Emerging Creative Amplifiers

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What a great tag: “creative amplifier”. Wish I could claim it. But all I did was hijack it from Will Wright, the Creator of reportedly the most popular videogame in history – “The Sims“. Today Gamespot has a synopsis of Wright’s presentation for his forthgaming game entitled “Spore”.

Holy cow. Not more than an hour ago I was (re)visiting Allegorithmic’s website; they’re a company which has been making procedural texture creation software for about a year now. With Wright’s game taking procedural content to unheard of levels, and all the other “creative amplifier” tools recently announced and/or released, I’m having a hard time not publicly declaring the imminent creation of the Metaverse. It seems as if all the major pieces to the puzzle are in place, with only their integration remaining. Now I’m just waiting for the announcement.

Peter Molyneux’s “The Room”: Simple, User-defined, and Maddening

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GameSpy has a less than stellar rep within the gaming community, but they do occasionally have articles I really enjoy. Such is the case with this article covering Peter Molyneux’s talk during the GDC’s new “Vision Track” lecture series. His discussion on Simplicity resonated with the designer in me, and there are a few interface designers out there who could learn a few things from him. But for shear fun, it’s the last portion of the article that gets the juices going. It’s Molyneaux’s “The Room” experiment that really begins to capture some of what I think will crack open cyberspace to the average person (or drive them crazy).

the room

For years I’ve been puzzled by the hiring of architects to design virtual worlds, when I’ve always thought it should be just the opposite: virtual designers should be people who know nothing about real world constraints – children for example. “The Room” may seem unresolved to us adults; a virtual place with little or no purpose beyond defying the real world’s laws of…well… reality. But then we don’t turn cardboard boxes into juggernaut tanks to do battle on uncut lawns. Or sit for hours watching ants disappear into their little holes in the ground, imagining what it must be like to step into their labyrinthian world. Well, not anymore. I’d be more than happy to have someone create something that helps bring some of that wonder back. We could all use a bit of that in this world.

Of Gecko Feet and Shark Skins

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Okay, I’m trying to focus on “virtual+meat” items, but this article over on Wired is just too cool. Imagine a hull coating for ships that not only mimics the microscopic landscape of shark skin to prevent sea life from attaching itself, but flexes and moves with the application of an electric current to really make it unappealing. Love it.

This reminds me of the recent news about how geckos manage to walk wherever (and we mean wherever) they want. All this materials technology amazes me. And I keep recalling how boring Materials Science was back in the early 80’s when I was getting my engineering undergrad. Then again, it’s been 20 years.

Xbox 2 : Virtual Markets and Micro-transactions

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Blue’s News has posted a portion of the features listed in the “Guide” to Microsoft’s upcoming gaming platform: the eagerly anticipated Xbox 2. Among the features of note are:

* Marketplace. Browseable by game, by genre, and in a number of other ways, the Marketplace will provide a one-stop shop for consumers to acquire episodic content, new game levels, maps, weapons, vehicles, skins and new community-created content.
* Micro-transactions. Breaking down barriers of small-ticket online commerce, micro-transactions will allow developers and the gaming community to charge as little as they like for content they create and publish on Marketplace. Imagine players slapping down $.99 to buy a one-of-a-kind, fully tricked-out racing car to be the envy of their buddies.

Some of you out there understand why I initially chose “reBang” as my company name: it referred to the creation of real world product additionally leveraged as virtual content. This makes sense since the modern development of tangible goods almost always now involves the creation of a virtual 3D representation.

I’ve been waiting for the chance to straddle two worlds for some time, and the implementation of Marketplace and Micro-transactions features in MS’s console signals that this may now soon be possible (the first issue, high-rez content, has been resolved with the latest technology as demonstrated in Half-Life 2, Doom3, and the forthcoming Unreal 3 game engine).

Looks like I need to get myself in gear and position myself appropriately now that the time is fast approaching for this to happen. And that may mean less “shotgun” blogging and more focus. It was coming anyway.

Fido, sit. Fido, fetch. Fido, infiltrate and detonate.

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Image of Boston Dynamics BigDog Robot

Read something today that reminded me of this, the first paragraph from William Gibson’s novel Count Zero:

They set a slamhound on Turner’s trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

Having read that, now take a look at this link (courtesy of Engadget) on what the mad scientists at Darpa are trying to create.

[Note: Links went dead, so here’s a Wikipedia entry – BigDog]