Comments for Free Pixel

Comment on Trendy dollars by Michael

Michael — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:22:09 +0000

I also liked the original commercial most and finding a Chinese Citroën Transformer fan club is very neat. It seems one runs into this folding and multiplying effect all over the place these days but now that I think of it: Stargate had those obviously unrealistic "masks" unfolding over the heads of the actors. The Transformer cartoon series had a more organic feel somehow, ?

Comment on Trendy dollars by Denis Foley

Denis Foley — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:28:13 +0000

Many other car companies have imitated Mann’s theme of the
Transformer other then Peugeot/Citroën, but I always feel that they do it best.

This transformer theme has been so widely excepted that I know of a Citroën car club in China that has made a very detailed model of the Transformer car that they take to meets.

Thanks for the very nice article,

Denis

Comment on Machinima variety shows by Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:00:31 +0000

Sweet article. Actually, Jim Henson did a behind the scenes special where he showed off “Waldo(I think),” a cg character controlled by an early, well, WALDO unit. I think that would be fantastic.

I’ve been working towards similar goals as described in your article. This is two years old, but you can see the direction I’m going in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3qy2waZ5hk

I think the crucial thing is for machinima makers to separate themselves from the fiction of the game, including what elements could constitute “characters.”

In two years, I still haven’t seen inanimate objects in Halo 3 used for puppetry.

Comment on Aarseth/ Harrell/ Murray – games and narrative by Michael

Michael — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:53:21 +0000

I would not go this far. How our neurons actually operate and most definitions of "story" seem to be pretty different things. There is a lot of work on the way that words and descriptions help us to structure and develop thoughts. See Turner's The Literary Mind, for example.

Comment on Aarseth/ Harrell/ Murray – games and narrative by bllius

bllius — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:29:45 +0000

Curious to how the brain encodes temporal information. Does the brain tell itself a story to make sense of neural inputs?

Comment on Aarseth/ Harrell/ Murray – games and narrative by Michael

Michael — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:09:42 +0000

All good questions – and there is a back and forth between different positions and answers regarding them. One view can be called formalist. Here, the idea is that a narrative consists of a certain amount of relatively defined elements and we can trace the “narrative-ness” in these elements. For example Vladimir Propp identified key elements in Russian fairy tales and was able to re-trace them in these tales again and again until he actually came up with a formula for these elements. Others, like Gerard Genette, work on a higher level but still break down narratives (e.g. in the event/ fabula, the telling of this event, and the resulting story).
On the other hand, the idea of narrative as a form of understanding (and communication) is also out there, e.g. Jerome Bruner is somewhere in that corner.
There is not a single “true” answer to that debate but various different attempts. Some models – like Joseph Campbell’s monomyth – are a bit more prevalent then other; some narrative basics – like Aristotle’s call for closure – are less relevant in modern narratives (like soap operas that keep always parts open as cliffhangers).
My own view is that game designer design experiences. These experiences are all kinds of things (visceral, dramatic, poetic …) and one of the these things is narrative. I do agree that narrative is an important element of sense-making and that the game designer has to foster for that. And I think this can be done relatively elegant through spatial design.
But the discussion on games and narrative has been spread so long and thin that few scholars really want to go back there. Machinima, for me, is a very good example for narrative realization of the design of a game. Players re-tell their experiences or stage new ones in the game worlds and both are signs for a narrative understanding and contextualization of the game world. But there you go …
Oh, and no DAC for me this year – I should be at the ICIDS, though (how fitting: the International Conference for Interactive Digital Storytelling).

Comment on Aarseth/ Harrell/ Murray – games and narrative by tracy harwood

tracy harwood — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:55:36 +0000

I’m no media theorist but I tend to think Bilius is on to something – I tend to think the story is co-created and co-produced by the gamer and the player in an ‘experience environment’? this can also include multiple players when its an MMO or VL. and what of emotion – cognition alone is an unsophisticated concept within this context isn’t it? Fox seems to be implying a deeper emotional response with this ‘fantasy’ comment, despite the apparent ‘lense’? Enjoy DAC Michael!

Comment on Aarseth/ Harrell/ Murray – games and narrative by bllius

bllius — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:36:23 +0000

What’s the definition of “narrative” with respect to these discussions?

And when you say “whether games tell stories”, what exactly do you mean.

From Wikipedia: “It derives from the Latin verb narrare, which means “to recount” and is related to the adjective gnarus, meaning “knowing” or “skilled”. (Ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European root gnō-, “to know”.”

Is the game telling the story, or does the gamer experience the story? Does the gamemaker make the story? or does the gamemaker tell the story? or does the gamemaker merely set the dominoes in motion?

Comment on Machinima variety shows by fiezi

fiezi — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:37:35 +0000

When we were still working on Bob, we were thinking of simple, even web-based interactions of “throw a rose” or “throw a tomatoe”. These things are very easy to implement, and when you look at variety show crowds, well, you’ll realise that you’ll never see them really. But they have to be there. The idea is to have them do silly things, not sit in different positions so you need to send out bone rotations…

Comment on Machinima variety shows by Michael

Michael — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:09:08 +0000

Writing certainly is crucial but Chris Burke is actually quite good in his show and so are the ILL Clan in Larry & Lenny Lumberjack. There is some decent show talent there. Related to that: Money is also “an issue.” Just look at the problems of This Spartan Life and the question whether it can ever make any money or not or how or when.
But the more substantial problem is the question whether UnrealTV would be actually flexible enough to do a show like that. For example, I try to make the point of too rigid animation control (again) and I seriously doubt that UnrealTV would allow for customized puppet control because their network protocol is probably far from covering individual bone rotations.
However, more audience participation sounds a like great idea. Just not sure how to realize that.