Stephen E. Dinehart's IMD Blog

It’s a strange thing, when life drops in an old friend,a character from your past to remind you who you are, were, will be. It’s like a memory staring you in face, smiling and taking you back to a place you forgot you ever existed. My old friend Richard Morgan flew into LAX from Beijing on Friday evening to stay with me for the weekend. It’s been almost 10 years since we last saw each other. We met in the third-grade playing war in our friend, the infamous Scratcher, Mike Sue’s back yard in Wilmette, just outside Chicago. We battled side by side that day, I with my found stick rifles and Richard with his Laser Tag Photon Bazooka. It was the start of a great friendship, despite the fact that his arsenals of incredible Laser Tag gear made me loathe the fact that I could not play with guns. After our violent meeting on a stick ridden infrared battleground, we went on to make films and various RPG adventures, for years, before he went abroad. His presence was a refreshing taste of bliss.
I was sad to see him go.

I had the craziest day yesterday. In my usual fashion I took the 203 to the Metro Red line at Wilshire and Vermont, then transferred to the 163 bus at Hollywood and Vine. Before I knew it I was @ WBIE doing a final Alpha stage analysis of the Xbox version of the game I’m working on. I then ran over to the set of the film, on which the game is based, and hung out there for an hour on my lunch, talking to everyone from the hand doubles to the editors. The property has a dark graphic novel style, so both the game and the film are FX rich. On that note it felt so good to be on that kind of a professional set, the kind that has been of magic to me since I was a child. Seeing the characters I only knew from the GDD and the game itself, walking in flesh and blood was so, bizarre. Later in the afternoon I was able to sit in on an awesome meeting. The creator of a story universe came in and pitched his IP (Intellectual Property). He was good, real good, both in word and practice. I was so happy to be able to see how one would build up a private IP and pitch it to a potential publisher. Then I got this call from a Rabbi. He is so nice, but I was raised Roman Catholic and I’ve never even hung out with a priest…

“I’m sorry I called you so late last night, I felt so bad you were sleeping.” He uttered in his English accent.
“No really that’s cool.”
“I felt so bad you know.”
“It’s alright.”
“I feel so bad; since we meet we haven’t had any time to talk…” insert awkward silence…”So you’re coming to supper tonight.”
“I can’t really.”
“Friday then, I’ll arrange for someone to pick you up.”
I hesitated at first ”O.k.”
“Wonderful dinner on Friday, that’s great.” He excitedly spouted.

I later received a call for a young woman, telling me that the Rabbi told her to pick me up. I asked her where exactly we where going for dinner.
“Another Rabbi’s house, I think.”
Really...so Friday night I’m heading to dinner with two Rabbis’.
Should be quite the experience, I'll try to Lifelog it.

It goes on…I then reversed the path I earlier traversed and landed myself @ the ZML for the seminar. I was glad to see some solid presentations for what will make to be the first thesis works to define our division. I then up and ran off too Ground Zero on campus for the songwriters club showcase. On 5 songs, I played percussion it was a blissful time.

The day left me spinning.

Two senors I’d like to play with:
1. Taos TCS230 Color Sensor
The TCS230 has an array of photodetectors, each with either a red, green, or blue filter, or no filter (clear). The filters of each color are distributed evenly throughout the array to eliminate location bias among the colors. Internal to the device is an oscillator which produces a square-wave output whose frequency is proportional to the intensity of the chosen color.
2. Devantech SRF04 Ultrasonic Ranger
The SRF04 works by transmitting an ultrasonic (well above human hearing range) pulse and measuring the time it takes to "hear" the pulse echo. Output from the SRF04 is in the form of a variable-width pulse that corresponds to the distance to the target.

My best class doodle in years, it’s unfinished but I really wanted to post it.

I was just the victim of a good marketing campaign, targeted very well to the college male I am. I was walking with my friend Tyler, across campus to get coffee, when we ran into a couple of booth-babe type characters. They were touting Leisure Suit Larry baby-tee’s, and had a satchel of these jimmy caps. Apparently there were also giving out copies of the game in Taper Hall. I remember playing the original series in the fourth grade, trying to prove you'rr thirty-five at that age is hard. It was a blast when I was 10... could a low-poly 3d voyeur game be enjoyable as an adult, nostalgic perhaps? Research I don’t care to delve into at the moment, besides, it's currently PC format only… I broke-up with Windows a year ago, and I’m happy to say, I’m almost over it.

Crazy time with some fellow DIMS @ Red Alert last night. It was a pleasantly outside of the box experience, with a large pink Videoape VJ.

Watch the Trailor

I saw this crazy kids toy @ Radioshack; VR for tweens!

LEVER-ACTUATED REED SWITCH

I am so very ready to execute a finished piece, concepts are awesome but I need product beyond the intellectual. I have my head wrapped up on this project… I’m kind of torn on content. There are two routes I would like to explore, interactive life log montage remixing and a visual-word-sound remix of fragmented poetry, expressed in projected A/V and written text. The format will be the same for both of them. I will create a series of twelve switches that can be triggered with a hanging elastic string, they will be housed in metal stand, and act as a controller for a Max program that is capable of triggering and remixing the A/V clips dynamically.

On Friday afternoon Jenova and I got a chance to meet with Mark Skaggs, VP and Exec Producer on The Battle for Middle Earth, and head of RTS games, over at EALA. He showed us around and answered all sorts of questions. It was an awesome experience. Just being there to witness the process, for only a glimpse, was an educational experience. We were lucky enough to give him a high-level game concept doc I had drafted. He seemed excited and assured us the middle-ware tools shipping with Middle Earth would serve well for our mod needs.

Smiles touched my heart
Sweet sister and kin
Drifted by for a while

Uncle I love you
A child’s words so pure
Unannounced thorn pricked
Walls of sleeping love
Painful at my side
Dormant bear awakened and crushed

Come to me child
I will love you as my kin
How I forgot the longing
Family time again

Long been distanced
Miles of thought and earth put away by time

Forgotten

Alone again I remember and I weep
Crystallized self made again to see
The tenderness of love untainted