Sunil's Blog

I just got back from volunteering at FITC Toronto 2009. I HIGHLY recommend volunteering. It’s a great way to attend the sessions for free and meet amazing new/old talent in the interactive field. I’ve come away from the conference with a lot of new ideas that I can’t wait to try.

Here’s my list of things that were cool to me in no particular order:

1) Papervision X – Ralph Hauwert
- 3d renderer optimized for Flash Player 10
- Ralph used Alchemy and Pixel bender to run Quake in Flash at 60 FPS!!

2) Colin Mook – Your Phone is Your Controller
- http://www.playmegaphone.com/
- http://unionplatform.com/intro.html

3) Sourcebinder
- http://sourcebinder.org/
- drag and drop node based programming
- break out game built on the fly with audience interaction using a webcam

4) Gary Stasiuk – Visual PV3d
- Flash Visualization Application that provides a GUI interface to create and manipulate objects in 3D scenes using Papervision3D

Vizual PV3D from Juxt Interactive on Vimeo.

- http://www.juxtinteractive.com/_download/vizualpv3d.zip

5) Vector Vision
- allows you to use vectors in Papervision
- http://blog.barcinski-jeanjean.com/2008/05/16/vectorsvision-vectors-in-papervision3d/
- http://www.barcinski-jeanjean.com/entries/vectorvision/SvgExample.html

6) Golan Levin and Zach Lieberman
- Augmented Reality Magic 1.0

7) Jared Ficklin
- music visualization through physical objects
- nirvana songs visualized on paper show similarities between songs; verse – chorus – verse
- showed 4 patterns and asked which one was likely a nirvana song, the one most similar was actually a foo fighters song!

Mario Klingemann
- bitmap manipulation turning ordinary bitmaps into Van Gogh like paintings.
- http://www.aviary.com
- using Keith Peters minimal components

9) Pixel Bender Game
- http://www.kongregate.com/games/GlaielGamer/closure

10) The Spark Project – Japanese Flash Community
- http://www.libspark.org/wiki/WikiStart/en
Photorealistic AR

Me too (doing some AR stuff)! from Anatoly Zenkov on Vimeo.

Frocessing
- Processing like AS3 drawing library
- http://www.libspark.org/wiki/nutsu/Frocessing/en

BetweenAS3
- new tween engine that performs better than the major players tweener, tween max…
- http://www.libspark.org/svn/as3/BetweenAS3/trunk

SWFWheel
- support for mac scroll wheel no javascript required
- http://www.libspark.org/wiki/SWFWheel/en

Here’s is some of the stuff I’ve been working on during the last 8 months:

FITC 2008 Demo Reel from insultcomicdog on Vimeo.

It’s hard to present a completed portfolio while working on final year projects!

Here’s a quick and dirty list of some of the stuff I’ve been working on this past year in the Interactive Multimedia post-graduate program at Sheridan College.

Current Portfolio – work in progress

Projects:

Rock Revolution

- i made this game with Nick Poisson, a classmate from Interactive Multimedia at Sheridan

- motion capture game, with game play that is similar to Guitar Hero; a webcam is required, 3D glasses are optional!

Paper Robo Flash Application

- builder

- papervision3d, flash

- Paper-Robo is Flash application that allows users to design and build their own action figures. They are made from paper and have joints at the hips, knees, wrists and ankles.

Paper Robo Game

- Paper-Robo Game is Flash game. Jetfire has suffered major battle damage. Help him collect glue bottles for repairs, before his creator sends him to the recycling bin.

Starlight

- Flashlite, mobile prototype

- At arena concerts these days, holding up a lighter during slow songs has been replaced by glowing cell phone displays. How about turning a random sea of blue display lights from phones into something more meaningful like text or animations?

Sheridan College Library

- papervision3d, flash

- Interactive library tours and tutorials for the Sheridan Institute of Advanced Learning and Technology.

The Colbert Desktop – Adobe Air Application

- Marketing widget for “The Colbert Report.” The application aggregates rss feeds about recent clips and upcoming guests, has a shout box for users to post comments, and uses video with alpha channels to simulate a green screen mashup.

Our guest speaker today was Simon Conlin. He works as a consultant and acts as a liason for companies who wish to branch out into interactive multimedia. He is connected to a talented pool of designers, and is co-founder of FlashintheCan, one of the largest Flash developer globally held events in North America.

The multimedia industry is trending towards to more interactive content. Users are spending more time interacting and having fun with content, rather than being “sold” a specific brand or message.When a need arises for a certain application, then the technology becomes mainstream.

Adobe Interactive Installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-NRdyUx8Lc

This installation allows multiple users to create musical content using a multi touch music wall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qmmdGonQW4

MESO is a design team comprised of four designers and one computer engineer. They tout themselves as torn between art and technology, which allows them to bring innovative solution for clients. They do commercial work, while maintaining an artistic base. George Michael used massive interactive stage sets with realtime audio analysis and position tracking in his last Live25 world tour. http://meso.net/GMI25Live

Alexander Calder was an artist that employed the use of balance and motion in his world renown mobile installations. One of Zach Booth Simpon’s complaints is that when museums display these works of art, they don’t allow patrons to touch or blow on these works of art, interaction which Calder had originally intended. This frustration, led to Simpson’s virtual Calder’s: http://www.mine-control.com/zack/balance/balance.html

Webcamtastic is similar to the Photo Booth that come preinstalled on a Mac. It is a Flash web application that accesses your webcam, allowing you to manipulate photos by using distortion and blur filters. http://www.webcamtastic.com/

Potential applications:

Imagine going to a Japanese restaurant, and being able to order sushi from an interactive menu. This would eliminate the need for wait staff and give patrons and detailed description of the menu items.