março 31, 2007

300 VFX

Visually magnificent, high levels of complexity achieved through beautifully designed techniques. Technically, seeing 300 is like seeing reality through Photoshop filters. The movie is not concerned with story or discourse but only STYLE and ACTION. We could raise all the questions we want about testosterone, violence, discrimination, feminism but this is not the point. In the same vein as The Cell (2000) by Tarsem Singh, this is an authentic poem to draw, colour and motion. Illustration and design has been elevated to matter of honour, creating an ode to comics and videogames as a complete convergence artefact made of these three media. From the comics, the most interesting effects we can see are the framings made literally as comic squares and even more amazing than that is blood effect very comic like, but with a fantastic motion and depth effect in the movie. From videogames, apart the violence, we have strange bosses to defeat, an unique and linear goal to achieve, no caring for any character, the continuous tension through the entire movie…

Ron Gilbert said "I am happy to report that the convergence has happened. Just not in the direction we had predicted. 300 is a vacuous film filled with bad dialog, stiff acting, a pointless one-dimensional plot and interchangeable characters that hardly deserve to be named in the script. The film barely has a first act and does nothing but drive to a preposterous conclusion led along by a sequence of ridiculous events. The Visuals are nothing more than technical masturbation. Simply put, 300 is the best damn film I've seen all year". I agree it is a damn good film, not the best, but really something astonishing visually.

the style guide by CG Society

"Ten studios in four countries created the backgrounds, skies, blood and other effects for the film: Animal Logic, Hybride, Hydraulx, Pixel Magic, Amalgamated Pixels, Technicolor Digital Services, Buzz, Scanline, Lola, and Meteor."

There was a need to create style guides to distribute among all the partners, and this should be done daily.

"So, in the sky style guide, for example, he explained what to do: Start with a photographic plate. Kick two-thirds of the photographic detail. Look at the splat of coffee on the paper – the “inkblot” – and the cumulus clouds to see where they have the same patterns. Then blend the inkblots into the photos of the clouds and see what happens."

"In addition to guiding vendors creating landscapes, skies and blood, Freckelton created keyframes to help all the studios see what Snyder wanted in the final look. “As the film was being shot, rather than doing film dailies, they did HD Quicktimes,” he says. “I’d take screen captures of key shots from each sequence, and cut and paste and paint them in Photoshop.” In that way, he delivered the color decisions to the effects studios. “They could look at those keyframes, the greens, blues, sepia tones, to match their grade,”

Videogames evolution

See videogame mechanics evolution of the last 30 years in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This video has been produced for a talk done by David Perry at TED. It congregates five genres: Basketball; Star Wars; War Games; Fighting; First Person Shooters; Driving. We must be careful about the last examples in each sequence because most of them are from cutscenes and not real gameplay. However it's really interesting to see the evolution from Single pixel as characters to the high complexity renderings portrayed by the last generation of videogame consoles.

"we've done a poor job on engagement"

Here we come again, game designers talking about the necessity to take into account the user/player. I believe here we should have thought about that long time ago.
Human-computer interaction science says that we must think about the user, we most develop within design user-centred approach.
At the same time if we look at the film industry, as Hollywood, the viewer has always been king, deciding who the good producers, directors, artists...are

So games should have done the same, at least we see people saying "mea culpa". Peter Molyneux is saying now "We've Failed.. we've done a poor job on engagement". Peter Molyneux believes now that we need to accomplish a simple objective:

have players caring about characters in games



At the same time and during GDC 2007, he talked about the next Fable 2 and what it seems to be a magnificent new character, an AI dog friend, that put me thinking about Yorda. See an overview of the presentation at Escapist forums.

How Art Made the World

Série de 5 episódios produzida pela BBC da autoria e apresentação de Nigel Spivey. Spivey conseguiu condensar em 5 horas a história da arte dos últimos 30 mil anos. Começando pelas primeiras imagens de Altamira ou Lascaux, passando pelo dinamismo imprimido à escultura grega, dos símbolos de poder de Stonehenge ao cunhar de bustos em moeda, dedicando ainda quase um episódio ao poder e persuasão da arte fílmica e terminando por fim com a popularidade e sacralidade da imagem da morte como presença constante do nosso quotidiano.
Dos cinco destaco particularmente o segundo episódio dedicado ao nascimento da imagem como projecção externa da nossa imaginação e as teorias explicativas do porquê do aparecimento da imagem.
De realçar ainda a capacidade comunicativa de Spivey assim como a enorme produção colocada ao seu dispor para a realização em níveis de excelência deste documentário. Não sendo denso academicamente, apresenta a particularidade de conseguir facilmente congregar em seu redor pessoas de todos os espectros intelectuais que à partida poderiam não ter uma grande interesse sobre Arte. Aliás o próprio titulo é disso um exemplo, poderia ter sido qualquer coisa como A Arte no Mundo, mas não. Como a Arte Fez o Mundo, exemplifica perfeitamente o conteúdo do documentário e apresenta-o como algo importante e que qualquer pessoa com um mínimo de interesse por cultura geral, deve ver.

How Art Made the World

the after list

Books I wanted to buy during the PhD, that never did because of many reasons: doubts about the content being good enough; doubts about being really in my focus target; and most of the time because of the high price :). Now i'm taking a new look trough all the lists i got creating a new general list of still interesting propositions that i'll try to buy for my next ventures.


Emotion and cognition
Psychology of Entertainment by Jennings Bryant and Peter Vorderer;
Communication and Emotion: Essays in Honor of Dolf Zillmann (LEA's Communication) - Jennings Bryant;
Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do (Interactive Technologies) - B.J. Fogg;
The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite Your Creativity - The Imagineers;
Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought - George Lakoff;
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert B. Cialdini;
Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions - Martha C. Nussbaum;
The Nature of Insight (Bradford Books) - Robert J. Sternberg;
Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology - Gregory CurrieHow We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics - N. Katherine Hayles;


Game design and development
Patterns in Game Design (Charles River Media Game Development) - Staffan Bjork;
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas;
A Philosophy of Mass Art - Noel Carroll;
Cinema and Sentiment - Charles Affron;

março 29, 2007

Thesis delivered


Thesis delivered today at 2 p.m.
Now i'll have to wait for the Jury deliberation and choosing of the defence day. In the mean time i'll try to rest a bit.

março 22, 2007

Emoção Responsável pela Moral

Novo estudo publicado na Nature sobre a possibilidade de relação entre a capacidade de ajuizamento moral e a emoção humana.
Na verdade, este estudo não vem revelar nada que Damásio já não tenha subtilmente dito anteriomente. Se não vejamos

“As emoções são inseparáveis da ideia de recompensa ou castigo, de prazer ou de dor, de aproximação ou afastamento, da vantagem ou desvantagem pessoal. Inevitavelmente, as emoções são inseparáveis da ideia do bem e do mal” (Damásio, 1999:77)

Agora que os testes são fantásticos, são. Cada um dava um filme melhor que o outro e nisto faz-me pensar directamente no cineasta dos dilemas, Krzysztof Kieslowski . Para além dos decálogos ou das cores, veja-se um dos seus últimos argumentos filmado postumamente Heaven.

Vejamos dois exemplos,

Teste #"Você sabe que uma dada pessoa tem sida e que tenciona deliberadamente infectar outras. Algumas dessas pessoas irão com certeza morrer. As duas únicas opções que você tem são deixar que isso aconteça ou matar a pessoa. Você carrega no gatilho?"

Teste ##
“Soldados inimigos invadiram a sua aldeia. Você e outros refugiam-se num sótão [...] O seu bebé começa a chorar. [...] Você tapa-lhe a boca. [...] Para salvar a sua própria vida e a dos outros você precisa de matar o seu filho por asfixia. Você asfixiaria o seu bebé para salvar a sua própria vida e a dos outros?"

Ainda sobre este assunto, no outro dia conversava com uma colega de psicologia sobre a incompreensão e por vezes até mesmo uma atitude mais agressiva de grande ignorância quando apresentamos determinados estudos realizados no âmbito da Emoção. E realmente quanto mais penso nisto, mais tenho a sensação que as pessoas sentem receio, sentem um receio colectivo face à possibilidade de podermos desvendar a última fronteira que nos separa dos animais (sic) e das máquinas. Veja-se sobre isso os comentários deixados no Público sobre este novo estudo de Damásio e colegas.

Pixar Storytelling

The Commandments from the Pixar team.
  • "Empathize with your main character

  • Unity of opposites. Each character must have clear goals that oppose each other.

  • You should have something to say.

  • Have a key image, almost like a visual logline, to encapsulate the essence of the story; that represents the emotional core on which everything hangs.

  • Know your world and the rules of it.

  • The crux of the story should be on inner, not outer, conflicts.

  • Developing the story is like an archeological dig.

  • Animation should be interpretive, not realistic.

  • "Just say no" to flashbacks. Only tell what's vital, and tell it linearly.

  • Consider music as a character to anchor the film. Music is a keeper of the emotional truth."

"Like telling a good joke, storytelling requires that you know where you're going with a tale. You must know the punchline, the end result, the goal. Then, in arriving there, it's not so much what you say, but how you say it."
Daqui podemos extrair que a emoção anda de mão dada com a linearidade narrativa...
(from AWN)

Os meus videojogos (1980-1995)

Aceitando o repto de André Carita, aqui fica a minha lista dos 10. Optei por criar duas listas. A primeira que apresento neste post, como aquela que representa os dias do passado e é dependente de memórias que ajudaram a marcar estes ecrãs nas nossa mente e nos nossos gostos. A segunda lista dirá respeito a actualidade dos videojogos e será publicada no próximo post.




Space Invaders (1978) e Pac-man (1979)


Dois dos jogos mais viciantes e que mais moedas me levaram em tardes solitárias numa máquina de um café de uma aldeia tipicamente portuguesa nos inícios dos anos 80. Julgo que primeiramente 2$50, os famosos dois e quinhentos :) e depois 5$00.



Double Dragon (1987)

Mais moedas, muitas moedas até conseguir chegar ao final com apenas uma única moeda, proporcionando uma hora inteira de diversão por apenas 25 escudos. No mítico salão de jogos Tin-Tin em Coimbra. Em finais dos anos 80, passavamos a maior parte dos intervalos entre aulas neste salão e à noite entre o salão de estudo da tarde e o da noite era para aqui que vinhamos todos. Muitas vezes não tinhamos moedas, mas ficavamos horas a ver jogar, a explicar novas técnicas e a aprender também. O próprio jantar acabava muitas vezes por ficar esquecido porque quando olhavamos para o relógio já a hora de fecho da cantina tinha passado.



Leisure Suit Larry (1987)

O primero videojogo de comédia e de adultos, se bem que de adulto tinha muito pouco. Talvez o que tinha mais era a irritante verificação da idade no início feita com perguntas que supostamente só um adulto saberia responder. Mas que o estereotipo de Larry era de morrer a rir, era :-).



Cabal (1988)

Muitas moedas. O prazer do lançamento de granadas, a destruição e principalmente o jogo em equipa.



Prince of Persia (1989)

Tardes e noites solitárias no quarto do colégio onde estudava. Plataforma, Unisys 386.

Rick Dangerous I & II (1989, 1990)

Tardes e noites solitárias no quarto do colégio onde estudava. Plataforma, Unisys 386.



Street Fighter II (1992)

Tardes inteiras sem aulas de lutas entre amigos. Num qualquer dia o jogo acabou por gerar discussão, que colocou um dos meus amigos a chorar e fez com que acabássemos ali os jogos de Street Fighter. Nintendo SNES


Super Mario Bros. (1992)
Delirante, parece que ainda ouço a música e os efeitos sonoros. Nintendo SNES



Doom (1993)
A primeira reacção foi, simplesmente motion sickness. Só consegui verdadeiramente entrar e jogar depois de insistir várias vezes.



Phantasmagoria (1995)
A minha primeira experiência de Cinema Interactivo. Na altura, o jogo representava o apogeu cinemático dos videojogos.

Em breve a lista actual desligada de memórias e tempos idos e desenhada com base num análise mais clínica das suas mecânicas.

março 21, 2007

Software for Game Design development, part II

Game Engines vs. Programming based tools

Interactive Playgrounds (Game Engines)

1 - Neverwinter 2 Toolset
2 - CryEngine Sandbox
3 - UnrealEd Runtime
4 - Source (Half-Life 2)
5 - Doom SD Kit

Advantages: powerful; embedded worlds, characters and behaviours

Limitations: difficult to change and expand beyond concepts of the game; portability, and uncertain future


Programming Based Tools


1 - Director Mx (Macromedia/Adobe)
- easy to learn
- strong limitations in 3d lighting

2 - Panda3d (Walt Disney Imagineering)
- medium to easy learning curve
- seems powerful

3 - Virtools (Dassault Système)
- awkward system
- very oriented into prototyping only

4 - XNA Studio (Microsoft)
- difficult to learn
- possibility to developp directly for Xbox

Advantages: Portability, limited only by the technology

Limitations: No materials available, everything (environments, objects or characters) must be developed from scratch, making it hard to start, manage and learn. By now, any of these solutions still have an uncertain future however they are in a better position than Game Engines.


Look fort Part I.

março 20, 2007

Software for Game Design development, part I

Programming languages
1 - Lingo - very easy to learn, with medium weaknesses
2 - Python - easy to learn, medium to high powerful when bind with C++
3 - Visual C++ - hard to learn but with unbeatable performance for games4 - Visual Basic - easy to learn, getting powerful5 - Engine Scripting - dependent of the engine, normally easy but limited
6 - LUA - as Python, less graphic oriented
7 – JAVAas C++ it’s hard to learn and powerful but it’s not as used as C++ in the industry

3D tools

1 - 3d Studio Max - best architecture for plug-ins, powerful
2 - Blender - open-source with a medium performance
3 - Maya - the best available for animation but very expensive
4 - Cinema 4D - easy to learn, but not as widespread as Max
5 - Poser - very handy for quick character design but useless for animation


Look for Part II of this article.

Automatização e agregação de media


Um sistema que permite agregar conteúdos: vídeo, imagens e texto e produzir notícias audiovisuais recorrendo a um sistema baseado no jogo Half-life 2.

"News at Seven is an automatic system that crafts daily news shows. It finds the news you are interested in; edits it; finds relevant images, videos, and external opinions; and then presents it all using a virtual news team working in a virtual studio. News at Seven is a uniquely compelling experience that can present traditional news--augmented with supplemental images, videos, and opinions from the blogosphere—all without human intervention."

Experimental Gameplay

«
. Innovative user interfaces that use natural language processing, image recognition, gestural control, new hardware devices, and the like.

. Generative games, where the gameplay or world is dynamically generated based on choices the player makes.

. Gameplay based on the emotions of (and interactions between) non-player-characters, where the player influences the characters to achieve some goal.

. Interactive storytelling, where the plot or dialog of the game changes in a fine-grained manner (in contrast with more typical discrete "branching points").

. Subtle emergent gameplay, where game systems interact to provide evolving situations. Physics-based gameplay would be an example of this. Another example would be a game with complex interpersonal interactions, like alliances and feuds between groups.

. Novel sorts of multiplayer interactions -- online, at the same machine, with wireless devices, using image recognition, or whatever.
»

from CFP of Experimental Gameplay

Hunicke e os MySims

Robin Hunicke é a Lead Designer dos novos Sims da Wii, os MySims. Robin está a acabar o seu doutoramento em Computer Science na Northwestern University, mais especificamente na área de Artificial Intelligence e Video Games. Tem participado em inúmeras conferências e debates tais como a GDC, AAAI, DIGRA.

Como se poderá ver no teaser do jogo a cuteness dos bonecos e acima de tudo a linguagem não verbal deles são fantásticas. Vamos ver se estes elementos se mantêm no gameplay.


março 19, 2007

Novos Rumos de Investigação

Como novo objectivo de investigação interessa-me agora explorar o desenvolvimento de personagens virtuais autónomas e emocionais. Ou seja continuando a trabalhar sobre os ambientes virtuais (VE) e os seus aspectos emocionais e cinemáticos mas dedicando mais atenção aos agentes virtuais. O que por sua vez continua não só a depender dos estudos da emoção cinemática e interactiva mas recorre também à Psicologia Cognitiva e de Entertainment assim como ao Game Design e aos Film Studies tudo na linha do que se tem vindo a fazer. Ou seja os três vértices FILM + VE + GAME ao qual agora se adiciona AI.

Desse modo temos três projectos actuais bastante interessantes para analisar ou re-analisar

FAÇADE


Tem aplicação finalizada e pode ser feito o download.

Do ponto de vista da AI apresenta um nivel excelente. Graficamente é muito fraco, ainda que representado num espaço tridimensional os elementos são todos 2d. A expressão facial é também muito bem conseguida e acompanha os story beats de forma bastante credível.
Apresenta o problema genérico de ser um história fechada e desse modo Mateas não se preocupou muito em produzir técnicas replicaveis, o que em ciência soa a pouco.

IMPROV

Possui apenas alguns pequenos jogos onde se podem ver os conceitos em uso.

Técnicas autonomização dos personagens/agentes importadas da caracterização/performance de actores reais, nomeadamente técnicas de improviso. Nos exemplos do site, que são poucos, podemos ver o efeito do Status numa relação interpessoal. No site podemos ainda encontrar uma apresentação da GDC com um titulo bastante sugestivo "Entertaining AI: Using Rules from Improvisational Acting to Create Unscripted Emotional Impact" mas que deixa algo a desejar, para já não tem qualquer paper e é parco em textos explicativos.

DRAMA PRINCESS

Demo terminada e online.

O conceito acerta na mouche do que procuramos - Research & development of a reusable autonomous character for realtime 3D focused on dramatical impact rather than simulation of natural behaviour. A demo parece ser um inicio bastante interessante apesar de Michael parecer estar um pouco desapontado com os resultados: "When all the decisions are being made about what to do, the Drama Princess actors currently quickly run out of inspiration. The problem is that they can end up in a position where nothing interests them anymore and they cannot get out of it because their filters are very strict about what they like to do and with whom. And since they’re not doing anything, their feelings about the objects don’t change (appart from the very slow decline due to absense)". Ou seja o problema da emergência e pervasividade. Como manter o flow of life, acima de tudo interessante numa lógica ligada à psicologia do entertainment.


projectos anteriores de relativo interesse

OZ, CMU
Virtual Theater, Stanford

...a seguir tools para produção playgrounds virtuais onde possamos desenvolver estas técnicas.

Genetic modified Pets

"Genpets are not toys or robots. They are living, breathing genetic animals...Genpets are color-coded to match one of several different genetically programmed personality profiles, so there's sure to be a Genpet perfect for you!
" See the entire story here

março 18, 2007

ScriptEase for Neverwinter Nights

"Making a module for a game like BioWare's Neverwinter Nights is a new way of telling a story, and has its own set of challenges. Instead of readers, you have players who want to feel as though they actively participate in the story. One way to do this is to present your players with a world that they interact with, instead of one they just pass through. ScriptEase is a tool designed to complement Bioware's Aurora Toolset. With Aurora, you construct the world the players will adventure in, and with ScriptEase you bring it to life."

"ScriptEase is being developed by researchers from two research groups in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Alberta, the Games group and the Software Systems group. The goal of the ScriptEase project is to support module builders (storytellers) and game designers in automatically generating scripts for computer role-playing stories, without programming."

Dennis Muren and the Art of Visual Effects

Dennis Muren interviewed by CG Society

"people think the aesthetic and art comes from the director... they think the art is brought to them when they get the storyboards... All of that is the beginning, not the end. Usually, the sets are not lit for the effect because the effect isn’t there. We have to relight it. To do that, you need to have a broader background than a technician. In every technical task, an aesthetic component can make it better"


Dennis Muren’s Oscars
1981 - Star Wars: Episode V
1982 - Technical Achievement Award
1983 - E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial
1984 - Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
1985 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
1988 - Innerspace
1990 - The Abyss
1992 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1994 - Jurassic Park

Oscar Nominations:
1982 - Dragon Slayer
1986 - Young Sherlock Holmes
1989 - Willow
1998 - The Lost World: Jurassic Park
2000 - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
2002 - Artificial Intelligence: AI
2006 - War of the Worlds

XNA Challenges & Contests

The Warm up
Microsoft Academic Days on Game Development in Computer Science Education - Aboard the Disney Wonder Cruise Ship. "The Challenge was simple but completing it was anything but - make an original game, from scratch in 4 days. Each XNA Game Studio Express Challenge team worked from Monday March 5 to Thursday March 8 to bring their game to life."

“DungeonQuest” by Benjamin Nitschke and Christoph Rienaecker from Germany

“Simian Escape” by Jonathon Stevens and Patrick Glanville from the United States

“Damage Control” by Josh Butterworth from the United Kingdom

“AbduX,” by Andre Furtado from Brazil

You can download the 4 games here.

The real thing
The Dream-Build-Play Challenge
Design and build an original game for Windows XP SP2 or Xbox 360™† using XNA
Game Studio Express.

Criteria
Innovation (40%) – Push your creative and technical limits.
Fun Factor (40%) – Hook our judges with exciting, entertaining action.
Production Quality (20%) – Make your game world as polished as possible.

Prize of $10,000 USD
FINAL ENTRY DEADLINE: JULY 2, 2007

O Futuro está aqui

A convergência chegou aos meios de produção. Equipas da indústria de videojogos partilham espaços com equipas do cinema. São reutilizados modelos, texturas, animações tudo em nome de uma maior convergência da forma. Uma busca pelo aperfeiçoamento da convergencia do media que proporcione a transmedialidade de
Jenkins (2006).


"There’s a new phenomenon emerging in the high-stakes world of big-budget filmmaking... video game artists, taking photographs, recording the proportions and textures of sets, and working closely with production designers and the visual effects team to make sure their game upholds the same production values as the film. They’ve become an almost permanent fixture on the moviemaking scene. The reason is because in this era of cross-platform marketing and convergent technology, major film properties live twice—in the movie theater and in the interactive realm... they should succeed in fusing the emotion of films with the intense absorption of interactive entertainment (Game Films, 2007)

março 17, 2007

Experimental Gameplay Project


"The Experimental Gameplay Project is about discovering new forms of gameplay. Each game must be made in less than 7 days by 1 person, and show off something we've never seen before."

It really deserves our time and why not a try!

março 15, 2007

Second Version Done


First supervisor reviewing process completed. Second version delivered, waiting for second and last supervisor reviewing.