In the past I tried to use the first wordpress iPhone app without much success so I’m going to give his a shot and see if t works better .. So this js a simple test post.. Now I need to figure put how to add images

Two images from u2. One of them taken by my best friend..

I heard about this on a weekly tech podcast I listen to, and it recently came up on digg and it reminded me to write a little blurb about this on my blog.

Flickr Vision is a simple website that takes photos that are posted in flickr that have been geo tagged (gps data embedded into the photo) and displays them on a 2d or 3d map. Its pretty neat and you can find your self just watching the 3d version for quite some time. I do want to point out this isn’t real time, meaning that the photo posted could of been taken a day ago but someone just decided to add it to flikr, what is real time is when they add it.

anyhow head on over to Flickr Vision and check it out for your self. I prefer the 3d view personally.

Well as some of you may know I used make games back in the 90′s then switched to web development from 2000 to 2007, and have recently jumped back into creating games again. I was recently at the Game Developers Conference here in my home down of San Francisco and wanted to write up a small preview of what I saw.

Why games again you ask? Well as some of you may know I love technology and was able to work with some of the top 3d game engines back in the 90′s and now have a chance once again to work on projects pushing the boundaries of game development.

What did I see at this years GDC 2008? Well for once think I went to a lot of talks and sessions one of them being about BioShock and its story, I thought this was quite a good session, and it covered the bases of empowering player to care about your stupid story. Well thats the title of the talk that Kenneth Levine gave at GDC this year. I don’t have my notes in front of me since I left them at work but to recap they really scaled down what BioShock was originally. They wanted to span a great time period but scaled it down and also scaled back the number of characters in the game. One thing that stood out was the evolution of the little sister.

Pictured below is a few slides from the session, I missed one concept and sorry for the blurry photos but I didn’t want to be rude and use a flash during someones talk.

       

You can it changed quite a bit from the original design, and they eventually settled on the little girl, which worked out well since they Big Daddy was sort of a father figure type of monster that would protect the little sister like it was his daughter.

Next up…

I also went to many sessions dealing with technology and the buzz word this year seems to be destruction.  I guess the game developer industry thinks that players want to blow everything up?  Is this true?  I think so, however this creates a huge challenged for game developers both on the design side and tech side.   Most destruction in the past has been smoke and mirrors and what I mean by that is the player would shoot something and then all of the sudden a massive explosion, smoke and dust particles would happen, ie a the cover up as we call it.  Now people actually want to shoot a wall and have it destroy at the spot where they hit it and see it all break apart like it would in the real world.  Below is a small video I shot from a talk that Havok gave at this years GDC.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This shows off some new middle ware technology that allows game developers to plug in their system and allow for more destruction in games.

Will we see more destruction in games?  From a few of the talks I went to yes, so gear up and get ready to blow the hell out of your new gaming worlds, but be aware it might be slow.

I was also pretty impressed about the Uncharted postmortem, they discussed many of the issues they had while working on this game.  One of the key points they talked about was using motion capture data for animation of game charactors.  As some of you may know that have worked with mocap the data you get back is extremely hard to work with as an animator, and you usually need some tools to massage this data into something more managable for the animators to use.

So on Uncharted they used about 50% standard keyframe animation and 50% motion capture data.

One funny thing was to see while they where working on concepting the main character they looked at pictures of Johnny Knoxville and I have a picture from from one of their slides.

Once again sorry for the blurry photo, but I thought you guys would enjoy this.

The other noteworty talks I went to were “Crysis – The making of”, “Crysis – Next generation Effects”, id Tech5,  Prototype and a few others.

I do have to say one thing, from not being officially in the game industry for some time things have changed it takes bigger teams and a lot more money to pull of these blockbuster titles, and I don’t think the average gamer is aware of all the blood, sweat, tears, divorces, babies all go into making a game.

anyhow I’m running a bit short on time so Ill wrap up by saying it was really nice to run into some of my old school game developer friends from Dallas and other places and I have set up a old school game developer group on facebook, so if your one of those guys hit me up and join the group.

Ill leave you with some more photos from the 2008 Game Developers Conference.

I’t looks like the Crysis demo has been pushed back, originally it was going to be released on Halo 3 day, but looking this morning for any info on the demo I found this in the EA Forums.

I’m waiting for this game, looks like it will hit stores November 16th, 2007.

Check out my previous post about Crysis vs Reality

Hey there-

Sorry for the lack of clarity on this announcement. I can officially confirm that the SP Demo date has been pushed back. I can say with confidence that this decision was made in the best interest of the game as well as your enjoyment of it. There’s also some good news–please see the announcement below, along with a message from Cevat Yerli for the details.

-Jynx

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CRYSIS SINGLE PLAYER DEMO MOVES TO OCTOBER 26, 2007

EA and Crytek are announcing today that the single player demo for Crysis is moving to October 26, 2007. The demo will also be released with Crytek’s CryEngine 2 – Sandbox 2 game editor, giving the community a great amount of hands on time with the powerful mod tools coming with Crysis before the November 16th release date.

Please see Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli’s note to the community for more details.
___________________________________ ____________________________

< br/>Hi everyone,

We have some news to announce.

First, I am sorry for the bad news – the Crysis single player demo will now be available everywhere on October 26th, 2007.

We are taking some extra time to make sure you that you have an amazing experience but also we did not want to risk the release date of Crysis at this stage. To get the game into your hands by November the 16th, we had to make this call.

Now the good news – the big surprise. The SP demo will be released with our CryEngine 2 – Sandbox 2 game editor, giving the community the opportunity to get familiar with the vast amount of tools they will have at their disposal four weeks before we ship, something we have always wanted to do.

This is an exciting time for us at the studio as the development of Crysis comes to an end and we are only a few weeks from Gold Master. We appreciate your patience and are looking forward to getting Crysis into your hands on November 16th.

Thanks,

Cevat Yerli
CEO of Crytek

I have been on the long quest for a great gps logger to carry around on my hikes and travels. I am a shutter bug by nature and on my last trip to Europe Took over 700+ photos and I would of taken more but my 8 gig memory card took a dive 2 day into the trip. Over the past 6 months I have tried out my combination of hardware and software solutions (original post) before finally buying a GiSTEQ logger to take on my trip to Europe with me. I originally saw a link on Engadget a few days before my trip and quickly contacted the company and ordered one.

My experiences with the GiSTEQ device was pretty positive over all but I did find one annoying factor and that was the time it takes to sync up with satellites and start logging data. Every day of our trip, I had to stand outside for what seemed like a few minutes for it to finally sync up, some times this was faster and im sure it was the various locations I was standing at that didn’t help. This is probably due to a lot of the tourist places are in locations where a lot of buildings tower over you. Now I don’t know that much about satellites but I’m guessing that was one of the issues.

The software that comes with the logger is still what I call it in the early stages, while it works most of the time it lacks a lot of the features that I use (Google earth/maps exporter). I have been in contact with them and they assure me they are working on versions to add some of the features that I use and as of the June 7th a new version is out but I haven’t had time to check it out yet.

Never fret though, You can export your gps logs to .nmea format and use software such as RoboGeo to take advantage of more features for geo tagging your photos such as export to Google Earth/Maps, Shape file, DXF file, Mapoint and many other options.

Their is a new gps logger in town I’m trying to get my hands on as well QSTARZ BT-Q1000 GPS which incorporates also bluetooth technology. The GiSTEQ is just a logger but the QSTARZ is both a logger and can be used with other mapping software for trip/route planning.

Over all i pretty happy with the GiSTEQ and as they improve the software I might use it more and more, but for $99 you cant beat the combo of hardware and software that comes at that price.

Lair fan boys get ready to drive down to Sunnyvale, CA on June 2. Factor 5 in conjunction with Cogswell Polytechnical College will be showing off concept art from the PS3 video game Lair which is due out any time now. Members from Factor 5 will be presenting concept art and also talk about the making of Lair. It all kicks off on June 2, starting at 12:30 at the Open House.

Current Schedule:

• Cogswell Open House 12:30 – 3:00 – Learn about degree Programs at Cogswell
• Forum with Factor 5 3:00 – 4:30 – Making of Lair
• Gallery Reception 4:30 – 6:30 – Look behind the scenes at the artwork from Lair

The exhibit will continue from June 2 till July 27 at Cogswell but if you want to hear members from Factor 5 talk about the making I suggest you head down June 2nd. I know most of these guys personally and this is something not to be missed, especially if your looking for a career in videos games.

One of my buddies Pat’s work will be shown at this exhibit so stop by his blog and give him a shout here.

Google Maps is a great tool for anyone looking for locations, driving directions and more. Today Gogole has released the ability for you to create your own map, where you can annotate, outline, add photos or videos to your map. Once you have your map created you can share it with your friends.

I tested this out today and created a map of one of my favorite places for a good IPA beer (Marin Brewing Company). You can check out the screen cap I took here or select this link which will then show you my map in your browser.

To create your own map you need a Google Account which is free, check out the how to here.

One of my good friends who works for Factor5 spoke at the latest Game Developer Conference (GDC) about “Creating Next-Generation Materials for Lair”. This presentation gives you a bit of incite on the next generation of game development and the directions the top developers are going in order to create great visuals for you gamers.

Screen Grab from Presentation

This is more of a technical presentation geared towards artist but if you have any interest in game development its worth checking out the PDF that Matthias Worch released recently.

BTW this screen shot the full 1080p was hidden somewhere in the presentation.

Links:

Lair GDC Presentation Page
Factor 5 – Developers of Lair
Lair HD Trailer

Keep and Eye on this game to hit your PS3 some time this year!

Got a cool mobile phone that allows you to stream video? Check out my new project im working on which is going to try to demystify the issues with mobile phone streaming as much as possible. Currently their are so many different mobile phones and each has its own way of streaming or downloading video that it drives developers made. I have set up a site Mobile Video Streaming Project which aims from the help of you guys to try to eliminate as much hassle for both developer and user who wants to watch video on his/her phone.

We have currently set up a test site which we ask you to visit on your phones browser http://mvstreaming.mobi (mobi is the new domain extension for mobile phone domains). What our test does it first try to detect your phone (70% accuracy) how ever don’t fret, you can still try our test video page if your device isn’t recognized.

The actual page with the video clip on it will offer up all current video formats that mobile phones use, so while yours might only play the first one and not the rest don’t worry, this is just a limitation of your phone, our goal is to find out which phones play what formats the best. I also want to note that you will need a decent internet connection from your phone. Things like Sprint Vision Pack (EDVO), Cingular’s Edge or anything that your plan offers that gives you better connection speeds. We are not encoding video at very low bit rates and frankly if you saw a video at such a lower resolution it would be like watching a bunch of blocks dance around with horrible audio.

So if you like please visit our Project site on the web and mobile site on your phone and any feedback is welcome. If your not quite sure if your phone supports video streaming (this is different from downloading because some phones offer only downloading but not streaming) visit Phone Scoop and look up your mobile phone model number.

I have been waiting for this game for some time and still have to wait till the end of the year to get my hands on it. While a lot of media (video, photos) of this game have been released I was wowed the other day when looking at these new photos that match their in game visuals vs the real life areas that they mimicked in the game.

The game engine dubbed CryENGINE2 is used in the upcoming game Crysis by the company Crytek. What a mouth full but here are some screen shots of game vs reality, enjoy!

If these photos arnt enough for you check out some videos from the game at GameTrailers.com .