Unity gaming software is now free!

I was blown away to hear today that Unity is now free for small independent developers! This is the same gaming platform that I used for hypocenter, a recent installation piece. The great thing about Unity is that if you are familiar with javaScript you can easily write code for this platform. As a gaming platform, Unity has built-in physics and all of the standard features you would expect.

I think that this development will make it much more likely that alternative uses of gaming technologies are developed. Cool!

Published on October 31st, 2009 in discourse, interactive design and tagged with gaming, interactive, Unity • Reply No Comments » Share | Save to delicious | StumbleUpon | ReTweet | Add to Technorati

Binary Series

This series of images is continuing with the exploration of mathematically derived objects and landscapes. There is both order and chaos in the way the images are constructed, repetition and variation on a theme. The landscape is inspired by the landscape I see from where I live, on the edge of a plain that collides with the mountains in the distance.

34th Atlanta Film Festival – Indistinct Boundaries Movement 4

I am very happy to announce that Indistinct Boundaries Movement 4 and Indistinct Boundaries Movement 2 were both selected for the 34th Atlanta Film Festival. This piece was a collaborative piece created for the Jane Franklin Dance performance Indistinct Boundaries.

From the Atlanta Film Festival web site:

“The Atlanta Film Festival strives to introduce new talent to audiences and has been among the first places to show work by then new filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and Victor Nunez. The Atlanta Film Festival is also a qualifying film festival for the Academy Awards for the Live Action and the Animated Short Film categories, and in 2002 “The Accountant” by director Ray McKinnon won the Oscar in that category after qualifying at the 2001 Atlanta Film Festival.”

The Atlanta Film Festival typically receives over 1700 entries from more than 75 countries, I am very pleased that these two films were selected for screening.

34th Atlanta Film Festival – Indistinct Boundaries Movement 2

I am very happy to announce that Indistinct Boundaries Movement 2 is an official selection of the 34th Atlanta Film Festival. This piece was a collaborative piece animated by Rassamee Ruangsri and produced for Jane Franklin Dance.

From the Atlanta Film Festival web site:

“The Atlanta Film Festival strives to introduce new talent to audiences and has been among the first places to show work by then new filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and Victor Nunez. The Atlanta Film Festival is also a qualifying film festival for the Academy Awards for the Live Action and the Animated Short Film categories, and in 2002 “The Accountant” by director Ray McKinnon won the Oscar in that category after qualifying at the 2001 Atlanta Film Festival.”

The Atlanta Film Festival typically receives over 1700 entries from more than 75 countries, I am very pleased that our film was chosen for screening.

Designers take the Meyer’s Brigg test

Thanks to Scott Hull for pointing me to this Fast Company article about what personality type makes the best designer. It seems to be inline with what I would expect, it also makes me wonder (beyond it’s incomprehensible design graphics). To see a trend, I would need to know how other professions would fare with the same criteria. I would think investment bankers would also be good at “intuiting”.

Pirating Movies versus Paying Customers

Here’s a funny image someone sent me about pirating movies, what you get versus paying for it:

iPad versus Kindle – a design debate

kindleiphone

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iPad versus Kindle

I asked seven digital design students to take a look at the iPad and Kindle, analyze the major points both good and bad and come to a decision about the product. The specific question is what’s going to happen a year from now. Will the Kindle be overshadowed by the iPad, or will it hold it’s own? Is there a market for both kinds of products, a dedicated e-reader and a new type of device?

Here are the key points they found about each product:

iPad Key qualities

a good company
more functions than advertised
Apps
sleek, slender
open door to touch screen
save money on books for college students
hi-def
Universal access (compared to iPhone)
crappy name
glorified iPhone
do we need this?
Kindle killer or iTouch killer?
expensive, fragile
uncomfortable to hold
why is it better than a laptop
great presentation tool
emailing device
can’t read in the sun
will screen get dirty
10 hour battery life, really?

Kindle Key qualities

Good for reading
Specialized
Holds a lot of books
Slow flipping
Comfortable to hold, as a book
Free 3G internet
Good downloading store (with books)
Not that entertaining of a device
Slow
Hard navigating
Keep wanting to touch the screen
crappy browser for internet
Right handed people only
Retro menus (early 80’s)
Appeals to old people

One year from now:

Kindle will be a has-been: 3 votes
Kindle will still be growing in popularity: 2 votes
Kindle will still be in “the fight”: 2 votes

iPad will be an embarrassment for Apple: 2 votes
iPad will be slow-grower like the iPod: 4 votes
iPad will be a revolutionary device: 0 votes

namaste

Director Statement

This piece explores objects created through mathematical rhythm and variation. The same methods are employed in a series of images that I call Visions of Promise. My interest is very similar in this work, to find beauty in nature as interpreted through a system that I have devised. The music is similarly constructed, a looping system of frequency oscillations are layered to create a familiar, but artificial soundscape.

Production Notes

The animation has been created through mathematical variations on spline algorithms. The heading, angle and bank have been altered over time and the motion is from the splines reaction to the changes.

Format

HDTV 16:9
Exact Runtime 00 hr : 05 min : 00 sec
Print Details Color + B/W, Stereo
Film Sound Dolby A Dolby SR Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratios 1.778 (16×9 HDTV)

Media

Digital Animation
Software used : Reason, Cinema4D, After Effects

Visions of Promise

Visions of Promise

Utopia, perfection and illusion are some of the ideas I wanted to explore with this group of images. I recently stumbled upon the work of Ernst Haeckel and was fascinated by the beauty of his drawings and his obsessive desire to find rational structures in everything he observed. As an artist I have always been interested in creating imaginary spaces that are both real and unreal, these works represent my exploration of that space.

Drawing from Haeckel and from my computer programs I started to create structures that I felt capture a sense of order, beauty and utopian perfection. With each piece, I have started with a structure, repeating and folding that structure upon itself using iterations of change in the underlying mathematical structure of the object. I wanted to create objects that felt both pictorial and physical, to varying degrees in each image. I am interested in blending these different realities as a way of exploring the connections between. I think of my life, living in an urban, controlled space, at once separate from and yet still part of the natural world. Or, of my relationships, people who I see regularly are not necessarily as vivid as online relationships. Friends are closer based not on physical location but on activity.

Through these works I hope to slow down the viewer, draw them in and have them consider issues of perception, reality and the value of the object. Far from being a scientifically accurate artist, Haeckel changed the subject to fit his concept of beauty. He used the guise of science and realism to make his vision believable.

Classic Logo – v. 2.0

I thought it would be fun to revisit a classic assignment Michael Beirut mentioned in a recent post on DesignObserver.com where he showed his student portfolio. The idea is to simplify an animal to it’s most essential elements and create a logo-like image. It occurred to me that those same skills are exactly what is needed when designing characters for game design, and with the game engine Unity now free we should introduce motion as an element.

Beirut’s logo exercise included putting the logo in motion, his version was pretty cool for the 70’s but nothing like what can be done today. We’re talking true 3D motion that the user can control. I think motion will soon be added as one of the core design principles equal to geometry and color in logo design. A few of these have used motion to create a sense of character like the jellyfish and fast turtle. Others used idle sequences like t-rex to add personality. Punk Penguin has a jump that will crash your browser the first time, but works after that!

Below are the design student experiments created this week (with only a few days of working with Unity):

Arduino in the Wall Street Journal

My favorite microcontroller, the Arduino, has hit the big time – a WSJ feature article! For the uninitiated, the Arduino can be hooked up to sensors to detect presence and then it can send out signals to the computer or to motors, LED lights and a bunch of other stuff. The nice thing about doing interactive design with the Arduino, is that it can be a stand-alone installation without the need for a computer to remain attached.

Unity gaming software is now free!

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images

motion

interaction

discourse

Binary Series

34th Atlanta Film Festival – Indistinct Boundaries Movement 4

34th Atlanta Film Festival – Indistinct Boundaries Movement 2

Designers take the Meyer’s Brigg test

Pirating Movies versus Paying Customers

iPad versus Kindle – a design debate

iPad versus Kindle

iPad Key qualities

Kindle Key qualities

One year from now:

namaste

Director Statement

Production Notes

Format

Media

Related

Visions of Promise

Classic Logo – v. 2.0

Arduino in the Wall Street Journal

Archives

Meta

Unity gaming software is now free!

Leave a Reply

iPad versus Kindle

iPad Key qualities

Kindle Key qualities

One year from now:

Director Statement

Production Notes

Format

Media

Related

Tags

Archives

Meta