todd

Paper (well, paper in digital format, that is...)

Thesis Paper for Here Be Dragons:

.doc Format

Caught on Film

I'll try to figure out some way of getting the footage of my thesis presentation online, in some form (there were cameras, I remember that much).

In the meantime, enjoy this footage of Here Be Dragons in action, complete with the Virtual Reality Boom interface (optional but very, very recommended). Also included are instances of navigating the space, controlling city growth in real time, and roaming the oceanfront. The video is just under a minute long, about 5 megs, and DivX compressed:

Here Be Dragons Footage

As mentioned above, I'll add a little more context. There's no audio since I simply talk over this clip, giving the audience some idea of what was going on. If I remember the presentation right, I was mentioning something about "poking wild badgers" while the footage was playing.

Content Lockdown...

In that I'll spend tomorrow getting this stuff ready to present. Just when things were finally clicking, and I was starting to get to the level of emergence I wanted...

Cityscapes, landscapes, and inhabitants, combined with a sea level. Citys and creatures react to terrain, and quite a bit is left to chance (rand()) to start out with, but such sources can be attached to data streams, including each other.

Here we see a city with creatures lazily wandering about. There are several structural similarities between the "cities" and the creatures. They share a similar genetic structure, which informs both the cities' and creatures internal movements (you really need to see this in motion).

Here was an experiment with outlining...even if it didn't have the artifacting I probably wouldn't use it...while I understand those who call for texture and detail, if only for orientation, quite a bit of my journey has involved uncovering the meaning of distance and scale in these spaces. Even now the I find the ambiguity of scale compelling. All of the complex forms are basically shadows, given volume by a combined of 3D math and stereoptic input. The fog simultaneously hides the extent of the forms while revealing the depth of the shapes.

I continue to work to make the forms in this space more "alive" (I have and will continue to use the term "animism"). Even giving the creatures and cities internal L-Structures and allowing them to conform to the arbitrary terrain has given quite a bit of coherency and spark to the environment, but quite a bit more should be done.

P.S. Plowing through "Invisible Cities". A crime I did not read it earlier, although I'm glad I'm reading it now. It would have been different three months or even a week ago.

Static mesh becomes noisy mesh

Latest baby step, the actual substructure's geometry is beholden to arbitrary, dynamic laws (that shall become much less arbitrary in a short while). Critters shown for scale...of course some depth cues are purposefully lacking.

And a test for contour coloring...

Also: Got heightmapping implemented...you can "draw" your own rugged terrain if you want, creatures and structures alike will conform to it.

Finally, finally read "Solaris". I have not seen either film, and from what I can tell they don't contain elements relevant to my particular direction of study. The book however...well, it's a crime I hadn't read it earlier.

For those uninformed, or equate "Solaris" with a celluloid venture, the novel describes a planet-sized living organism, a living ocean.

Among other elements, many efforts are made to study the enigmatic structures that this planet/ocean/living creature creates out of its organic self. These structures are best described as citylike but determined by intense mathematical laws, whose underlying complexity is only hinted at by humanity's inability to understand the purpose of these edifices. The planet has also been known to create multi-winged "birds" that separate from the ocean and fly about.

Next on the reading list: "Invisible Cities" by Calvino.