iMyth

Month: July 2015

  • Another “How to” for Procedural Level Generation

    Procedural generation is sprouting everywhere and authors are more than eager to share their results. This net installment comes from Nick Donnelly in his article in his article “Procedural Level Generation for the Dungeoning“.

    It is an interesting article describing why and fundamentally how he implemented procedural level generation. However, if one was to look for a more “Hands On”, technical description of what he did you would find more information in Josh Newland’s article and the GDC presentation given by Zack Aikman.

     

  • Chris Crawford Inspiring the future of Interactive Storytelling

    In an interview posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Chris Crawford admits his visions for an full interactive storytelling experience is still off in the future.

    Crawford believes the foundation for interactive storytelling lies with language and social intelligence. These are very hard beasts to tame. I personally believe these elements are a huge component to the overall experience. However they are not everything and they are really hard to deal with. I applaud Chris Crawford trying to get “Siboot” off the ground. He is trying to inspire a new wave of ideology and sway the technology to tame issues such as character-driven stories. If he, and others, can demonstrate there is a commercially viable application to develop this tech, then we will see a landslide of attention and these beasts will soon be tamed.

    Chris Crawford has inspired me. While I myself am focusing on the more presentational aspects of the interactive narrative experience, it is my hope we can attract enough attention to motivate other innovators to help conquer these phenomenal barriers and create a truly enriching and rewarding interactive experience.

  • The Void To build 230 VR Theme-Parks

    I just encountered an article from Road to VR article about The Void intending to build 230 Theme-park locations in the next five years.

    I have to admit that these plans are indeed ambitious and I have seen the opportunity for myself. I am looking forward to see how the SLC proto-type works out. I really want this to work and I hope for these guys to succeed. Maybe I am too green and too inexperienced of a business person but I just can’t help being overwhelmed by the magnitude of these plans without  any demonstration of commercial viability or data/technology infrastructure.

    I feel the plans I have for IMyTH will need to grow grass roots and feel its way out in to the public its own time and method. For the sake of the industry I certainly hope they are right on target. There is a lot of capitol being thrown at this endeavor.

  • How Disney Designs VR Experiences for Themeparks

    This is really cool and I’m glad Gamasutra was able to push this content online.

    This is a lecture given by Bei Yang, one of the executives in Imagineering. I had an opportunity to attend this lecture at GDC last March is it was very interesting. Disney seems to be very aware of the current VR rush but is approaching it with a very controlled and and somewhat pragmatic attitude. While they are working on their own VR type applications and attractions they seems to be aware of the recent evolution.

    IMHO, I think Disney is really one of the Illuminati of this whole VR/AR explosion. They seem to be letting everyone go a little crazy and do all the R&D necessary to make this a solid and commercially viable platform. They are sitting by and watching. In the meanwhile, they seems to be creating the infrastructure for something much larger and grander. Things like the hand bands that track the users’ locations and activities seems to support a much larger, immersive experience. What this vision is I am not sure. However, I have been tracking it for many years and the bread crumbs left by the Imagineers only tease at what technology is yet to come.