Over on the ZBrushCentral forum there’s a thread about the new version of ZBrush (Link) that’s set to ship in May. The opening post is essentially a Pixologic press release within which is a link to the demo video showcasing the product’s features (it’s a Quicktime in a downloadable zip file). As expected, the video is slick and the application impressive, but the feature that got my attention was the new Projection Brush; or what I’m calling a “reverse shell”.
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About a week ago I read a post on the Design Sojourn blog called “Designing Products That Will Work with Web 2.0 Strategies” (Link). I didn’t quite get the point of that blog entry considering the title, and as a consequence I made an effort to give it some additional thought; wanting to get back to it because I think that more than most, the blog’s author is representative of the more forward-thinking designers out there.
After re-reading it a few times and bouncing it around the inside of my skull for a bit, I finally posted my comment yesterday morning. The last paragraph of that comment more-or-less summarizes why it was I found this post by a fellow designer so curious: Continue reading
There’s an excellent article on the Escapist titled “Mining the Game” (Link) which is very much worth taking the time to read. The article, written by Sara Grimes, discusses the kinds of data collection processes I once outlined in one of my more popular entries (reLink). The key difference is that while I’m elaborating on the business of this technology, she’s discussing the topic in the context of children’s online games. I’d recommend reading both to perhaps gain a broader perspective of the potentials and potential pitfalls.
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Just read a post on Clickable Culture (Link) regarding ex-Napster Shawn Fanning’s social networking service, Rupture, and Blizzard’s new Armory player database system. In his post, Tony Walsh makes the following comment:
Given what Blizzard has shown it can do with data it already collects, I think it would be relatively trivial for the developer to take The Armory into social-networking territory, allowing players to add information to personal profiles, publish buddy-lists, chat, even perform some in-game functions through a web-browser interface. If Blizzard goes this route (and I think it should), Rupture is screwed. Players already spend a lot of time within the official Warcraft community, I don’t see why anyone would sign up for a third-party service and use a software add-on if Blizzard provides social networking services even remotely comparable to Rupture’s offerings. Continue reading
Well this has been a long time in coming. Things should get interesting. I’ve left my comments on YouTube and suggest you read everyone’s comments over there – Link.
Note: I’m going to post updates to links that I find interesting. I won’t change the title as I sometimes do to alert people, so if you’re interested just keep an eye out for updates.