Mechanima 2.0

Well its been over a week since the Starcraft 2 launch, so I guess it's about time I figure out a way to squeeze it into my blog posting. General greatness of the game aside I would like to talk about the Mechanima capabilities of the Starcraft 2 map editor.


For those of you who don't know what Machinima is, it's using a real-time 3d engine, usually a video game, to make movies. A very popular example of this would be Red vs Blue. They use Halo as their game of choice, and super-impose their voices over the Halo character models to make a comedy show. Given the technical limitations its very well done, and entertaining.


Now for those of you who played Starcraft 2 have probably been at least mildly impressed by the mission briefings and the character models. If you remember one of the opening briefings, it has the main protagonist, Jimmy Raynor, pouring a drink into a glass and squashing out a fly with a cigar. Well, apparently anything and everything in the game can be made using the include map editor. You can choose camera angles, interact with your environment, even render the expressions on your characters faces.

Below is an example of a mission briefing. Rendered on the fly, and, according to Blizzard, can be accomplished using the map editor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09mad8H4GwM


It's like a CG movie studio in a box. I'm pretty excited to see what Mechanima projects this will lead too.


Jared


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The Race Between Hardware and Software

20-30 years ago, the PC world was much a different place. Hard drives weren't standard in all PC's, cpu's were in the single digits for mega hertz and PC networking was quite scarce. Despite these hardware limitations programmers managed to take their tiny amounts of memory and push it to its limits.

Now it seems we're given computer hardware right now out a science fiction book from 20 years ago, and we don't know what to do with it. Sure we have lots of cool software, but compared to the hardware we're given it doesn't look so hot. Lots of software languages are geared towards making software quick and easy, not efficient. Another issue is writing really advanced software is difficult and can require a lot of mathematics.

Well, I'm sure we are making progress in the right direction and here is a great example. This sort of thing wouldn't seem too impressive if it was in a Hollywood movie, but considering this is all done in real time, its quite amazing. Hopefully within the next few years this kind of technology will enter the gaming world. Until then I'll just stare longingly at my screen and dream.

-Jared

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"If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain "

It seems every day that passes our lives become more engrained with technology, and the more our lives become engrained with technology, the blurrier the boundary between the digital world and the real world becomes.

A simple example that effects just about everyone.... Facebook. It seems everyone is talking to everyone on Facebook these days. People are forging relationships and keeping in touch with people that they never would of before, because of Facebook. A stronger example would be WoW (World of Warcraft). For those who have no idea what World of Warcraft is, it's a Massively Multiplayer Online Roll Playing Game, where character take a roll in a virtual game world through an avatar that they create. World of Warcraft has has a huge influence on the real world... Here are some examples....

Virtual currencies are affecting real world economies....

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24247

Why not get MARRIED in a virtual world...

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/149965/want_to_get_married_in_world_of_warcraft.html

Or divorced because of one...

http://www.widowsofwarcraft.com/

As soon as my kids are old enough to click a mouse....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming

Hopefully you can start to get the point, but it doesn't stop there. Virtual real estate is becoming a huge market.... sex.com is expecting to snag tens of millions when it finally sells. Thats the equivalent of an empty lot selling in the real world...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/18/technology/sexcom_auction_postponed/

Some more on virtual real estate...

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=13107800

As usual when I start to think about this stuff, I start to think of where will we be in the future? The Internet has only been in the public eye for 15-some-odd years and already things are looking like they're from a science fiction book. What about 15 more years, 30 years, 50.. 100 years? I can't tell you, but these things do seem to have a snow ball effect so I'm sure its not going to end up the way I picture it.

All of this talking about virtual-digital-interweb stuff has made me hungry. I better login to Habo Hotel and get a bite to eat.

-Jared out

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Fun and Games at e3 2010

So e3, the largest video gaming convention in the world has come and gone. This year we saw a wide array of cutting edge games that are finally starting to utilize the current mature console generation (wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360). Along with new flashy games we got a good look at some hardware coming up, including the Nintendo 3DS, Kinetic, and Playstation Move. Here is a list of a few things I thought really stood out from the rest of the pack....

Crysis 2

Besides being the sequal to the most visually realistic game to date, the impressive thing about this title is that they got it running on aged hardware like the Xbox 360. When the first Crysis was originally released Crytek, the developer, said it could be ported to the consoles because they simply weren't powerful enough, but here we are 3 years later. And now only is it running on Consoles, but it looks BETTER than the first. Kudo's to Crytek for pushing the technical envelope on this one.

Nintendo 3DS

The entertainment\tech industry is riding the 3d wave which has only gotten larger thanks to hit movies such as Avatar. But before we even had time to get too excited about 3d movies, Nintendo has announced a new and improved portable console that is 3d and doesn't require glasses! Will this be a gimmick, or the next big thing? Hard to tell, but given Nintendo's recent track record this could be huge.

Kinetic

Excited, yes. But also prepared for disappointment. This looks like it could take gaming forward in leaps and bounds, but unfortunately it looks like it's being geared towards the casual market. Sure this may not be great for all game types, but wouldn't it be cool to play a RTS minority report style? Only time will tell if MS drops the ball on this one.

Well that's all for now. e3 had literally HUNDREDS of games being shown, and there is lots to talk about, but these are the key things that peaked my attention.

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Cool Web Tech Demo's of Past and Present

Web browsers have come a long way from simply displaying text information. We now have built in graphics and networking that really bring the browser one step closer to replacing\merging with the desktop. On the plus side, when you make a web application it spans across all platforms. Windows, Mac, it typically doesn't matter, your audience is huge. On the downside, you are more limited to what you can accomplish, and the fancier your get, the more sluggish your applications become. Well, slowly but surely the negatives of a web app are slipping away and here are some cool examples of that.

The first example I'd like to show is a raycasting engine written in 5k of Javascript. Raycasting, for you not-so-nerdy types, is the technique used to make such classic computer games as Wolfenstein3d and Doom. Though these games appear 3d, they are really 2d but appear 3d through some rendering tricks.

http://www.wolf5k.com/faq.html

5k is an extremely small for anything, especially a raycasting game.

The second example, isn't anything to practical, yet, but makes awesome use of Javascript and the canvas tag. Image the types of things we could do with this if IE supported canvas!

http://www.andrew-hoyer.com/experiments/cloth

The last example, is a brilliant example of what could be when HTML5 becomes standard. I put a emphasis on "could be" since, to my knowledge, MS hasn't made anything regarding the canvas tag official with IE 9. IE is really the bottle neck holding back this sort of thing from becoming more mainstream, but regardless, check it out, and marvel at the brilliance of yet another 20% time Google project.

http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

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The fall of Rome, the plateu of Microsoft, and the rise of Apple.

As history has demonstrated, nothing lasts forever. New ideals replace the old, and if you aren't flexible enough to adapt you'll be put out to pasture, no matter what type of empire you've built up. It would seem that we are at a major evolutionary point in the IT industry. Yes, you might say the IT industry is always changing, which it is, but the changes occurring now are more much clearer than previous changes. Even though the changes we are seeing now are rapid and radical, lots of them been quite predictable. 10 years ago if you were to take a guess at where we'd be now it would be pretty clear that mobile computing would be that status quo, and here we are. Yet despite this predictability Microsoft has failed to keep up with the times. They are the undisputed leader in desktop computing, but in terms of online platforms or mobile, they have fallen far behind. Not because their products are sub-par. On the contrary. Bing, Zune.... these are highly acclaimed technologies that they offer, but they are both years too late. Years too late in the tech industry doesn't cut it. As great as those products are people's thirst for personal, mobile, connected computing is being quenched by the likes of Apple (iPhone), (who a little more than a decade ago was on their death bed), Google (Android), Rim (Blackberry), and many many many miscellaneous mobile platforms. So what went wrong with Microsoft? Try as they may, their vision of mobile computer never caught on. Pocket PC's remained a niche market for technology enthusiasts and the first generation of tablet pc's didn't quite cut it with the masses. Both technologies were a little to soon, a little too clunky, and a little too uncool.
Apple on the other hand, waited until the fruit was ripe for the picking. The PC market had grown stale, and users were bored with their plane-jane cell phones and desktop pc's. Even if the iPhone wasn't a perfect product right out of the gate, its what people needed. It was fast, cool looking, and easy to use. It was design from the ground up for mobile computing. It wasn't Windows stuffed into a little device. Also, it appealed to the masses. It didn't have a watered down version of MS Office like it's windows CE predecessors, but who wants that anyways? Only 0.5% of the human population want a dummied version of excel, but everyone and their dog wants to be tweeting and connecting through facebook on a sleek, light-weight smart phone. That with the power of the app-store is where Apple hit the nail on the head. Microsoft might of dominated the pc world, but Apple is dominating all the other consumer level hardware form factors. So what does this mean? Well, 10 years ago, anyone with an interest in technology could of told you that mobile was the big thing. Everyone saw it coming. But what is the next big thing now? Well I guess we'll have to wait and see, but if we can learn anything from history, it's that it probably won't be from Microsoft or Apple, but some other smaller company that with skill, vigilance and a little luck will IT into a new era.

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Off the well beaten path

A recent article posted at Toms Hardware, has peaked my interest for two reasons. One, if this new rendering technique isn't simply smoke and mirrors, it has the potential to totally revolutionize 3d graphics as we know it today. The hardware race (particularly between AMD and nVidia) could potentially grind to a halt, and photo realistic graphics will become the norm. As great as it may be, it isn't this reason that has really gotten be thinking, but my second reason, and that is how, Bruce Dell, the individual behind this technique, has potentially created something amazing because he did something different than everyone else. Something important I'd like to point out, is how his competition is quick to tear down his idea's because it isn't the way things are normally done and because it is a threat to their way of things

Being in the web development industry seems to be a double edged sword with this line of thinking. It seems individuals and business's are afraid to walk off the well beaten path to try something new. This goes from a design standpoint and technology standpoint. I can't speak too much from a design stand point, but it seems whenever I talk to designers about web sites they are quick to criticize a website for looking to much like the plethora of other websites out there, as they are for slamming one with a unique, eye catching design, even if goes a little to far in breaking the mold. It seems most of the companies out there would rather stick with the cookie-cutter websites and not deviate from the pack, even though they are selling themselves short in the process. In my opinion, its better to try to do something unique, new, and (r)evolutionary and miss the mark by a bit, than to generate websites with the same feature set as those from a decade ago.

And then there is the technology side of things... It seems the majority of websites I visit these days are hung up in 2000. Flash never seems to be used a practical sense. Most websites I see with Flash remind me of the 'rice rockets' you used to see cruising around 10 years ago with ground effect lights and massive spoilers. They did nothing for the car itself, even if they did turn a few heads. Yes some people are talking about how Flash will be obsolete from HTML 5, and because of security risks that seem to be arising with it, but I think Flash will be here for a long time yet. There is too much existing content out there for it to simply disappear, as well as too many people with too much time invested in the skill set to simply let it go. There are other web technologies that seem to be under utilized. Ajax, being a major one. Ajax gives us the ability to truly make the web function similarly to that of regular desktop applications. Ajax has been around for more or less a decade and you rarely see it being used to its full potential. For any short coming it may have, their are simple work a round's, and the benefits are worth it. Less loading, a more seamless user experience, and more aesthetic presentations are just a few of the advantages, are all inherited through well implemented Ajax. Hopefully HTML 5 web sockets won't see the same type of neglect as Ajax has.

There is a lot of untapped potential in the web, so why not look at the technologies available and try to come up with something others haven't tried before? Sure you may miss the mark a few times, but even so, even if you raise the bar an inch others will be sure to follow. Besides, a little friendly competition never hurt anyone, right? If people criticize you for trying something new, it might mean you're on the right path. Use the constructive criticism, then keep pushing forward with new ideas and techniques.

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