A cute mix of 3D animation and retro video games.
Archive for the 'Video Games' Category
If you are in the New York City Area, and if you are interested in learning how all those cool animations are made in movies, commercials and video games, you should think about signing up for my class. I will be teaching a course showing the pipeline of capturing the data, processing the information, blending sequences of animation, and rending a final character animation this Fall (2009). If you are interested please see the advertisement below and feel free to email me with questions. I will not offer this as a distance course, but if there is interest (please leave a comment) I will think of doing this in the future. The software I will cover in this course is as follows: Vicon IQ/Nexus/Blade, Autodesk Motionbuilder and Maya, and Newtek Lightwave. If you have interest please contact the admissions office at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY at (718) 488-1011. More information on admissions is available here: LIU admissions.
As I stated earlier, I am visiting Japan for the first time in 10 years this Thanksgiving break. After a couple of days, there are a few things that have really stood out to me.
Electronics are not as advanced over the rest of the world as they used to be. There are still alot of cool things here, but there is nothing I have seen so far that I am just dying to have. 10 years ago, this was very different…
The prices of things have not changed at the same rate here as in North America (ESPECIALLY Canada). The last time I was here, there were many things I wanted to buy, the the prices where prohibitively expensive. Granted, at the time I was a graduate student working on my Master’s degree and money was a bit harder to come by — but — the prices of things here is definitely cheaper. Eating out is now quite a bit cheaper than in New York City (depends on the restaurant of course).
The internet is the thing that is sticking out the most to me. 10 years ago ISDN was a luxury that most people only dreamed of. 128kbps was jsut amazing speed and you could actually download the newest version of Netscape 4 in under 1 hour. It was just great at the time. Now with fiber, cable, and DSL connections being plentiful here, I can watch TV via sling AND Video chat with friends and family through Skype for no cost at all. I spend more than $200 on phone calls the last time I was here!!
With all this good stuff, there must be some bad. The bad part of the internet experience I am finding so far is related to content filtering. It seems that many companies and providers are IP filtering connections and seem to block any connections not originating from the U.S.A. This is lame. One problem that is really bothering me is that Steam is not allowing me to download Left 4 Dead onto my laptop so I can kill some zombies. I already purchased the game and have been playing it on my desktop as well as my computer at work. I forgot to install the game on my laptop before I left, but didnt think much about it since I knew there would be a fast internet connection waiting for me in Japan. Well, to make a long story short, Steam is not allowing me to download any new content while I am connecting from Japan. I have tested this theory using VNC to my systems at work and at home. No problems there. Anyway, this lameness aside, I have found a way around other filters. SOCKS 5 Proxys are great. I installed WinSocks on my computer at home. I am connecting to the computer via Hamachi using a VPN. This allows me to not open ports on my router for this. Makes it very easy. Anyway, using a program called ProxyCap, I can redirect programs running on mylaptop to mask their IP address to that of my home system. This allows lots of things to work now. In particular, I am thoroughly enjoying watching NFL football via DirecTV’s Superfan program. It refused to connect without the proxy, but when I change the settings, I have live NFL football in all its glory right on my laptop. This is very nice.
Anyway, lots of good, and a few bad things (no killing of zombies is pretty bad…) to mention here. I will post more as the trip goes on.
Here is the second in my series of motion capture tutorials. The first focused on setting up a naming template in Nexus. This tutorial will describe the process of cleaning optical data and filling gaps when occlusion of reflective markers occurs. The video below is part one. If you play it to the end, you will see links to the further parts.
My class on motion capture started recently and I decided to post some tutorials for my students and others to watch. You might find them useful if you are learning to use Vicon Nexus or AutoDesk MotionBuilder. The first series is on how to set up a dot naming template in Nexus.
I read this article on shacknews this morning. If you don’t want to read the article — it basically states that Electonic Arts (EA) is going to make sports games for Windows again in 2009 after taking a year off.
I am generally happy to hear this, but I hope they have really rethought their marketing strategy for the PC. I really like playing games via the interenet on PC because there is so much more you can do than in a locked down environment like XBOX Live or PSN. The other thing which is far superior on a Windows PC is the freedom to choose your controller. I can use the great xbox 360 wired or wireless controllers perfectly on XP or Vista OR I can choose to play with a keyboard and mouse. This is really where it is at for me and its why I spend more money on my PC.
I have to wonder what EA is thinking at this point. Cancel the series…Bring it back…. I don’t get it.
In the past EA has half-assed their Windows versions of Madden. They have left out control schemes, they have NEVER implemented force feedback, even though they natively support the XBOX 360 controllers, and they have used copy protection schemes that have rendered some of the games I have paid for unplayable in the past. I think these reasons are enough to indicate why people may shy away from buying the PC version of Madden.
I hope they do a good job with the game and I hope people buy it, but I dont think people will and here is why. We dont need to buy a whole new game every year. It is just too expensive and after a new version every year since 1992, there isnt that much more to add.
I do have some suggestions for EA regarding Madden:
- Make a new engine every 5 years for the game instead of every year. Use the model of First Person Shooters. Build a really good engine that is tweakable year to year to take advantage of lessons learned. This will lower some costs.
- Since you are now not reprogramming the game from scratch every year, dont sell a game every year. Instead, make money from microtransactions. ROSTER UPDATES are clearly something people will pay for. I think EA could STILL sell up-to-date rosters for Madden 92 and some people would buy them. I have never understood why this isnt supported and I really question the marketing people at EA for it. You can sell other things too via live, psn, or even steam — skins for stadiums, weather packs (fog, snow, hurrricanes, etc), new uniforms and many, many others.
- Here is another idea I have been toying with for Madden in particular. I think it might make sense to not even sell the game (still DO sell microtransactions, of course), but rather give it away for free and support it via advertising. The game is already riddled with adds. Why not add internet conenctivity to these adds and deliver personalized or local adds during game play. For example, say you are playing online and your opponent calls a time-out. A commerical for Taco Bell could run full screen while players choose their play again. At first people might find it invasive, but if the game was free, I dont think they would care, I for one would gladly trade some of my attention for a free game.
These are just a few of my ideas. I certainly hope that EA reads this and thinks my ideas are good. If not, well, I hope someone else does and uses the ideas first. Compeition usually helps out the consumer. If you are reading this, and you represent a game company or marketing company, please feel free to contact me. I have alot more ideas as to how to make money using networking and video games. I might jsut do some free lance work for you.