Neon is one of those magical things everyone loves. With it's soft and colorful light it sets the right mood in all environments - smoke filled jazz or techno clubs, hotels, restaurants, futuristic cities and functions as a good attention grabber for any kind of purpose. This is probably why it's also so often used in graphic and motion design.
I have made quite a few digital neon signs in past and know how much time and manual effort it takes to do it properly and I always had a feeling it should be possible to automate at least some of the process. When "Animation Nodes" addon was released, it opened up procedural modelling for Blender and I just had to try!
In the process I also researched a lot about real neon making process and it always fascinates me how much work and skill it takes. It really is an art form without shortcuts. But it doesn't have to be that way for the digital world.
Process
My conclusion is that it's not possible to fully automate the creative side of things - how exactly should all the parts connect. That requires common sense and logic which currently only humans can do, but all the other tedious process can and should be automated. I'm sure in future an AI will be able to solve this task.
Full length video of the process here.
