CSCI E11• Digital Multimedia Art • Spring 04

Open Studio Info

Thanks to everyone for going through that exercise last night- I've read a few of the descriptions so far and they look great! We will be going over the tech requests and either addressing the questions in class next week if they are general enough or contacting you directly.

Here is the open studio information. My studio is at site #58 on the map.

Somerville Open Studios site

Vernon Street site

Project Description Document

We will be using this Project Description document tonight

Game Links

Here are some of the links cited tonight:

Game Theory & Culture

GameStudies.org

Grandtextauto.org

Game-culture.com

Henry Jenkins

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/games&narrative.html

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/index.html

Scott McCloud Understanding
Comics

Natalie Bookchin

http://www.calarts.edu/~bookchin/games/

http://action-tank.org/



Cecilia Pearce

http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/first-person.html

http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/computers-graphics.htm

Video Game History

Artist Game MODS/Sites

http://www.opensorcery.net/

http://untitled-game.org/

http://switch.sjsu.edu/CrackingtheMaze/

http://www.nullpointer.co.uk/-/home.htm

Game Programming

Game Programming Techniques and Info

Game Developer Magazine

Gamastutra.com

Follow up Links

Some followup links from last night:

DATA
info-aesthetics - Lev Manovich
http://www.manovich.net/IA/index.html

Jason Salvalon
http://www.salavon.com/work.shtml

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
http://www.mccoyspace.com

fliker
http://www.fliker.com/%20

txtKit
http://www.txtkit.sw.ofcd.com/

GENERATIVE
http://www.generative.net/
http://www.philipgalanter.com/pages/acad/generative%20art/links/idx_top.html

IMAGING LINGO
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/director/articles/imaging_lingo.html

FLASH DRAWING API
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/precision_drawing.html

COMPUTER VISION (web cam input)
Free Web Cam Xtra
http://webcamxtra.sourceforge.net/

Toy Sight Demo
http://toysight.com/

Final Project Assignment Posted

The project description for the final project has been posted in the "Projects" section.

Waking Life: Vector Conversion Options

Ok, so the question last night about vector rotoscoping got me curious about what non-commercial solutions are out here. Here is what seems the most competent commerical solution plus some examples of the "Waking Life" effect.

Flix Pro

For background, here is a tutorial on bitmap to vector conversion within Flash:
Trace Bitmap Also see the section on optimizing the trace bitmap function: Optimization

This method works well for single bitmaps but for bitmap sequences, the problem is that there is no optimization to reduce duplicate data between frames. This results in much larger files with more complex vector data.

Other vector conversion options are available in Adobe Illustrator and Streamline, and Macromedia Freehand. None of these tool offer sequence optimization however.

So far I haven't found an open source (or easy) solution. It may be possible to cobble something together using several open source packages. Here are some links:

http://www.openswf.org/

http://ming.sourceforge.net/

http://autotrace.sourceforge.net/index.html

Circuit Bending

Nice article on a circuit bending festival in NYC in the NYTimes (registration required)
Circuit Bending

Circuit bending is a kind of hacking of electronic toys and devices to take advantage of their sound making potential. It's fun and safe (assuming you are fooling with low voltage circuits!).

Lots of info here: Reed Ghazala and here Bill T Miller

Programming for the Genuis Impaired

I came across this little "tutorial" which recounts some of the basic ideas about programming we discussed early on. It pretty much summarizes the tasks we face when "programming" anythng as complicated as making a peanut butter sandwich. Lingo and Actionscript are high level scripting languages so we get a lot "for free" - but they don't solve the problems of logic and sequencing that are part of any program.

I think I will use the exercise next semester (though with something other than peanut butter...)
Programming for the Genuis Impaired

Last weekend: Son et Lumière

It's the last weekend for the Son et Lumière exhibit at the List Visual Arts Center at MIT

Son et Lumière
Exhibition of seven artists who work with the basic elements of sound and/or light to create immersive experiences that dazzle the senses and stimulate the mind. Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, Bruce Bemis, Michael Mittelman, Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen, and Jessica Rylan create large-scale installations that use LED screens, film projections, hidden cameras, sub-sonic and directional speakers, and simple light bulbs. In each, the elements are recoded in some way, so that the viewer encounters the unexpected.

Son et Lumière