Chronogram beta

Chronogram mapping the route the character will navigate through the game. With the scene starting in the Actual Park, the student moulds a virtual space using the restrictions  of the actual space: re-imagining the environment, the character travels through the virtual park, by JASON and in Neo Dreadnought picking up the first part of the Diploma. Last scene is of Virtual Painted Hall, picking up the last part of the Diploma ends the game.

Game spaces

Pictures are of the virtual Library with Visual Data at the core of the structure.

Virtual Painted Hall. Having some issues exporting the actual Painted Hall's painting onto the object on scene, hence why the ceiling is see through.

Claytronics

Videos showing the ideas behind programmable matter I am looking into, specifically Claytronics.

Google glass Video

Google just uploaded a video of how it feels to use the Glass.

Space analysis_Dreadnought Library

I've been looking at how to design my game space for the Library.

Transparent Smartphone Prototype

Polytron is working on getting the hardware components of the Smartphone up and running, there is no software running on the prototype as its main goal is showcase the early stages of hardware integration and to get OEMs excited about the potential of Polytrons technology. This is an interesting beginning for something that most consider a piece of tech that we would only see in Sci-Fi films.

Source

PaperTab: Revolutionary paper tablet

Video game as a tool for teaching architecture

Faculty members at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) are hoping that an interactive approach to teaching professional practice will engage architecture students in a subject that is often met with little enthusiasm. They’ve just won a $40,000 award from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) to help develop the concept.

The idea, says Greg Hall, chair of SCAD’s architecture department, is to create a video game that will add some fun and excitement to the school’s required architectural practices course, which covers such mundane topics as office and corporate structure, administration, public and client relations, consultant and contractor relations, project administration and procedures, and compensation.

“Students,” Hall says, “are initially drawn to architecture for the design aspects. But when they start working, they suddenly realize that what they spent 90 percent of their time on in a design studio only takes up about 10 percent of their time in a firm. The rest of their time is spent on construction documents, coordinating with contractors and clients—all of the logistics of getting a project built.”

Hall and several colleagues in the architecture school are collaborating on the project with SCAD’s interactive design and game department. Hall envisions a competitive video game (which is untitled for now) in which students make “real-time judgment calls and decisions” that an architect would make—basically playing the role of the architect working in a firm.

So, kind of like L.A. Noire, but with architects instead of 1940s-era detectives? Something like that, says SCAD game design professor Aram Cookson, who is part of design team. But the details—PC or tablet? First person or third?—will be worked out starting in January. (There will be no guns involved, he insists.) Students from both departments will be part of the game’s development process, along with representatives from three architecture firms: Nelson Chen, principal of Nelson Chen Architects in Hong Kong; Jerry Lominack, principal of Lominack Kolman Smith Architects in Savannah; and Roberta Unger, principal of The Architecture Group in Atlanta. The architects will help create real-world scenarios that will be incorporated into the game. The goal is to have the game ready for the classroom by next fall.

Hall believes interactive video games have the potential to “revolutionize” architectural education by making topics more exciting and relevant for students. “Most students are very familiar with this type of media,” he says. “And it’s widely recognized that ‘playing’ is one of the best ways to learn. We hope to expand this concept to other classes.”

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Rig+Storyboard

Below is the rig I made to help me with some nice continuous shots, still needs some work as I doesn't work as seamlessly as I expected.  0.5m is the maximum length of the slider I could get and it is quite short for the shots I want. The initial tests turned out ok though.

The consecutive pages are draft storyboards for my machinima. 

Animatic 1

The animatic was useful to help me picture the possible layout for my machinima. I have used a video from the animation, The Third and The Seventh to show the effect I would like to create together with an amalgamation of 360s, pictures and videos I recorded from the site.

Photosynths

Photosynth is a software application from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington that analyzes digital photographs and generates a three-dimensional model of the photos and a point cloud of a photographed object. Pattern recognition components compare portions of images to create points, which are then compared to convert the image into a model. I have embedded some of the synths I have been taking of the site during different conditions and time of the day. The image can be panned around by using the mouse control of click and drag.