iMyth

Blog

  • 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.

  • Economic Evidence For Immersive Experiences

    I have been tracking this wave for the last ten years and its finally starting to hit!

    Experience based entertainment is going through an upswing especially with the Millenials.

    I am participating with that with the creation of IMyTH.

    The evidence for the demand for such experiences is captured in this Financial Post article. I was not able to copy the video blog but it does a good job at capturing the essence of what I’m capitalizing on. This may be a good representation of what’s going on in Canada. The good `Ole USA can’t be far behind.

     

  • Hyde Horror Maze

    When it rains it pours. I also encountered an article today on Kataku about the Hyde Horror Maze.

    Not entirely dissimilar to The Void or the IMyTH experience, these folks wish to create an interactive maze where the players must navigate through a real maze in order to “survive” the experience. The maze is evidently sentient and monitors and controls the players progress through the maze in order to ensure a challenging and horrifying experience. I know they are on to a good thing. Let’s hope they can raise their money and display the commercial viability of the interactive narrative experience.

  • The Link between GBUs and Interactive Storytelling

    Things in the VR/AR world have been going crazy lately. My website went down recently. However, after many hours of keyboard pounding, my lovely wife was able to get my site back up and running.(Thanks Ha!)

    I was very pleasantly surprised to bump into a couple of articles written by a young programmer from Cambridge, UK, Josh Newland. He posted two very nice articles on Gamasutra about procedural world building in Unity and Interactive Storytelling.

    Josh’s first article on Procedural World Building in Unity gives a brief description the the techniques Josh utilizes to generate procedural worlds in the Unity game engine. Throughout the article he provides helpful links to explanations of the algorithms he employs and how he integrates them into one system. This is an outstanding example of how GBUs can be generated utilizing basic modern game engines.

    Josh’s second article on Games and Interactive Storytelling, provides a wonderful introduction to the currently locked puzzle of Interactive Storytelling. He quickly describes the inevitable contradiction of Player Agency Vs. Linear Narrative. Reduced to a simple sentence, “How does one generate an engaging interactive, linear narrative experience while without constraining the full immersive experience?” He goes on to describe one possible solution to resolve this by employing social agents (Smart NPC’s) to marshal an enriching interactive experience. This is the approach legendary game designer, Chris Crawford, is employing to create Interactive Storytelling.

    I find it very refreshing to encounter yet another soul who has paired procedural world building with Interactive Storytelling. Anyone familiar with this blog is aware this is the entire foundation with which this blog is written. Great Job Josh!

  • Images form Landmark

    Here are some images of the project Landmark is creating for a virtual Theme Park in China, posted in this Road to VR article.

    I don’t really think this has much to do with immersive theme-world or immersive epic experiences. I think it is more like Disneyquest, “Hey look, here is what’s cool and can be done now!”. Regardless, more endeavors such as this will only help to further the immersive the-park experience.

  • Glove One and Hands Omni join the Haptic Evolution

    The innovations just keep spilling forth.

    This most recent article, 2 VR Gloves, exposes two very possible technologies that simulate human tactile experience. The Glove One concept seems almost too good to be true.

     

  • Google VR 101

    This article about Google’s VR 101 seems like something to check out.