Something I meant to post ages ago, this is something I came across for the first time in the Interactive Storytelling book by Glassner. Its an excellent example of life-like behaviour being exhibited by simple systems, describing a setup of a car fitted with light sensors and motors and how they can demonstrate definable characteristics with almost no complexity. Definitely want to build a little simulator for this sometime.
Its made be want to get Programming Game AI by Example, which is meant to be a fantastic book on the subject.

starting to get to grips with mental ray a bit better thanks to a bunch of tutorials. finally properly understand final gather, global illumination, and image based lighting through HDRI. been having a bit of a play with the emily and randolph setup (theres a new thumbnail there). also just picked up on the feature in Maya that lets you convert a paint effect tree/shrub into a set of polygons if it has “mesh” in the name. hey presto, easy trees, flowers etc. generates about a billion polygons tho.

Been doing a bit of tidying up of the site. finally added the ability to go back to old news posts, so you can go back about a year. mainly did this cos i couldnt be arsed going through phpmyadmin to find old posts i made ages ago.
ive uploaded a couple of “lost” projects that seem to have been taken down, roadies and the ratchet and clank viral, just so they are still online somewhere, and ive added a new page for tunnel tap, so ive got somewhere to put progress.
there is a comments system thats kinda built but its a load of hassle to get finished off, so i dont have time tonight but will definitely add it soon.

voodoo ray has finally got some decent level designed for it and is starting to feel fun. seems like that first level design is the hardest bit of creating a new game, to create that first experience that captures the challenges, the interaction model and the essence of the game. still looks like crap but i think its solid ground to build on tunnel tap is the latest thing im looking at, inspired by a bit of toshio iwai, trying to stick bits of otocky, reason, rez, tempest and jeff minter inspiration into a sandwich, hope it tastes ok. even if it doesnt, its interesting learning. came across the wonderful zynaddsubfx as part of research, its a great open source software synthesizer, bit more than i need but all learning is good eh?

Watercooler games uncovers this sinister plot. I hear the scores are beamed directly to a US military base in a mountain.

More coverage on gamasutra (might require registration) and gamewatch (weird/amusing translation warning)

Have a look here.

Q&A Session with some of the game designers that are top in their field in terms of integrating storytelling with game design. read all about it on gamespot. on a sidenote, i finally finished interactive storytelling by glassner at the weekend, after my reading type approached nuclear half life, taking me the same amount of time to read half as much as it had previously. i thought i would never finish it, but im glad i did. a very thorough explanation of some of the key ingredients of traditional storytelling as well as a well thought-out and argued series of theories as to where the future of interactive storytelling lies. glassners personal view is that we will approach a future of interactive, multiplayer, participatory plays, occasionally with hired human “guides”, in a very similar manner to the holodeck made famous by star trek.

And the word “sim” is nowhere to be found. His latest title, called “Spore”, looks like an astonishingly ambitious and unique title, allowing you to control life from microscopic cellular level right up to galactic scale. Check out Gamespot’s writeup.

A very open, humble and interesting talk from GDC by Keita Takahashi is up on gamespot. Theres a bit of background on how katamari damacy came about, including the wonderful quote “Takahashi decided to “proactively ignore” the voices of dissent” in reference to those doubting his title. He also talks a little of his questionning of the value of the contribution of video games to society.