Additional Information:

http://www.mpcdigital.com/NBC-Green-Week
http://www.candystations.com/portfolio/mpc-nbc-green-week/
http://www.nbc.com/green/

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This installation debuted March 17 2013 at Fort Mason Center at the The Creators Project event in San Francisco and traveled across America and Europe.

Additional Information:

http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/videos/chris-milk/media/ithe-treachery-of-sanctuaryi-2012
http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/videos/chris-milk/media/creating-ithe-treachery-of-sanctuaryi

Bonus: Professional Dancer Playing with Treachery of Sanctuary

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Below is a live Unity3D web-app that requires a plug-in.  Click on the player to install.  As a note Unity Apps tend to be grumpy in tabbed browsers, especially in a background tab, and tend to crash.  It’s not my code!

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

The post Blub Redux: Dynamic Fish Animation appeared first on livelyDisposition.

Video game graphics have come along way from the 8-bit era.  The added 3rd dimension, higher resolution potential and larger storage for art assets have lead many developers to pursue in the highest, most sensational graphic detail possible on their platform of choice.   This detail however begins to expose the gap between how the player as a resident of the real world expects characters to look and act and what the game as a simulation can actually deliver.  Specifically, no feat of animation prowess can anticipate all the possible combinations of characters, setting and environment afforded by interactivity.  This lack of situational awareness in game characters accounts for a portion of the gap, which could be referred to as the locomotion element of the classic “uncanny valley.”  This paper hopes to examine the intrinsic quality of believable characters both in the context of traditional animation practice and interactive games in order to evaluate the impact an dynamic animation system has on the players’ experience of a simple character based game.

The full Thesis text can be found here: ChelseaHash_IDMI_MastersThesis.pdf

Given that the games industry is a kit of parts and the answer is not just a simple, “Make better animations” – I wanted to start building a body of research that developers could refer to while prioritizing what tech they invest in depending on what outcomes they want.  Effort put into perfecting a static animation takes away from the flexibility of design but unpolished animations end up costing player immersion and juiciness.   This initial experiment was looking at how players react to an identical game with identical characters and animations – but using procedural animation technology to liven up the character; specifically, real-time environmental aware foot falls, leg orientation, head look, and inertia.

The study offered players 4 versions of a simple 3D item collection where in a paper crane roamed a paper-craft playground in the pursuit of origami stars.  One version a semi-procedural locomotion system (more on this later, but it was a really awesome Master Thesis project by Rune Skovbo Johansen) compared to the same character and canned versions of the animations.  Players also played control versions using a canned paper cube character both with canned animations and completely static.  I put all 4 versions in front of 25 different play testers, captured their performance (screen and face) via Silverback usability software and in game metrics reporting, and a combination of questionnaires and post-study interview for ranking and insights into the gameplay experience.  The results were positive and somewhat surprising as the traditionally difficult behavioral results provided strong results and were backed up by overall rankings while the questionnaires intended to gain insight into why were inconclusive.

Players consistently ranked the locomotion version as their preferred version, backed up by statistically significant longer playtimes for the locomotion version.  I believe the lack of clear questionnaire results points to the idea that people know what they like but often can’t put it into words, especially as many users specifically said they couldn’t say what the difference was just that they preferred the version with locomotion.   From the full text:

So, to conclude I believe that based on all collected data that reactive and procedural animation systems are a promising new technology to promote user engagement in interactive media.  Given the wide range of procedural and dynamic motion systems, the hope is that these results apply not only to large development houses but also small-scale independent operations. While by no means necessary for enjoyment, dynamic systems have the potential to increase player longevity and their perception of the game.  It also affects how they feel about the controls.  As the investment in a dynamic system can be applied to many future titles, where as the number of animations and time spent tuning individual characters is generally single-use, developers can be reassured through empirical validation that reactivity matters, even on a small scale game experiences like the one developed for this study.  Developers interested in developing games focused on good feeling avatar control should consider dynamic motion systems as a next step in the evolution of the pursuit of animated motion, and not as a gimmick with marginal appeal.

I’d like to continue studies in this vein to expand on specific theories on “bang for your buck” in interactive development, specifically the point at which developers polishing the textures and detail of models stops helping the effect and starts hurting the overall product.  The differentiator in these studies are offering several different versions at the same time, and allowing each version to stand on its own.  As game testing is typically iterative it’s implied that each version is better than the last in every way – and the perception is warped by the investment of time and the “sunk cost.”  I am of the opinion that the player’s perception of realism of the characters in Oblivion would have increased merely by cutting the texture resolution down to stay in line with the animation quality.  Disney released a book in the 80′s detailing their accumulated techniques in, “The Illusion of Life.”  Procedural and other reactive animator technologies are expanding on these concept in the interactive space, and I feel that these improvements in motion and handing more control to the designers will lead to the greatest improvements in player experience.

None of this research would have been possible without Rune Skovbo Johansen’s original thesis available here.  For anyone interested in using the system themselves in a Unity project the resources can be found here.

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

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Below is the abstract and you can find the full text here: Design for Learning PDF or through the ACM:

This paper presents insights about design practices that can lead to effective and fun games for learning, gleaned from interviews with experienced game developers. We based our approach on Schön’’s notion of practitioners evolving shared ‘‘appreciation systems’’ for discussing and critiquing work, and aimed to gather and share some of game designers’’ ‘‘appreciation system’’ for games and learning. The resulting insights provide valuable pointers to other designers in the CHI community crafting game-like experiences.

Over 40 interviews were conducted including the efforts of researchers at Tilt Factor with Mary Flanagan.    I personally was involved with the filming of just under 25 of them, including some well known Industry figures like game design legend Warren Spector and indie developer Steve Swink.  We asked interview subjects a series of questions including personal best design practices, the role of the educator and specific things to avoid in order to make a successful video game.  I participated in the transcription and annotation of the interview videos, producing data on recurring themes and notable quotes.

Katherine Isbister presented the results with the paper Designing Games for Learning: Insights from Conversations with Designers published in the proceedings of CHI 2010.

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The goal of the project was to design a game with the potential for longevity and expansion with a long tail of updates.  Although the team dispersed after the course ended and only 5 episodes were produced I included the following features in the design to promote long term flexibility for the game experience:

• UI dynamically expands – levels are “moons” that surround the “episode” planet
• “Flow” style slide navigation add as many levels as needed
• Paper Cut art style supports fast prototyping, programmer “art” skills and the straight cut game mechanic
• Level art draws from a library of textures like a scrapbook – textures mix and match for new environments
• In game Facebook and Twitter score post

Below are some of our marketing materials:

Cat stuck in a tree? Boring. Space cat stuck on a cactus about to be crushed by a boulder? Awesome. Cut through vines, trees, rocks and practically everything else to help the cat get safely back into its bin. Who knew cutting stuff could be so much fun.

Follow us on 

Features

• Fully cuttable environments. Cut anything, anywhere.
• Realistic physics engine simulates gravity, friction, and loads of other physical forces.
• Super cute 2d graphics.
• Intuitive touch control scheme lets you cut with ease.
• 20 challenging levels (spanning 4 different worlds) with tons more on the way.
• Local high scores. Keep track of your best snips.
• Facebook integration. Let your friends know how well you can snip.

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This project was completed for Integrated Digital Media Studio, Fall 2009 at NYU Polytechnic Institute in collaboration with Ulf Schwekendiek.  I was responsible for the project design, graphical environment and the fish rigging and animation Unity3D.

The post Blub: Live Fish Motion Capture & Dynamic Re-animation appeared first on livelyDisposition.

The hats were used on project Wriggle! which I worked on towards the end of the project cycle, making some UI updates and packaging it for submission to CHI2010 and Unite 2009, Unity3D’s conference competition.  Below is a video demonstration of the hats in action.

The post Motion and Emotion: Wiimote Gear appeared first on livelyDisposition.

The project overview as listed on the projects website:

SIMveillance: San Jose elicits the viewer’s consideration of a normally fleeting urban phenomenon: the passage of strangers through a public space. Who are these people and where are they going? How does their traversal affect one’s perception of the vitality and nature of a place? This project seeks to make the viewer more aware of this phenomenon, as transmogrified when viewed through the lens of a computer game. By repurposing surveillance footage of a real-world place very close to where the viewer will be experiencing the work SIMveillance also asks the viewer to consider the increasing presence of recording devices within the urban landscape, and the possibility of leaving traces that linger in unexpected ways.

SIMveillance brings the local urban population back into the show in a unique way—locals may be able to see themselves as captured in the prior month. Whether or not a viewer catches a glimpse of his/herself, s/he is bound to reconsider the impact of wandering the urban landscape. The project seeks to evoke feelings of curiosity, voyeurism, discomfort, and a jolt into the perspective more typically inhabited by city planners or sociologists. The work also explores the territory in which simulated-avatars co-mingle in the landscape with “the real” to produce a hybrid community with potentially unexpected results.

Down to the brass tacks,  we used captured footage from CCTV cameras we had mounted on the exterior of the actual museum to create “simified” versions of passersby to populate the virtual museum space.  During the actual Festival, both the live CCTV footage and the real-time simulation in the Sims 2 were on displayed next to each other inside the museum proper, giving the audience an alternate perspective on their visibility in the public space they had just traversed.  The project description from ISEA’s website :

Are you being watched as you travel the streets of San Jose? Probably–our everyday lives are increasingly captured by cameras in public spaces. Simveillance:San Jose puts a spin on this phenomenon, using footage from surveillance cameras mounted in a San Jose public square as the basis for crafting ‘sim’ people that wander a virtual version of the same square, within the game The Sims 2. You might find yourself on screen, as the artists will update the piece to incorporate people who’ve passed by during ISEA. Consider the implications and come find your Sim self!

Overall the piece was well liked and approachable, even by passers by unintentionally taking part in the City-wide open air Interactive Arts festival.  It was recognized by Adobe with an Honorable Mention in the Emerging Artist Category as well.  What means the most is that it operated well and the causal observer could readily recognize the space and live nature of the cameras and feel some natural affinity as opposed to the somewhat elitest or at least obscure nature of many Interactive Media Experiences ™  For reference, here’s an additional views of the installation.

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