LA SIGGRAPH Meeting on Visual Effects Producing

LA SIGGRAPH is focusing our February meeting on asking Visual Effects Producers for their perspectives on the future of visual effects. The meeting is on Wednesday, 11 February, at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Hollywood.

First, our panel of accomplished television, feature and commercial Visual Effects Producers will provide a brief look at the current "state of the art" of visual effects production. Next, they will consider the possible futures of the field in terms of tools, technologies, organizational structures, market trends and other factors. Speakers will focus on the impact these changes will likely have on the career paths and options for current and aspiring visual effects practitioners.

There is a social hour from 6:30pm-7:30pm, but the event starts officially at 7:30pm. However, only members are allowed in at 6:30pm until around 7:00pm (or people who want to become members by paying $35 for the year--gets you into all LA SIGGRAPH events for the year). THE EVENT IS $15 FOR NON-MEMBERS.

And, as always, if you want to go, and want to carpool, let me know . . . I'll be taking off right after the CTIN 511 forum that day . . .

CNTV Scholarships

CNTV Scholarships

The above is the link to where you can get your scholarship on. You need your new student ID # (the one with 10 digits) and your SS#.

Here is another link to another school's scholarship page which has helpful information on scholarships outside of USC:

More Info Here

Anyone have any other helpful thinks, please post them in the comments.

INTEL INTERN POSITION 2004: Urban Probes

Parks, sidewalks, subways, parking meters, strangers – all are part of our public urban landscape. How will the future fabric of digital and wireless computing influence, disrupt, and integrate into the social patterns existent in such urban public places?

Intel Research Berkeley has an open Intern position for the summer 2004 to explore and research several themes of Urban Computing using the techniques of Urban Probes. Interns should be adept at rapidly exploring and deconstructing typical urban landscapes, experienced in design sketching and prototyping, possess creative brain and body storming skills, proficiently with computer programming, and manifest an unbridled passion for urban computing based research.

We are looking for talented, qualified candidates pursing research in the areas of HCI, user-centered design, interaction design, art practice, design, and/or evaluation techniques and ethnography. Applicants with experience building physical systems, including fabricating prototypes, workshop experience, and familiarity with sensor and actuator integration with microcontrollers are strongly encouraged. Similarly, we are seeking individuals with experience conducting both qualitative and quantitative user studies, including analysis of the resulting data. Most importantly, we are seeking open minded, creative individuals passionate about designing novel physical artifacts and evaluating them in their natural setting.

All applicants must be currently enrolled in a graduate degree program.
PLEASE VISIT THE WEB SITE FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO APPLY:
http://berkeley.intel-research.net/paulos/lab/intern2004/

CNTV Scholarship Meeting tomorrow

The CNTV Scholarship Information Seminar is being held tomorrow (1/30) from 11am-12:30 pm in Norris Theater. Learn how to apply for over $350,000 in available scholarhips.

"Translating Nintendo"

Justin Hall on issues of localization and translation in video games:

"When movies are brought between countries, subtitles or dubbed vocals are added - requiring textual translation. When video games are brought between countries, not on the words of the script must be translated, but also the video game commands. Do gamers in one nation favor different buttons on their controller? Do they understand movement on the screen differently? Often because games can involve dozens of hours of play, there are specific moments of content that must be excised or altered for different national markets. Videogame translation or "localization" is a fascinating way to examine regional differences in gameplay."

Full post at: Chanpon.org

"Making Stories"

Interesting review from the Guardian with relevance to lifelog research:

"According to the distinguished psychologist and psychiatrist Jerry Bruner, "self is a perpetually rewritten story". We are all constantly engaged in "self-making narrative" and "in the end we become the autobiographical narratives by which we 'tell about' our lives"."
The idea of the self as something wholly constructed out of the narratives we create about our lives has become a staple across the humanities. But it's utter nonsense, says Galen Strawson, considering Making Stories by Jerome Bruner.

Story Engines: A Public Program on Storytelling and Computer Games

Location: Stanford University
Time: Friday, February 6, from 9 am to 5 pm

This conference, inspired by the Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences: Storytelling and Computer Games exhibition, brings together scholars and game developers to present current thinking about the place of storytelling in computer and video games.

Open to the public, no admission fee; no reservations, open seating
Fairchild Auditorium, 291 Campus Drive, near the Cantor Arts Center at the Stanford Medical Center
Call 650-725-3155 for information

9am
Introduction and Master of Ceremonies
Tim Lenoir

9:15-10:30am
Morning Session I:
Keeping It Real: Performance and Realism
Henry Lowood, Stanford University. On narrative in historical/military simulations.
Jane McGonigal, UC Berkeley. From her work on gameplay in everyday spaces.

10:45am-noon
Morning Session II:
Embodiment: What's It Like to be in a Digital Narrative?
Scott Bukatman, Stanford University.
Casey Alt, Stanford University. On the space of the digital narrative in early narrative game genres.

Lunch Break

1:15-2:30pm
Communities and Characters
Kevin O'Hara, Sony Online Entertainment. How player communities shape and contribute to the story worlds of online games.
Katherine Isbister, Stanford University. From her work on character development in computer and video games.

Coffee Break

3:15-5:15pm
The Big Picture: Do Games Need Stories?
Haden Blackman, LucasArts
Warren Spector, Ion Storm
Will Wright, Maxis/EA

Visiting Speaker for 2/4/04: S. Joy Mountford

Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 3pm

Title: " How to find out what users really say about products?"

S. Joy Mountford, Founder and Principal, idbias, CA.
Joy Mountford has been designing interfaces for over 25 years on applications from aircraft to personal computers to consumer devices and has become an internationally recognized leader in user-centered interaction design. She has led design efforts creating interfaces to audio and visual devices, interfaces between the electronic world and the physical world of printed materials, and for toys, as well as interactive music creation and generation. She pioneered the Interface Design Project sponsoring interdisciplinary design at universities around the world, and continues to lead this effort for various sponsor companies. She headed the Human Interface Group at Apple Computer for 8 years and then moved to Interval Research to lead a series of consumer music product teams. Her interaction design firm, idbias, works for a range of clients to design, redesign, prototype and evaluate interfaces to help people be more effective with their technology.

Dramatic Interactive Experiences

I happened upon this article on drama in games while perusing Gamasutra. It seems to be a nice counter to John Carmack's views on story in games (story in games=story in porn movie)...

Agitating for Dramatic Change
By Randy Littlejohn
Forms of computer-based interactive entertainment are heavily controlled by the idea that they are "games", which are produced for a narrow (but profitable) market of "gamers". Thus, fast, fun arcade-like experiences, artificial puzzle-solving, gaining points and "winning" have been the main emphasis in interactive design, even while the graphic and sound environments have become more and more realistic -- even as NPCs have become embedded with so-called "AI".

The idea of story is largely used to set the stage for first person shooters and role-playing games. Once the game begins, story elements become simplistic, linear or at least pre-defined, and "underwhelming" -- if they exist at all. Character development is something left behind after opening movies and seldom-read documents that come with the game, which outline who's who, and why they're doing what. It is rare indeed to find good character development and multi-layered, gradually unfolding stories in computer games - to say nothing of good, emotionally moving drama.

I have heard the justification that computer animated NPCs are simply not sophisticated enough to pull off a dramatic performance - and yet poorly animated Saturday morning cartoons can be emotionally involving (if rarely, but the point is that they are indeed sometimes moving). The NPCs in Half-Life 2 are more life-like and have more ability to communicate a range of emotions than perhaps in any game before, except for the days of live-action games. Nevertheless, judging only from the E3 demo, Half-Life 2 still seems to be basically a "shooter", rather than an interactive drama, albeit in a more realistic universe than usual.

No, it's not that NPCs can't emote. Instead, I think that given the emphasis of "game-think", and a market of "gamers", it's clear that the ideas of story and drama are simply a low priority.

And there's nothing at all wrong with this. Computer games serve a lucrative market. If it's not broken, don't fix it. It's just that I think a far bigger market is being left untapped.

In addition, I've found that people who are not professional writers or professional storytellers, but who may be "designers", "level-designers" or "producers" hash out a story premise for a game, or will decide on a setting populated by a certain kind of characters and monsters, who live in a matrix of certain rules. Sometimes a professional writer will be brought in to take what has already been decided upon and flesh it out. The professional writer may write a background story that sets the stage for the action and/or will write up biographies for the main characters. Much of this will never been seen in the game itself, beyond opening movies and cinematics. Sometimes professional writers will even get in on dialogue writing. But in terms of actual game design, my experience has been that in general, there's little attempt or little interest in interweaving non-linear story elements, strong character development and the principles of drama into interactive designs. This hampers appealing to a mass audience as much as the insistence on developing interactive entertainments by game-think alone.

Other kinds of interactive entertainment, based on good storytelling, good character development and an adaptation of the principles of drama, targeted to consumers with computers, but who are not avid gamers -- are waiting to be designed - and profited from. I think that the masses are ready to spend money for an interactive drama that leaves the trappings of computer 'games' behind. Whoever builds this groundbreaking system is going to get rich.

...

I'm agitating for the creation of a new kind of interactive experience that is comfortable and compelling for the masses. This new art form would immerse the experiencer inside a reality very much like what he or she is already familiar with: film and television.
This is a search for a method of "interactive dramatic narrative presentation" and packaging.

What I see is an interactive drama for the masses who have computers, but who are not "gamers". The masses will be drawn to this experience because of three things: it's familiar like TV and film, the interface is simple and intuitive, and because the characters are emotionally evocative and their plight is understandable and just. There are no brainteasers laid artificially and superficially into the design. If there are to be puzzles, they are puzzles that evolve out of the dramatic backbone of the experience. In fact, everything that can be considered a trapping of 'game thinking' would be absent from this new kind of interactive dramatic experience. Though the designer knows that the experience will have a beginning that sets up the narrative, a middle with evolving conflict, and an end with a good resolution -- no one knows how the dramatic experience will evolve. In my vision, advancing from A to B to C will be a non-linear, yet also emotionally powerful, dramatic experience. So far experiments with interactive storytelling have failed to take into account the need to adapt the principles of drama to interactivity, and thus these experiments have been merely interesting, instead of truly emotionally involving.

(You can read the rest of this article at Gamasutra.com)

RFID sushi

Sushi restaurants in Japan are using RFID tags in the plates to total up the costs and track inventory as it goes around on the belt:

Image courtesy of Jun Murai (and yes, that's PM Koizumi-san...).

511 Forum & Field Trip Topics

Scott is asking everyone to suggest topics for the 511 Forums and TBD Field Trips (see 511 syllabus). Below are a few that came up in (non-blog) conversations over the last couple days. Please contribute your ideas and/or respond before class this Wednesday.

GREEN SCREEN PROCESS:
How does one prepare for this? What digital camera equipment is required? What is the post process? Can we see a demonstration in RCZ?

360 CAMERAS & QUICKTIME VR:
What is the advantage of the 360 cameras over a program like Stitcher? What equipment and/or software do we have? Can we see a demonstration?

FOLEY & MUSIC:
Can we see the Foley and sound stages at work? How does one compose a musical score for an interactive project? What resources do we have at USC?

MULTIPLE CAMERA SHOOT:
Can we see a live multiple camera shoot that may apply to a web cast? Are there any events that we can participate in to test this technology?

THEME PARKS & LBE ATTRACTIONS:
Visit Disneyland, California Adventure, and/or GameWorks and (If possible) get a behind the scenes look.

CFP: N@rrative: Digital Storytelling

April 22-23, 2004

NARR@TIVE: DIGITAL STORYTELLING questions how digital culture has transformed our practices of reading, writing, and thinking about narrative. Topics are to be addressed from a wide variety of disciplinary fields, including: literature and poetics, copyright and archiving, e-journals and publication, code and linguistics, film and image.

Speakers:

Katherine Hayles
(UCLA, English and Design| Media Arts)

Rita Raley
(UCSB English)

Guest Grads:
Nick Montfort
Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Deadline: March 1

Send Papers/Abstracts and/or Electronic Literature + New Media Art to:

Jessica Pressman
UCLA English Department
2225 Rolfe Hall Box 951530
Los Angeles, CA 90095
jesspres@ucla.edu

Download CFP Flyer: [.DOC]

musicplasma

pretty sweet idea - type in a band name and see what it's connected to (it also brings up a nice discography. a nice possible way of finding new music.

examples: built to spill yeilds a one degree connection to modest mouse, unsurprisingly, and a nice 4 degrees of separation from Dr. Demento. Yes!

Thin Lizzy --> Phil Lynott --> Temple of the Dog (??!!)

Angels of Light --> Gary Numan --> Kraftwerk (Hmm.)

(warning, the site is slow, but still faster than friendster).

no info on the site about how these networks are articulated...but they seem pretty accurate for the most part (type in anybody on sub-pop or matador, and you're likely to get the entire label's catalog within 1 degree.)

Link via my homegirl janet lin

Real and Hyper-Real

"Once upon a time - say, back in the 1970s - the visual trickery employed by filmmakers was meant to look real. In many of today's movies, however, the effects are meant to look cool. The difference is huge."

Special effects become Mannerist
CBC News Online | Jan. 13, 2004

Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status:

Ground controllers were able to send commands to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit early Wednesday and received a simple signal acknowledging that the rover heard them, but they did not receive expected scientific and engineering data during the rest of that Martian day.

However, the first of a series of high-resolution images were sent back to Earth with amazing clarity. The team is carefully examining these images and confirming that the apparent “narrative entities” do actually exist on the red planet.

It is rumored, but not confirmed, that Warner Brothers sponsored the mission.

Of Mice and Mapquest

Bell Labs Develops Engine for Cell Users

through slashdot, this article...

Bell Labs says it has developed a network software engine that can let cell users be as picky as they choose about disclosing their whereabouts, a step that may help wireless companies introduce "location-based services" in a way customers will find handy rather than intrusive.

In a presentation this week at an industry conference, researchers for the Bell Labs division of Lucent Technologies Inc. plan to describe how their technology copes with the conflicting demands of speed, privacy and personalization on a live telephone network — enabling users to specify what location information is shared, when, with whom, how and under what circumstances.

The 4th Great Big 70mm Festival

One more before I forget . . .

The American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre presents "The 4th Great Big 70mm Festival (Jan. 22 - 25), a four day series featuring five 70mm films, including Jacques Tati's masterpiece "Playtime" and the restored Todd AO print of Ken Annakin's "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines." Also screening are new prints of the musical "Hello Dolly!", Stanley Kramer's "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and a rare screening of Walt Disney's landmark film "Sleeping Beauty." Scheduled to appear in person is director Ken Annakin.

I'm going (along with some other IM people) to see "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" next Sunday, so anyone is welcome to join me. Just let me know.

All screenings are at the Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the historic Egyptian (6712 Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and Las Palmas) in Hollywood.

From Super Technirama 70 to Ultra Panavision to Dimension 150 and more, the 70mm large-screen format promised -- and delivered -- a Barnum-esque world of spectacular sights and 6-track sounds. From 1955 to 1970, the Golden Age of 70mm Filmmaking, there were nearly 60 Hollywood features shot in large format, with many more released in special engagements as 35mm-to-70mm blow-ups.

This semi-annual series is a very rare opportunity to experience 70mm as it was meant to be seen: on a big, beautiful screen, with booming six-track multi-channel sound.

Visual Effects Bake-Off

Since people gave me a bad time for forgetting to post about last week's visual effects discussion about Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (sponsored by LA SIGGRAPH), I'm trying to make sure I don't miss any more . . .

The Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee, made up of all voting members of the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), will be nominating 3 films from the 7 selected at an event commonly referred to as the Visual Effects Bake-Off.

Each of the 7 selected films screens a 15-minute reel of the most-impressive effects shots, and then the 4 nominated individuals for that film (usually the supervisors) are allowed 5 minutes to present why it was so impressive and answer a few questions.

This year's Bake-Off is next Wednesday, 21 January 2004. It's supposed to start at 7:30pm, and the doors are supposed to open at 6:30pm but they could possibly open before that time.

If you would like to get in, you should arrive at least an hour ahead of time, around 5:30pm.

SCFX officers will be leaving around 4:30, so once again, if you would like to get in, it is recommended that you show up early.

Visiting Speaker for 1/21/04: Erkki Huhtamo

Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 3pm

Title: "Hand-cranking toward Cyberspace: an Archaeology of Interactivity"
Abstract:
The development of interactive media is usually associated with the
emergence of the computer as a major social, technological, economic and
cultural force. A sharp cultural rupture has been posited, dividing the
"passivating" media of the past from the "empowering" (inter)active
experiences of the present, made possible of the omnipresence of digital
applications. But can the situation be so clear-cut? Did interactive media
really appear so abruptly, without any cultural precedents? This lecture
argues against such simplified polarities, demonstrating that interactivity
has a rich and multi-layered "pre-digital" cultural background that needs
to be explored.

For more information please visit :
http://www.design.ucla.edu/people/faculty/erkki_huhtamo
and
http://www.mediamatic.net/cwolk/view/16160
and
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic014/huhtamo/huhtamo_e.html

The Unmade Bed

Funny comicstrip sendup of interactive architecture moguls Diller & Scofido, et al by Ben Katchor in current Metropolis Magazine:
View image

Bay Area Events

Annual SPIE Conference. Good demonstration session Wednesday afternoon.
Stereoscopic Displays and Applications

Dan Sandin will be presenting work on immersive experiences Thursday Afternoon.
Virtual Reality Works & The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality

Stanford's Cantor Art's Center
Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences: Storytelling and Computer Games

Hmm, is there a meta category?

So, I've committed to undertaking a couple CNTV-IMD web related projects during the upcoming year and would be interested in getting some feedback on what types of site improvement/collaborative tools would be useful...

The three main things I'm planning on working on this semester is:

• Improving the IM blog
• Calendar sharing
• Knowledge Base tool

I'm open, however to spending time working on other things if anyone thinks there's a big need. Would be interested in hearing what kind of collaboration tools would be most useful to the CNTV-IMD community.

Hmm, so I'll just hit each of these points separately. Since the IMblog has been pretty neglected, now that I have some time I'm just going to start working on improvements (unless anyone has any objections).

Most of these changes can be seen in a comp that Scott asked me to do last summer:

• 'Last Updated' blogroll - I just implemented a preliminary version on the left column of my IMblog. Basically, allowing one to see at a glance when a blog has been recently updated. Good for those who aren't using feed-readers/notification services; Hopefully, this will make it easier to keep up with what everyone's writing.
• Multi-blog aggregation - the idea here is instead of posting multiple posts into say class blogs, the front page blog, etc., everyone can just post into their own blog, and then select (my feeling is that this can simply be done by category mapping) which other blogs they wish their posts to go to. What's fun about this is that in theory, all kinds of groupings could be done, like say a '1st year' or '2nd year' blog, and of course that changes will propagate and everything's all well normalized.
• Various MT plugins. Say, better text entry via MT-Textile or Smarty Pants, and something like MTThreadComments for better commenting.
• Blogs are good for entering into, not as good for reading en-masse, keeping up on comments, etc within a community. If there's time/motivation, I may try dinking on some ideas I have on improving those aspects.

I've been giving a lot of thought to the pubsub calendaring problem. The main problem is that there's no industry standard for calendar synchronization (the closest is SyncML/Jabber w/ xCal, but it's all pretty much dead in the water). Without a real way of things to talk to each other, we're left with some almost-there solutions. But, something is probably better than nothing.

• pub/sub iCalendars - thanks primarily to Apple, uni-directional calendar publishing and subscription (WebDAV, HTTP) has made some headway. Besides iCal, both Mozilla Calendar and Evolution support this now, so in theory every platform is covered. Sync everything up to phpMyCal, write some custom handlers with separate 'entry' and 'subscription' calendars, and you have an 80% solution
• thoughts? can continue discussion offline if anyone has anything substantive to add. there are certain tricky issues with all of this, especially with handling event editing, clearing the entry calendars, etc

Umm, my fingers are tired... I'm probably not going to get around to working on the KB tool until the summer or later anyway, but the basic idea is to create segmentable, multi-faceted, semi-self-organizing graph structures. Oh, that will be as easy if not easier to enter data into than blogging.

Graffiti Archaeology

"What is Graffiti Archaeology?

Graffiti Archaeology is the study of graffiti-covered walls as they change over time. The grafarc.org project is a timelapse collage, made of photos of San Francisco graffiti taken by many different photographers from 1998 to the present.

Using the grafarc explorer, you can visit some of San Francisco's classic spots, see what they looked like in the past, and explore how they have changed over the years."

This project was done by Cassidy Curtis. This is exactly the sort of thing we're trying to facilitate with mobile technologies -- people with camera phones mapping places with timestamps and storing them in a database, allowing others to access that database to see what places looked like previously. Funny that the exact things we were thinking about were grafitti and other public art. can't help feeling somewhat scooped...

LINK

VR Research Subjects Needed at the Institute for Creative Technology

Found this in the Daily Trojan. Might be worth checking out:

Participants Needed for Virtual Reality Project

We are looking for healthy individuals, ages 18-40, interested in a completely immersive VR experience! We will be monitoring heart rate and skin response for our studies. Participants will be compensated $20 for their travel to Marina del Rey, CA.

Total time (including preparation and followup) = 2 hours + travel

If interested, contact Josh Williams
Phone: (310) 448-0331
Email: eval@ict.usc.edu

Game Studies Volume 3 Issue 2 2003

Articles in the new issue (12/31) of Gamestudies.org include:

-- Edward Castranova "On Virtual Economies" discussing whether the game economy can be a model for fleshworld economy or not.
-- Gonzalo Frasca discusses freedom of speech and the dangers of computer games in "Sim Sin City ­ some thoughts about Grand Theft Auto 3"
-- Shuen-shing Lee discusses politically charged games such as New York Defender and Kabul Kaboom in "I Lose, Therefore I think."
-- Jan van Looy reads the graphic expression and gameplay of Head over Heels in the context of 1987 Britain, showing how popular culture has influenced the creator of the game in "Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears a Crown."
-- Laurie Taylor discusses the spatial domains of computer games in "When Seams Fall Apart."

Gamestudies.org

Bang the Machine: Computer Gaming Art and Artifacts at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Jan 17–Apr 4, 2004
Presented in conjunction with the Stanford Humanities Laboratory and the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Game Scenes addresses the pervasive influence of the computer gaming industry on artistic invention, and explores a variety of areas, from the evolution of the video game and its roots in military training applications to the current popularity of virtual reality and online gaming and the growing use of elements of digital gaming by contemporary artists.

Artists include: C-Level, Paul Johnson with Sunny Kim, Futurefarmers, Katherine Isbister with Rainey Straus, Shelley Eshkar with Paul Kaiser, Shirley Shor in collaboration with Aviv Eyal, Fur, Brody Condon, Mauro Ceolin, Jon Haddock and Janek Simon, including Wattis Artist-in-Residence Jason Wiener and our Young Artists at Work. Game Scenes will also feature a machinima film series curated by Galen Davis and Henry Lowood. Machinima is a form of low budget, computer generated filmmaking that uses video game engines for production and is distributed at almost no cost over the Internet.

www.yerbabuenaarts.org/va/current/bang_mach.html

Visiting Speaker for 1/14/04: Michael Naimark

Location: USC's Robert Zemeckis Center, Room 201
Time: 3pm

Title: "(Re)Presenting Place"
Abstract:
"Place representation" has a rich history, a complex mix of media technology and quality of expression. Advances in new media such as immersive capture and display, computer modeling, and the Internet have raised the bar. And, with our increasing understanding of psychophysics and cognition, many believe that the dictum "just like being there" may finally be fulfilled.

But place runs deep: we "know" we are "here." This knowledge is cultural and political as well as technical and perceptual. It's also deeply personal. Placing cameras everywhere and building 3D computer models have their implications, and it's no surprise that technological enthusiasts and social critics hold differing (and often uninformed) perspectives. The arts community can play an important role both as bridge-builder and provocateur.

Naimark will present his past and current projects in this context. He has "moviemapped" Aspen from the street, Paris from the sidewalk, San Francisco from the air, Karlsruhe from the rail, and Banff from hiking trails, and has filmed panoramic experiments in Jerusalem, Dubrovnik, Angkor, and Timbuktu. He is currently exploring live Internet applications for immersive place representation.

For more information please visit <http://www.naimark.net/>.

Story in Games

From an editorial in a recent game industry newsletter:

“Story in a game,” says John Carmack
of Id Software, “is like story in a porn
movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not
that important.”...

"There are many arguments consuming
the business: How bad will the downturn
be? Where are we in the console cycle?
Will EA ever slip up? But those are squabbles
of the moment that will be replaced,
in time, by other squabbles of the moment.
Carmack’s provocative volley strikes at the
heart of the videogame industry, recalling
some seminal issues. What’s the point of a
story in a game? While the genius writers
at Infocom were roundly praised for their
devious, hilarious story lines in games such
as Zork and Deadline a generation ago,
the most popular games of that era were
those that were all play and no story, such
as Pong and Space Invaders.
The case against weighing down games
with stories has centered on the idea that
stories are linear things—with a beginning,
middle, and end—while games only work
with looser narratives. If people want stories,
they watch a movie or read a book.
Games are about escape, release, imagining
you’re someone else. You don’t need a
story to enjoy a racing game, sports game,
or shoot-em-up. All you need to know is
which button to push to make your car go
faster, sneak past a defender, or exterminate
an opponent.
A look at today’s most popular games
blows that particular case to smithereens.
The Sims and EverQuest are all about the
story created by the people who play the
open-ended games, and games such as
Battlefield 1942 and Castle Wolfenstein
succeed in large part because players want
to reenact historical tales—or make up
some new story that changes history to
their liking.
And what of Carmack? He made his
millions on Doom and Quake. He’d tell
you they’re just shooting games, enormously
successful due to their great technology
and design. But talk to those who
play these games in their homes and at
high-profile public events like QuakeCon,
and they’ll talk with equal enthusiasm
about the story underlying those games
and the extra charge they get from destroying
a wraith because they know where it
came from and how that character got into
the game. They care about the story lurking
behind the shooting. Quake and Doom
players imagine themselves as characters in
a story that Carmack and his inspired colleagues
created—even if the creators think
it’s cool to say that the weapons and the
kills are all that matter. He’s working in an
industry with an audience that pays close
attention to a game’s story, even if the
game maker pretends there is no story.
When Carmack says story doesn’t matter,
he’s just doing what he does in his games:
telling a story".

MGLA goes 3D!

The theme of the January MOTION GRAPHICS LA meeting is the many facets of 3D - including motion graphics, pre-visualization, and visual effects (remember, 3D's not just for dinosaurs). Although some of the presentations may seem tied to specific products, keep in mind that these techniques can be applied to virtually any 3D application. As many people are tied up with MacWorld this week, they are still waiting on more elaborate descriptions and example frames for some, but here is a taste of the presentations they already have confirmed:

Excerpts from MGLA Mail:

***Next Meeting***
Tuesday, January 20
LA Film School
7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Cover charge: FREE

Sponsored by Adobe Systems

LINEUP: 3Dconnexion's new input devices / Steven Walker on VFX
projects & Walker Effects 2.0 / Vital Distraction on 3D
pre-visualization / Rich Shelley of Access Hollywood on 3D Motion
Graphic Design

First, we would like to welcome Adobe's Digital Video group as our
meeting sponsor for 2004! Thanks to their support, all MGLA meetings
in 2004 will continue to be free to all attendees. We really
appreciate their support for the motion graphics community, and look
forward to seeing Adobe as well as a whole host of other vendors and
artists in this year ahead. Of course, we thank Apple for sponsoring
our meetings in 2003; they will still be with us in 2004 through
lending us hardware for our presentations.

3Dconnexion is a new division of
Logitech which is specializing in high-end data input devices for
digital content creators. They have created some interesting devices,
such as a 3D trackball with 12 programmable buttons. Their emphasis
is on 2-handed data entry (traditional mouse in one hand; one of
their input devices on others), which they have found to be both more
efficient and ergonomic. They will preview their product line for us,
and explain the philosophy behind them. They are compatible with a
very wide range of applications; go to
to see their list.

3Dconnexion has also joined MGLA as a sponsor in 2004; we will be
giving away some Logitech devices (as well as some of their own) over
the course of the year.

* Steven Walker on Visual Effects Projects and Walker Effects 2.0 *

Some know Steven Walker for his Walker Effects plug-ins for Adobe's
After Effects ; others know him as
being a top-notch 3D visual effects person. Steven will be showing us
a bit of both this month. He is still in the process of clearing with
clients which projects he can show; more details later (including
images online). Steven also just finished creating a tutorial project
for Digital Studio Magazine in France. The project shows how to
synchronize AE's 3D world with Electric Image and how to create 3D
clouds in After Effects.

* Vital Distraction and 3D Pre-Visualization *

Studio Vital Distraction will be showing how this use Maxon's Cinema
4D for pre-visualizing scenes for some upcoming major films. More
details to follow soon. In the meantime, visit their web site
to see examples of their own
finished work.

* Rich Helvey of Access Hollywood on 3D Motion Graphics *

Rich has presented at MGLA before, showing some of the broadcast
graphics and title work he has done in NewTek's LightWave. He is
currently working on a set of DVDs for Desktop Images called "Motion
Graphics with LightWave" ,
and will be sharing some of his tips and techniques with us this
evening. We will also be giving away copies of "Textural Revolution",
which is the first DVD in his series.

* demo reels *

As we don't have the final schedule nailed down, we are not 100% sure
yet if we have time for demo reels, but we plan on trying to make
time available. You are welcome to show your reel or a recent
project, as long as you are willing to come up to the mic beforehand
to share with us what tools you used and some other ideas on how you
executed it (a great opportunity to plug you and your business).
Reels are shown on a first come/first shown basis until we run out of
time; hand your reel to Warren Heaton before the meeting or during
the break.

Please keep the running time under 3 minutes, and make sure your
sources are copy-right cleared and properly attributed. Formats we
can play include DVD, DigiBeta, BetaSP, VHS, DV, and DVCAM. Please
bring your contact information so we can list you in the meeting
summary.

* door prizes *

We always have time for door prizes! Tickets are free, and are handed
out during the second half of the meeting (take one and pass the
remaining down the line). You must be present to win; winners get
their choice of the remaining prizes in the order they are drawn. A
list of prizes will be posted soon; it's shaping up to be another
great giveaway.

And again, thanks to Adobe's sponsorship of MGLA this year, admission
is free! We look forward to seeing you on the 20th.

Chris, Trish, Lucky, Tony, Warren, and Marshal
Your MGLA co-hosts

Directions:
LA Film School
6363 Sunset Boulevard
(the corner of Sunset and Ivar)
Hollywood, CA 90028
Phone: 323.860.0789

The theater has its own entrance on Ivar - do not try to enter on Sunset!

From the 101 Freeway:
If coming from the East, exit Vine and turn right (South) to head to
Sunset Blvd. Turn right, go past the Film School to Ivar, turn right
again, and then look for street parking or enter the parking
structure on your left (see below). If you are coming West, there is
no Vine exit; go to Cahuenga, South to Sunset, left, and left on Ivar.

From the 10 Freeway:
Exit La Brea and go North to Sunset Blvd. Turn right and go to Ivar;
turn Left on Ivar, and then look for street parking or enter the
parking structure on your left (see below).
Click here for a MapQuest interactive map, including the ability to
get directions from your location to this address.

NOTE ON PARKING: There is parking available in the building (entrance
on Ivar) for a $4 fee (goes up to $5 later in the evening). The
garage closes at 11 PM. There is also parking on the surrounding
streets if you want to avoid the fee.

If you get there early, Amoeba Records across the street is a great
place to kill time browsing for music; they also donate a portion of
their sales to the Rainforest Action Network. If you want to catch a
bite or drink before or after the meeting, the Cat and Fiddle at 6530
Sunset is a funky place, with the kitchen open until 11:30 PM.

Stereo Images of Mars

Thanks to /.

Raw images.

Anaglyphs.