claimed to be darker than Black 2.0 or 3.0:

https://www.ko-pro.black/product/musou-black-paint/

Their darkness is compared by their maximum light absorption rate, supposedly Musou has the highest: 99.4%. Do know that actual absorption depends on your method of painting. Ideally, you thinly spray paint several individual layers for maximum effect.

This same company (I promise I don't work for them) has a material I find far more intriguing. It's called Fineshut Pro.

Whereas the paints you can see as organic, meaning the way you apply it matters, the sheet is "pre-engineered". In the real world, the difference is huge. In particular the sheet also has the full darkness effect in unfavorable light conditions (direct daylight). However, only when light hits at a particular angle.

I had Black 3.0, sold it to get musou black.

Black 3.0 was no darker than the inside of my macro tubes, and not too black IMHO

Musou black is way darker, and does make a difference when using it as a coating.

Can't wait to mix it with the whitest white to get the grayest gray.

So dark it makes difficult to note relief. Maybe it is a good choice to paint telescope tubes' interior.

That's the whole idea.

It wouldn't be much of an absorber of all visible radiation which hits it, if it bounced enough back to make out textural details.

If you're interested, here's a thread of telescope nerds discussing that exact usage: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/692954-how-black-is-the-b...

  Well... the price was reasonable, something around $26 for
  150 ml bottle including shipping to Pennsylvania (USA), and
  I am not Anish Kapoor so I decided to give the paint a try.

Since many of us are amused by the Anish Kapoor situation, I wanted to highlight this wry comment from your link.

These ultrablack paints are all carbon nanotube based, right?

Sounds pretty carcinogenic to me. The website makes it out to be "non toxic" though. I wonder if I'm too paranoid... anyone knows what's the pigment made of, exactly?

Good point. Carbon nanotubes are carcinogenic.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5799097/

Well, dont eat paint chips.

More about the dust that is generated when the product is used.

Is there any kind of dust that's really healthy to breathe? I imagine pretty much everything that exist in tiny particles has microscopic sharp edges.

On one end of the spectrum there's flour, on the other end there's asbestos.

Well, I wouldn't assume flour is harmless in an industrial setting. For example, there's "popcorn lung", (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obliterative_bronchiolitis) you don't think of artificial butter flavored popcorn as a toxic terror, but in a factory, it can have severe effects over a period of time.

In positions we talk about the LD50. When it comes to environmental exposure of things like dust to incidents of lung damage, I'm not sure how we measure said effects. Yea, breathing any significant amount of dusts can be harmful, be we should be very concerned for products where insignificant amounts of material can be harmful.

I've wondered about drywall/gypsum dust. The first time I was on a construction site, I was pretty young and nobody was insisting I wear a mask so I didn't at first.

No, that's vantablack, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack for which a company has a patent. I believe black3.0 is much more conventional paint (pigment based, rather than structural color based) See https://www.ko-pro.black/190516black30/

The company's patent is a thing, but as explained down the page black 3.0 exists specifically because the company granted Anish Kapoor an exclusive artistic use license to Vantablack S-VIS, so no other visual artist can use S-VIS.

Also of note: there are variants of Vantablack with aligned and unaligned nanotubes, as well as non-nanotubes-based variants (the VBx series).

There is also a non-surrey nanotubes-based paint called Singularity, created by Nanolab in partnership with Jason Chase, and an other "very black" non-nanotubes paint called Musou.

I don't know how Musou compares to 3.0, and last time I'd checked Singularity was slightly more reflective than Vanta. They do have the avantage (for artists) of being available though, and Musou and 3.0 are pretty normal paints.

To nit pick a bit on "so no other visual artist can use S-VIS"

It is not that the company made a deal to exclude other artists, but that they made an exception to allow one artist.

You as an individual, and likely you as a corporation, can't buy Vantablack. You have to provide technical drawings and a detailed writeup of your product, submit it for review to the company, they send it to the UK government, etc. until eventually they tell you it will be tens of thousands of dollars to paint something the size of a Netgear router and that only their paint shop can apply the coating.

What is Vantablack used for? Besides Anish Kapoor's art, is there any information on what else it has been incorporated in? I imagine some of its uses are classified, but are there some other ones that are known?

It is used on satellites near the optics to prevent stray light from bouncing into the sensor.

Despite the common belief that spy sats are covered in the stuff, it causes quite a bit of heat absorption and hostile governments have better methods than a SkyMall telescope.

Black 3.0 has been around for quite a while, the newest thing is Black Mirror: https://www.culturehustleusa.com/collections/black/products/...

The finish looks quite bad though in that shiny paint. Though maybe it can be hand sanded and polished to a piano black finish.

I think it's really hard to judge from a photograph, but Semple is, if nothing else, a fantastic promoter, so your skepticism is warranted.

Man, wish the Rolling Stones had this back in the day when they wanted to paint that door.

They could have used matte black tempera (Sanford's IIRC). Back in the day, I played around with (analog) photocopier rendition of pen-and-ink drawings and found that large black inked areas developed faded centers. Coating the ink there with said tempera fixed the dropouts.

I have used culturehustle's matte paint on most of the stuff in front of me - monitor bezels, speakers, desk - and it makes sure that the lit things appear to be floating in space at night.

Some past related threads, including about this blackest black and the other blackest blacks:

Guy Creates Darkest Room with the Blackest Black Paint - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25758913 - Jan 2021 (1 comment)

Another Artist Made His Own Superblack–and Now It’s Even Blacker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25402799 - Dec 2020 (2 comments)

MIT creates blackest black that is darker than Vantablack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21118636 - Sept 2019 (17 comments)

Black Blacker Than Vantablack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21093784 - Sept 2019 (94 comments)

New carbon nanotube-metal hierarchical material is 10x darker than Vantablack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20973667 - Sept 2019 (68 comments)

BMW unveils “blackest black” car sprayed with Vantablack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20820000 - Aug 2019 (28 comments)

Vantablack, one of the darkest substances known - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19106541 - Feb 2019 (4 comments)

BLACK 3.0 BETA blackest black acrylic paint - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19044406 - Jan 2019 (2 comments)

One Artist Has a Monopoly on the World’s Blackest Black Pigment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16873089 - April 2018 (1 comment)

The World’s “Blackest Black” Makes Its Debut–On a Building - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16342651 - Feb 2018 (1 comment)

Anish Kapoor is given exclusive rights to Vantablack, the purest black paint - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11209692 - March 2016 (4 comments)

New Super-Black, Light-Absorbing Material Looks Like a Hole in Reality - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8058840 - July 2014 (7 comments)

Scientists have developed a material so dark that it can't be seen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8030459 - July 2014 (42 comments)

Scientists develop material so dark you can't see it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027446 - July 2014 (7 comments)

https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-s...

Fulgin color straight from "the book of the new Sun" saga.

If only. The day real fuligin is available for purchase is the day I discard all other clothing and prance around in an oversized fuligin cape twenty four hours a day for the rest of my life.

It would be horrendously hot, so maybe only use it as a winter coat.

Why are the dashboards of cars not painted in this or similar colors? I want to have minimum reflections but the temperature is probably the problem.

Polarized sunglasses will significantly reduce the visibility of dashboard reflections.

Yes, but if you have a HUD which projects on the windshield, you can no longer see it. Unless you tilt your head. This is a minor annoyance.

No, it's because most of the "blackest" finishes are extremely delicate, as they rely on a sort of micro-velvet structure to trap light as well as absorbing light. There are relatively sturdy solutions - fabrics, mostly - but they tend to be absolute dust magnets, and look rather ratty in a short time unless kept scrupulously clean. Between the high maintenance and the immediate grunge regardless of maintenance, they don't sell well. (Photographers, on the other hand, love the stuff despite the fact that there's an extra few minutes doing a detailed tidying before every shot.)

I really want a mechanical keyboard coated with this.

Are there any piratical purpose in doing it?

You can paint your black flag even blacker. Think of the plundering!

I mean if you wanted black box for photographing things and wanted to minimise bounce lighting. This paint guarantees that only direct light would illuminate the subject.

It'll make yer skull 'n crossbones really pop, matey!

Not at all, would just look cool (in theory). Unfortunately the replies prove that it's impossible, at least right now.

Unfortunately surfaces coated with this (or Vantablack) cannot be touched, the coatings that creates the effect are too delicate.

It's basically good for art projects and scientific applications.

Semple also sells an acrylic black paint which, while not this black, is pretty dang black and can be touched.

And what’s the name of it and where can I get it?

https://culturehustle.com/collections/black/products/raven-c...

It mentions it's fabric-safe, so presumably durable enough for keyboards.

From the website:

>Q. Can I paint my car / bike etc…

>A. NO - 3.0 is quite fragile and will just scratch off, it won’t weather well.

I wanted to paint my laptop with it but seeing this answer on their website made me sad :-(

Just paint it every week ;)

Painting your car white is the least you can do for the planet.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/painting-r...

A low gloss tough coating will add to the reflectivity, but a high gloss highly transparent coating might look really cool still.

TaeKeyboards has a video where he does that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKpsohmQMwE

It looks pretty good, but you can't put a clearcoat on it, so it's not durable enough to actually use as a keyboard. Still a fun item to have on your shelf though.

Wait can you not clearcoat it because it ruins the effect? Or is it somehow too weak to accept a clear coat?

The clear coat would ruin the effect by reflecting light, making the paint look less black

Sure, I guess I'm imagining a thick enough coating where it looks like a very dark featureless surface under a transparent layer, which I think would look pretty cool. But that's not really clear coat so much as it is epoxy.

As others have pointed out, this will only work until you touch it. I use the Das Keyboard ultimate, which is matte black and, while partially reflective (and moreso on the keycaps where finger oil accumulates) it's still pretty great-looking.

This looks like quite confusing to the eye (brain).

Here is the BMW Vantablack:

https://www.bmwusa.com/concept-vehicles/vantablack-x6.html

I believe it is illegal since no one can see it at night.

Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/17VlV62q5r0?feature=share

I may be stupid and missing the point - but this part from the BMW page made me laugh: "This nanostructure paint finish, among the blackest ever made by man, tricks the viewer’s perception of the car as a three-dimensional shape." -- oh, the magic. You paint a 3D object with this paint and it looks 3D.

I am guessing they meant 'two-dimensional'.

I don't see anything wrong with the sentence. The black paint tricks the viewer's normal perception of the car as a three-dimensional shape, to make it seem like it's two-dimensional. Are you understanding it differently?

Yes. The idea is that without being able to differentiate features, a 3d object painted with it looks basically like a silhouette, so your brain interprets it as a 2d object.

The sentence is fine and means what you think it should. You are reading it wrong.

Never heard of a car color being illegal. As long as it has the mandated lighting and reflectors, how could it not be visible at night?

Hey, Finally a way to make the lines of a BMW attractive... ;-)

No matte black on the ride cuz it's stale

Heh, this feature:

• Smells like fresh coffee

* THIS MAY BE CARCINOGENIC *

Photon absorption chemistry often correlates with electron delocalization. Such chemicals can be reactive and may strip electrons from your DNA if ingested, inhaled, or through dermal contact.

Be careful about skin contact and especially inhalation.

A recent kickstarter, no idea how they compare: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/311352786/horizon-black

Blackest black explains!!!!

There's a lot of backstory to this... it's a dig against Vantablack, which Anish Kapoor (famous sculptor) managed to buy exclusive rights for using in art:

https://www.wired.com/story/vantablack-anish-kapoor-stuart-s...

Indeed, and it looks like 3.0 still maintains this feud:

> *Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it's way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Dragging Anish Kapoor never, ever gets old.

That's, I think, a deliberate facet of Kapoor's art.

For those who haven't heard of him before, Kapoor did the Bean in Chicago.

Just bear with me here.

Wouldn't it be funny if people only knew him as the guy famously slammed for getting a monopoly on Vantablack? If at all.

Apart from a wonky bit of space frame crap the black colour foolishness is in fact all I know about him.

Apparently he has done tons of work. His website is a straight list of image links left to right and up & down.

https://anishkapoor.com/

Anish Kapoor is not happy that people are calling it the bean. Cloudgate is the official name.

...Another good reason to call it the bean.

Ah, so you mean the official name is “the bean”?

The Amish grow lots of beans, and I doubt they like nanotubes.

Most people will remember Anish Kapoor as the bean guy

I misread this (ambiguous) line at first

> In 2017, Semple also released a cherry-scented version of the Vantablack pigment exclusively licensed to Kapoor.

and thought that Semple had mixed cherry-scent with Vantablack and licensed it to Kapoor exclusively. It would have been an interesting move, particularly from a legal perspective, although I would have expected a different scent than cherry...

I understand the purposes, but from another angle:

Bikeshedding has reached a new extreme. We are debating what color of black to use.

At this point the different blacks are less about color and more about finish/reflectivity. Even if you decide to paint your bikeshed a lovely Celeste green you'd still have to choose whether you want eggshell or semigloss.

This isn't bikeshedding at all. In art and design, black has never been just one color. It's always been a choice of which ones to use. Here are some examples from printing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_black

Yes, I painted my home theater “black”, and ended up down a rabbit hole of “well, which black??”. Ended up painting the ceiling and trim a slightly different black than the walls. Probably only I am consciously aware of the difference.

So I think you're missing that first, this was motivated as a troll, and second, in art variations of black absolutely do matter and are not simple bike shedding.

The troll happened because an artist named Anish Kapoor was able to negotiate exclusive access to a patented black paint/coating based on carbon nanotubes named Vantablack. He's the only artist allowed to use it globally. That didn't sit well with some people who decided to troll back.

I haven't done any art since I was in my late teens, but at the time a couple of my works were focused on very dark subjects. I found ordinary acrylic paint just wasn't black enough for what I wanted. Eventually I found that spraying liquid India ink with an airbrush repeatedly got the effect I was looking for.

Update: Did not read and made a low-effort attempt at flippancy. Regret. ... Agree 100% about important design choices in shades and finishes.

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