Getting There!
SKINSThursday, 12 August 2010, 2:57 pm
The weapon integration is coming alone nicely, Here is a screenshotThe big box in front of it is there for debugging purposes. Right now, it’s shooting rockets [a particle effect that we are mimicking]. This is the arrow as a particle effect that I’ve set up. It took a bit of work to fix a lighting [...]
Character textured, gate modeled, Ghost done!
SKINSThursday, 12 August 2010, 2:38 pm
The Female tree person textures are done!The Gate modeling is done!The blocking out of the gate in the map is done!The smoke Particle effects is done! [...]
Skins @ FuturePlay
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceThursday, 20 May 2010, 6:55 pm
I recently presented “Skins 1.0: A Curriculum for Designing Games with First Nations Youth” at FuturePlay 2010, which happens alongside GDC Canada in Vancouver, BC. The presentation was well-received and the paper will be published in ACM Proceedings.
After the talk, Professor Jay Rajnovich from Algoma U pointed out that it is ironic that I am Anishinaabe myself and work with various peoples, but haven’t yet been involved in a partnership with Shingwauk and Algoma U. And that’s true. Algoma U has a leading Masters in Computer Games Technology and Shingwauk has leading Anishinaabe Studies and Anishinaabemowin programs. There are some projects going on to foster collaboration between the two institutions, which would be a perfect fit for what I do.
In the summer of 2006, I held a game dev workshop with Aboriginal youth for Algoma U but I haven’t been able to visit since. Interestingly, a conference paper about that workshop is what led me to run into AbTeC in the first place. I was presenting at a Canadian Game Studies Association conference when research assistants from AbTeC asked me about my work. The rest is history, so it goes! AbTeC has encouraged me in what I’m doing and has given me a space to actualize my ideas. For that, I’m grateful, and with that in mind I head off for a summer in Alberta for research.
More Updates
SKINSMonday, 17 May 2010, 5:11 pm
Ramy has started working with us as a programmer. Things will finally will start coming together!.The Male Tree-Person model is coming along nicely.I [Moh] have started working on the female modelBase mesh:..The beginning of the sculpting process:More updates to come shortly! [...]
Reflecting on Indigenous Women in Video Games
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceWednesday, 5 May 2010, 4:33 pm
I recently presented “The Good, The Bad, and The Sultry: Indigenous Women in Video Games” at the Unpacking the Indigenous Female Body Symposium put on by Dana Claxton at Simon Fraser University. I figured I would share some of my thoughts since I’m all twisted up dreaming about new media culture jamming these representations.
So before you read this, keep in mind that I’m a gamer and a game writer. I don’t mean to condemn the game industry, nor do I mean to excuse it. The easy thing to do would be to shun the game industry and cast aside the medium, but there is great potential in games to incite change, given their educational and interactive properties. Not to mention they’re fun.
Unfortunately, most games with Indigenous representations are based on, guess what, Western films. In my own work, I’m looking at reimagining these figures and gameplay mechanics to create Indigenous video games that not only represent Indigenous people well, but also give players the experience of Indigenous knowledge.
Bodies
Indigenous women appear literally as bodies separated into units with little to no distinction in the genre of Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. These are games where the goal is to discover areas on a map as you battle enemies and stake your claim. Colonization much? When Native characters are in this genre of game, they’re often male, but when female, they rarely fight. They’re most often kept back at the main camp to dance for special abilities or gather resources. In this world, the Indigenous woman is generic, but to be fair, so are all of the other characters, Native or not. You could say this is an overall flaw in RTS games.
Custer’s Revenge – Revenge
However, this same treatment of the body has occurred in other genres, including the classic side-scroller. Side-scroller games are ones where you maneuver your character left or right through obstacles to reach the end. What you see here is Custer’s Revenge, made in 1982 in a time when anyone could develop a game on an Atari system without seeking permission. A company of guys who wanted to hit it big with pornographic games made Custer’s Revenge, where you play as General Custer, erect and ready for action. The goal of the game is to dodge the evil Indian arrows until you reach the other side and rape an Indian maiden already pre-tied to a pole. The game ends in one of two ways—either you die from an arrow or your rape her for enough points that you win. Ironically, her name is “Revenge.” She is a victim, a helpless body, and nothing more.
Despite a boycott from an American Indian organization and a women’s organization at the time of its release, where they were promised all copies would be taken off of shelves and destroyed, gameplay footage is up on YouTube and copies are available online for free to anyone who has the know-how to download and play ROMs.
Prey – Jen
Although representations have gotten better overall, the “victim” theme hasn’t passed. In Prey, we meet the character Jen, a hardcore Cherokee chick that runs a bar. She’s Tommy’s (and thus our) girlfriend. Aliens kidnap her, which propels us to become the reluctant hero and save the world in order to get her back. Only problem is she ends up dying anyway and we get one of those “I’ll see you in the next world” deals. Too bad she can’t save herself.
Darkwatch – Tala
Now, Tala’s quite another story. In Darkwatch, Tala plays an agent who is supposed to help our character Jericho (a vampire who kills other vampires), but she ends up in a lusty moment with us, lures us into biting her, and turns on us when she becomes a vampire. I’ve always found it interesting how Tala, the dark sultry Native woman, is juxtaposed with Jericho’s other guiding companion, Cassidy, a blonde cowgirl who dies and helps us for the rest of a game as a pure ghost. When I asked the game developers if they ever thought it was odd Tala was so evil and Cassidy was so good, they said, “Oh, Tala isn’t evil. She’s just ambitious.” Well, I guess so! I don’t need to say much about how Tala’s physical depiction is much more overt than Cassidy’s… Do I?
Interestingly, originally, Tala was intended to be the main character of Darkwatch, but the marketing department decided that wouldn’t sell. Odd, since they’ve gone on to make comic book series about her and display her in Playboy, the real life magazine.
Alternatives
So what do we do? Boycott, get angry, fight back? Yes, we educate our youth, ourselves, and we change the representations by making video games ourselves with our own traditions, stories, and knowledge in mind.
Fun in Four Directions: start of a sideshow of Aborginal avatars
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceWednesday, 21 April 2010, 3:19 pm
I think it will be fun to do a slide show of portraits of AbTeC avatars for my presentation for PSi, the Performance Studies gathering I’ve been invited to in Toronto in June. So I’ve been looking through the hundreds of Second Life snapshots that I’ve taken over the last few years. Today I revisited an artwork from 2008, a collaboration between Bea Parsons and myself, called Guided By The Four Directions.
"Guided by the Four Directions", 2008, Bea Parsons and Skawennati
The image, divided into quarters like a medicine wheel, depicts four incarnations of Bea’s Second Life avatar, Bea Box. Bea has spent countless hours exploring this virtual world, many of them devoted to finding skins, hairstyles, clothing and props that would make our avatars look “Native”.
Representing the colour white, in the upper left corner is a young, hip, urban Aboriginal. This is the character we call “Katsi”. Her jet-black hair and dark skin signify her aboriginality, but her bangs, make-up, clothes, and environment set her just a few minutes into the future. Beside her, beset with yellow highlights, is our cool, modern and fair Indian princess. Bea nick-named this character “Pow-wow-a-go-go”; With her regalia and her fancy-dancer-esqe hairdo, you can’t quite tell if she’s taking a smoke break from the circle or from the disco. Below her is another sister, floating in the clouds above Mars, perhaps. She wears the original AbTeC team uniform, which we liked because it was both futuristic and free. Also it inexplicably had the initials “JL” on it, which we decided would stand for Jason Lewis, beloved co-director of AbTeC. Finally, we come to the floating headdress, depicting the otherwise invisible Indian, the ultimate stage in a performance entitled “You Want a Piece of Me?”
Otsi updates
SKINSWednesday, 21 April 2010, 11:58 am
The team is now working on finishing Otsi!The map is now fully migrated to UDK.We’ve also started using Maya instead of Blender. Since it is more intuitive and a move valuable experience in the industry.Kahentawaks Sketched two Tree PeopleModeling of those Characters has been started.We’re also working on the smoke effect for the guiding ghost. [...]
THE HEADLINE BLARED: INDIANS SETTLE LAND IN CYBERSPACE In support of AbTeC buying land in Second Life.
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceWednesday, 31 March 2010, 1:07 pm
I was searching through some old Word documents today and found this, from 2008, I think. It is still so ironic, just plain funny to me, that a bunch of Indians are buying virtual land with real money! But I am so glad we did, for all the reasons I wrote then:
Reasons
• Space
Our own island in SL would be AbTeC’s on-line headquarters, an in-world place of our own to meet each other and to invite interested individuals to visit. We could easily run workshops, give lectures and present exhibitions from here.
• Time
As my research assistants and I build the sets, props and costumes for TimeTraveller™, we have come to realize the huge amount of time we’ve lost searching for places to set up our sets, only to have to pack them back up again at the end of a meeting or work session. Having our own land, with the necessary building permissions, would allow us the time required to move forward on projects. Additionally, if the sets can stay up, we don’t have to worry so much about being on-line at the same time.
• Sandbox/Sketch place
It occurs to me that Second Life could be a great tool for sketching animation. In other words, even if a project will be realized in Maya, a quick sketch of the movie could be made in SL to show to animators and whoever else to convey the general idea of the storyboard, including camera angles & movement, characterization and locations. Our sim could include a sandbox for building plus a kind of “black-box studio” for shooting animation.
• Continuation
As soon as I started seriously thinking about us having our own land in Second Life, I could see reviving CyberPowWow. Something about having a place of your own is so empowering! How does “CyberPowWow Rebirthplace” sound? Or just the simple “CPW3D”? Maybe superscript it????
A little sketch I made to help me think about what we could do on our island. I thought UBrave was a catchy name but Jason did not!
Multi-page PDF export
Mr. SoftieTuesday, 23 March 2010, 4:52 pm
The latest release of Mr. Softie includes a new feature that allows to export your document to a multi-page PDF. The export creates one page for each passage present in the document, and a final page for the background. This feature was implemented to improve how Mr. Softie integrates with Adobe Illustrator. However, Illustrator can’t easily load a multi-page PDF file into a single document, so the MultipagePDF script was born.
Download it. Place it in the plugin folder of your Illustrator installation. Run it and it will ask you to select a PDF file, which it will open as a single document with a layer for each page. MultipagePDF works with any PDF files, not only Mr. Softie, but it needs some thorough testing.
What is Research
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceFriday, 12 February 2010, 4:44 pm
Notes From:
INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUES 2009/2010 – WHAT IS RESEARCH?
Session II
Research, Ethics, Politics
February 12, 2010, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m., LB 646 Library Building, 1400 De Maisonneuve Ouest
Presentations by:
Josh Schwebel: Escaping ‘What’ and ‘Is’: research beyond subject(s)
Ioana Radu: Doing research with aboriginal people: the role of knowledge mobilization, engaged scholarship and sharing authority
Eric Ronis: Every Story Needs a Villain (or Does It?): Framing Social Protest Research in 2010
Devora Neumark: Art and Ethics Within and Outside of the Academy
Discussant: Joel McKim (Concordia, Communication Studies)
—————————-
Ioana Radu
Research and Aboriginal People.
Doing research with aboriginal people: the role of knowledge mobilization, engaged scholarship and sharing authority
Radu spend 8 years living in a community of the Cree Nation of Nemaska in James Bay. She works on concepts of development and self governance. She conducts research through oral history and interviews.
She takes approach that: Research -> Contributing to the social capital of the communities.
RESEARCH
Ruling ideas of the discipline: Authority, Objectivity, Distance, Objective Neutrality
Another approach: Multiplicity, Difference, Social & Political endeavor as much as an Academic one
ETHICS
Interpertatory, Dissemination, Personal, Civil and Political
POLITIC AND ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
- -Acknowledge agency
- -Imagined social struggle
- -Multivocal – There are many voice is a community to be heard
- -Multilateral – There are many parties to consider
- -Respect of justice, equality and inclusiveness
KNOWLEDGE MOBLIZATION
- Connection between research and practice
- Co-creation of knowledge
- A way of thinking and doing research.
- Knowledge mediated through social /political processes
- Acknowledge difference/multiplicity
ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP
- Building Relationships
- Working with living, not building a memorial to the past, looking to the future.
- Long-term commitment
SHARING AUTHORITY
(This notion originates from the Oral History field)
- Knowing from ->controlled narrative.
- Knowing with -> mutual creation/dialogue (Greenspan)
- Less chronologically structured
- Subjectivity
- Self-reflexivity
Resistance and contesting narrative within Aboriginal communities.
Radu then showed a video of complied interviews with people from Nemaska about Aboriginal notions of development. Video called “Reflections on Development”
Support “Future First Nations”!
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceMonday, 8 February 2010, 3:39 pm
Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace’s learning initiative “Future First Nations: Native Storytelling through Virtual World Building” made it into MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition, but we need your help to win.
You can help us continue and expand Skins, a game modding workshop with Kahnawake youth, by Commenting on the Future First Nations project by February 15, 2010. Please support Native youth learning technology, math, science, art, and storytelling through virtual world and video game modifying.
To Comment, register at the MacArthur site and enter a Comment on Future First Nations (scroll down to the bottom of the page).
Thank you!
Beth Aileen Lameman
Mr. Softie at Typ09
Mr. SoftieTuesday, 22 December 2009, 5:21 pm
Mr. Softie will be at the Typ09 conference in Mexico City on Thursday October 29th. We are organizing a workshop, Bending Letterforms with Mr. Softie, as part of the TypeTech section of the conference. Limited space, register soon.
Careers in the Gaming Industry Panel Discussion at Concordia
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceThursday, 12 November 2009, 1:01 pm
Concordia University’s Career and Placement Services hosted a panel discussion, ‘Careers in the Gaming Industry’, on Wednesday, November 11, 2009. Six Concordia Alumni from Computer Science and Software Engineering discussed what it takes to get into the industry and their personal experiences throughout their careers in gaming. There was much valuable insight shared with a room of approximately 2oo Concordia students who are eager to break into the industry (of which approximately 10 were women, no suprise there … I just like to keep track of these details). I will summarize what I took from the panel.
- The core Computer Science curriculum is required. Yes they use Dijkstra, A*, state-machines and all those other wonderful comp-sci basics we all know and love (-yes, I really do love them!-). Algorithms developed in the 60s are crucial to gaming. Path finding algorithms may be simple to apply in a static 2d space, but when you add another dimension, actors, buildings, and need them performed in real-time things get much more complex.
- Math, math, math– game development is all about math.
- C++ — you need to know it. C#, ruby and perl are also useful.
- Basic programing skills are more important than any 1 particular programming language.
- There is room for all types of programmers, hardware, AI, graphics and generalists. The industry needs us all.
- There is even room for bad programmers! The move to rapid prototyping of games creates opportunity for those with big ideas and little programming experience.
- This industry allows programmers to push boundaries. More forgiving of mistakes than the medical or aerospace industry. The code does not have to pass any safety regulations, allowing more creativity.
- This industry always presents new challenges to programmers. The hardware is constantly changing and thus frameworks and games change with it. There is always more to learn.
- Your greatest asset when trying to get into the industry is a portfolio that includes a gaming project of some sort. This could be a simple flash game, an iPhone game or even a Little Big Planet level. Even the smallest game requires that you are familiar with the life cycle of game development, from the brainstorm stage through to the release, this is what they are looking for.
- Gaming Studios want to know why you want to work for them. Do your research before you get to the interview.
- Overtime is not an option- it is industry standard. You’ve gotta love your job.
- When you stop learning in your position move on. Know what you want to do in the industry and move towards it.
- Although notorious for sub-standard social skills, programmers need to have good communication and interpersonal skills to work in the large teams of developers and have their ideas heard and understood.
Overall the panelist painted an optimist view of both the industry and the opportunities for recent graduates. I was very happy to hear about the experience computer scientists in the industry and am now planning my stratagey for beginning my career in the gaming industry (…maybe it has already begun….).
Typo at Center Stage
Mr. SoftieMonday, 2 November 2009, 4:02 pm
Day 1
Typ09 began in style. Speakers had to adjust to the 360 degrees of audience surrounding them, wishing they had paid more attention to how they appear from behind when practicing their talk. The audience, surrounded by 16 screens displaying the same slide presentations and videos, must decide which one to pay attention to, and end up looking like noone is listening because of each participant’s different focus point. And, to whoever sets up 16 contiguous screens, please exploit the opportunity of making one connected screen space instead of just duplicating content.
Among the tidbits of information that struck me most, Jan Middendorp presented some really interesting work of hand-lettered book covers of the 50’s and 60’s. One caught my eye more than others, a design by Hermanus Berserik that could have been the long lost relative of Donald Knuth’s Punk font (I couldn’t find the cover online, so if anyone has it please forward).
Soon after that, Francois Chastenet presented his research, which was recently published in “Cholo Writing: Latino Gang Graffiti in Los Angeles.” Looking back, this was for me one the most interesting talk of the five days of Typ09. I am curious to know more about Chastenet’s comparative study between photography of 1970’s LA and his recent research. From my geeky perspective, I couldn’t help but think of how graffiti, its form and style, creates not only the physical boundary that Chastenet’s was talking about by defining a perimeter, but also creates boundaries between the different groups that interact with the signs. Who writes them, who erases them, who understands them, who doesn’t.
I was looking forward to Alberto Coberto’s talk on “Spanish Type Specimens, and even though I was please to see so many specimens I would never come across, I felt it fell short of what it could have been. From the title, my expectations where steered in the direction of Alastair Johnston’s “Found Poetry: The Dude Typographers” article found in “Text on Type.” Coberto did poke at the idea when he mentioned, over a single slide, the religious used as content for the one specimen. I would be surprise if this was an exceptional case. As a recent example of interesting type specimen that goes beyond the oh-so-common and boring lorem ipsum or random news headlines, Tipo distributed their type specimen as a nice recipe book, found on the table of free goodies. This leaves me with one problem. Where do I place this ‘book’, on the shelf with other type specimens, or in the kitchen with the cook books?
Day 2
And on the second day Spiekerman spoke. After a morning session that involved too many instances of the word “global” without really digging into the interesting and “honest” (thank you John Downer) reality of type designed today, the work of contemporary Mexican type designers closed the session. However, already after a day and a half, my brain was overflowed with type design, so much that I remember apppreciating the work of comtemporary typography in Mexico, but could not name one that was presented.
Which gets me to Spiekerman’s presentation. This was a great example that all those monotone try-to-talk-about-everything-i’ve-done-in-the-past-until-now presenters should look at and remember the next time to want to entertain an audience. People, pick a subject, no matter how precise and be excited about it. Spiekerman’s talk about his work designing door numbers for modern furnishing supplier Design Within Reach was inspiring, not because it showed a million typefaces on slides flicked at seizure inducing speed, but because it showed the whole process, its ups and downs. The first types of numbers are beautiful and designed for certain contexts, and just like any other technology, type is used and abused in ways that type designers could not have even imagined.
Another somewhat unrelated tidbit of information that struck me was the presentation of Chilian artists by Felipe Caceres. The one Chilian artist that caught my attention enough for me to remember is Alejandro Faure (1865-1912). At first sight, and before Caceres mentione the name of the artist, I would have sworn that the art work in front of my eyes was made by Alphons Mucha (1860-1939), a check artist whose work I really appreciate. Given the simililarity of their work, the two artists must been part of the same singles, and everything came together when Caceres mentioned that Faure moved to Paris for a certain period of time, just like Mucha did in 1887. This is something I would like to did further into.
Day 3 (aka First Signs of Type Overdose)
The morning session took us in an interesting direction, from my perspective, that would question some technological issues. One presentation I was looking forward to was Granados and Zenke’r talk on “Reading Technologies” (I’m not sure which one of the two presented). Sadly, this presentation fell short of what it promised. Instead of truly questioning the Amazon Kindle, with its e-ink paper, networking capabilities, and graphical possibilities, the presentation digged itself a hole by complaining about issues pertaining solely to the Kindle’s software. If half the presentation involves slides that show a close-up of the screen of a device, without pertaining to the actual devices, then you should realize that you are talking about a completely different problem. A problem that might be present on the Kindle currently, but that is not tied to the Kindle.
Soon after, Christopher Moore briefly explored the possible uses of e-ink paper in the future, based on, again, the Kindle and one of Esquire magazine’s cover that used the technology. However, ten minutes is no doubt too short to really dig into the subject, Moore started a discussion on a subject that will certainly be more present in the future of the Typ conference. Hopefully, the conference’s organizers will realize that 40 minutes to talk of one persons typeface is often too long and boring (unless they are Dutch and can make it exciting), and that 10 minutes to question a difficult subject is just a tease and leave the audience a little dry.
Day 4
On the fourth day, we presented both workshops, “Computational Typography for Beginners with NextText for Processing” and “Bending Letterforms with Mr. Softie.” The workshops went well, even tough the number of attendees was fairly small, probably due to different reasons. Coding scares people, especially when the workshops are organized in a school or department that might be unrelated to the subject (we had to kick out med students that were having a quiz in the room scheduled for the workshop).
Mr. Softie, which is considerably more user friendly, attracted a few people who actually stuck around, went for a break and came back to play with the software, which was a nice thing to experience. If beta testing is like leaving your children uder someone else’s supervision for the first time, this might be similar to having the baby-sitter aggreeing to come back a second time, telling you that you kid is, well, baby-sitter friendly. Of the things I might would change for future workshops would be to start the conversation with the attendees earlier.
Day 5
Say no to tuna tacos.
Typ09 Recap
Mr. SoftieMonday, 2 November 2009, 2:49 pm
The Typ09 conference came to a close on Friday and it was a really interesting experience. Type design is a whole world that I didn’t really know much about, considering the fact I’ve been working on NextText for over three years.
It had been a while since I had attended a conference, and although I usually have a problem with the closed bubble around these events, this was very refreshing. It was the first professional conference I attend, and was very different compared to academic ones. A large percentage of speakers focused on specific companies and projects, to the point where it sometimes felt like advertising (and in a sense, it was)
There were presentations on a wide range of topics: type-oriented university programs, focusing on single characters (like accents or quotation marks), web fonts, the step-by-step development of a specific font, etc. It was interesting to see that, much like in other spheres, there is a very prevalent nostalgia on the “old-school”. This could be seen in the many lectures on traditional foundries and handmade fonts.
My two favourite talks were coincidentally about typography in Brazil. Lambe-lambe Letters by Catherine Dixon and Henrique Nardi went through the process of creating posters in a lambe-lambe printshop. The letters are carved out of wooden blocks and printed on wheat paste paper using a manual printer. The movies were compelling; it was captivating to see the process and how spacing is calculated by adding shims between the blocks. Brasilêro Project by Crystian Cruz was about the process of designing a font based on hand-lettered signage found in Brazilian cities. It was quite interesting to see a typeface that started on the streets end up in magazines, books, and the web.
Indians in Space: Curating Media Art by Indigenous Artists- A Talk by Steven Loft at IARC Speaker Series
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceMonday, 2 November 2009, 2:15 pm
Steven Loft at the IARC Speaker SeriesSteven Loft at the IARC Speaker Series
Indians in Space: Curating Media Art by Indigenous Artists
Steven Loft, Aboriginal Curator-in-Residence, National Gallery of Canada; Former Director, Urban Shaman Gallery
IARC Speaker Series, SAR Boardroom
October 29, 2009, 5:30–6:30 pm
The development of an artistic discipline based on electronic technologies is an articulation of creative and cultural space foregoing the territorialized domains of cultural and artistic canons. We get beyond the notion of simple mediation and enter the realm of translation, exploring how media refashions the logic of communication strategies to encompass a broader understanding of contemporary cultural phenomena. As curator Catherine Mattes has noted, “translation can loosely be defined as the act of expressing the sense of one language into another parlance or form of representation. When applied to visual languages, translation can transcend the boundaries of specific movements and discourses and does not bind artists by locating them in (or up against) a particular realm.” I interpret this to define a certain absolute and contiguous relationship to the technology available, and to its ability to transform our perception, existing as shape shifter, neither inherently benign nor malevolent, but always acting and active, changing, transformative, giving effect to and affecting the world. The term “language of intercession,” coined by Victor Masayesva, refers to this idea. In his essay “Indigenous Experimentalism,” Masayesva writes, “the Indigenous aesthetic, like each tribal language, is not a profane practice, a basic human protocol, or merely a polite form of etiquette and transaction, but rather, it is the way in which we are heard and commune with the Ancients.” (From http://sarweb.org/index.php?iarc_lecture_steven_loft-p:2009_2010_iarc_speaker_series)
Listen to the talk at http://sarweb.org/index.php?iarc_lecture_steven_loft-p:2009_2010_iarc_speaker_series
Typ09 Workshops
Mr. SoftieThursday, 29 October 2009, 8:44 pm
We gave our NextText and Mr. Softie workshops today and it went really well. The turnout was a little lower than expected but that ended up being a good thing as we almost had a one-to-one presenter-student ratio. I was a little nervous leading up to the workshops as I realized over the first few days that type designers are not too keen on having their meticulously constructed glyphs tweaked by our software.
The NextText workshop had an extra challenge which was that we had to also teach the basics of programming in that 3-hour slot. It was a lot to cover, but the participants made it through and seemed to have a good handle on things towards the end. A few points to keep in mind for next time:
- When going over the basics of programming, starting with functions before covering variables makes more sense. Functions can be used with literals at first and then variables.
- When building a set of behaviours, it is really helpful to draw the behaviour tree, and to modify it as the code progresses.
- We should have a basic sample sketch for each behaviour to show what it does. This should be included in the documentation, similarly to how it is done in the Processing reference.
- Some of the behaviours should be renamed to something more intuitive.
- We need a simpler way of creating behaviours. Perhaps bringing back the factories would be a good solution for this.
I would be very interested in trying this out again with experienced programmers. This would be ideal to test out the documentation and see how easy it is to understand, navigate, etc. It would also allow more time for free play, resulting in more complex and polished sketches.
The Mr. Softie workshop was a lot of fun and was actually the most time I ever spent in the software. In comparison with NextText, it was easier to grasp as the participants could start working on their visual sketches fairly quickly, and a lot of good looking work came out of it. A good measure of the success was that most people came back after the second break and some even told their friends to pass by and check it out.
- The Textpad is a great tool and has a lot of potential. One feature that would be good to add is to toggle whether white space is sprayed or not.
- The GUI could use a few improvements, mainly swapping the many drop-down menus for sliders, checkboxes, and radio buttons.
Mr. Softie Workshop at Typ09
Mr. SoftieThursday, 29 October 2009, 7:16 pm
We just finished the main portion of the Mr. Softie workshop. We had 9 students attend, and we still have 6 of them in the room with us experimenting with the tool. Bruno gave a good presentation that I think we should definitely consider taking to other places.
One thing we need to do is create a series of small .sft´s showing each of the SoftType behaviours in action, and even some combinations. What would be even better is a live preview option like Adobe Premiere has for its transition effects. And to make it easier to get a handle on the visual results of changing parameters, perhaps we should move to sliders there as well…
First Impressions at Typ09
Mr. SoftieTuesday, 27 October 2009, 10:40 pm
I just arrived in Mexico City today and after a short stopover at the hotel, headed downtown to the Typ09 conference.
The presentation layout is one of the best I’ve seen. The talks are given in the interior courtyard of the Museo Interactivo de Economía (MIDE). The podium is in the centre of the room and chairs are placed all around. Sixteen screens are installed on the perimeter of the room (four per wall), displaying the presenter’s slides. No matter where you are sitting, you have a good view of the presenter and her presentation. I can’t help but think about Most Pixels Ever and how this is a great setup for a multi-channel installation.
Kevin Larson from Microsoft gave a talk today on how typefaces have personalities and the research behind it. It was an interesting topic, but I felt like it needed more substance. Most of the points seemed obvious and felt like he was preaching to the choir, and the rest could have used actual statistics and data.
TimeTraveler™ WINS!
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceWednesday, 21 October 2009, 3:11 pm
Skawennati won Best New Media at the imagineNative Festival in Toronto last weekend for the TimeTraveller™ website. Congratulations to the whole TimeTraveller™ team and cast of thousands.
AbTeC @ imagineNATIVE
Aboriginal Territories in CyberspaceWednesday, 7 October 2009, 3:00 pm
At this year’s 1oth annual imagineNATIVE AbTeC-ers Jason E. Lewis and Skawennati Tricia Fragnito will present works in the New Media Show at A Space Gallery (401 Richmond St W, Toronto, ON).
We hope to see you all there!
SKINS 1.0 | Otsi: Rise of the Kanien’keha:ka Legends Trailer
SKINSMonday, 5 October 2009, 11:26 am
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How to get started with the files you received
SKINSMonday, 29 June 2009, 6:12 pm
Here are the instructions for you to set up and be ready to continue working on this project!1.Transfer the files from the CD to your computer:[CD/DVD_Drive_letter]:\RiseOfTheLegends\DM-Skins.ut3to C:\Documents and Settings\[your_account]\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Unpublished\CookedPC\Maps[CD/DVD_Drive_letter]:\RiseOfTheLegends\Packages\Skins.upk[CD/DVD_Drive_letter]:\RiseOfTheLegends\Packages\Skins_Trees.upk[CD/DVD_Drive_letter]:\RiseOfTheLegends\Packages\SkinsSound.upkto C:\Documents and Settings\[your_account]\My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Unpublished\CookedPC2. Start Unreal Tournament 3 Editor:Start>Unreal Tournament 3>Unreal Tournament 3 Editor3. Open the Generic Browser (if [...]
Kettle
Mr. SoftieFriday, 12 June 2009, 3:00 pm
This is the pot and the kettle with coffee and splash. Words (kettle, pot, coffee, splash) twisted into illustrative form.
Kettle
