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Reading Summaries:
Project Links:
Sound Remix Project
Game Making Project
Voyeur Film Project (with Kellen Schuaermann & Heidi Higginbottom)
Thesis Project - LGBT Game
Thesis Paper - Storytelling in Video Games
Digital Sketchbook:
12-19-06 Tuesday
I just finished writing this article on storytelling in games. I wanted to explore the current techniques used and to find out who's being effective at communicating interesting ideas through games.
12-19-06 Tuesday
I'm looking to move to San Francisco when I graduate since it's a nice location and a major hub for game developers. Right now, the top contendents are: Electronic Arts and LucasArts.
12-19-06 Tuesday
IGDA - International Game Developers Association - is a nice way to link in with the professionals in the game industry. I joined up last week after my career advisor said it would help. Plus, they are offering scholarships for students wanting to goto the Game Developers Conference this year! Count me in =D
12-19-06 Tuesday
I love the new Wii. I've played my friends' and its freakin awesome to swing around that thing like a tennis racket and go bowling. I'm excited by the idea of bringing non-game-players into the medium with this new kind of controller. It does even up the playing field - parents are beating their kids at games! Plus, it's just fun.
12-17-06 Sunday
For my final paper in Writing class I looked at brainwave recordings taken while people were in a flow state (ie a jazz musician improvising or a painter who's in the groove). Here's my findings and opinions on the subject - Seeing Flow
12-17-06 Sunday
Back on Dec 8th I entered the programming competition "Imagine Cup" hosted by Microsoft. I did the first 7 code challenges and ended up placing 71st in the rankings (which was good, cause the first 250 get to go on to the next round). Mostly these challenges had me learning C#, which I would like to know since it's the new fav for rapid prototyping windows applications.
12-15-06 Friday
Here's a screenshot of some of those new css tehcniques in action:
12-15-06 Friday
I just learned that myspace customization works using css! So with some copy and paste techniques, I'm starting to learn how it all works. Here's a little example of code. PS, you paste this style sheet code in the "About Me" section of your profile.
12-15-06 Friday
The author of the indie game Flow (previously mentioned below) has made it big in the game industry. Check out the article
Now coming to the XBox 360
12-14-06 Thursday
Here's my sweet thesis project, the all new LGBT video game. Check it out!
11-15-06 Wednesday
Working on my website. Here's a few different versions of my main menu that I'm trying out. My goal was to get some sections more attention than others. ie I have lots of games, so that should stand out more than say, photos, which doesn't have much content.
main_menu_buttons_area_OLD.gif
main_menu_buttons_area_NoStars.gif
main_menu_buttons_area_Stars1.gif
main_menu_buttons_area.gif (current)
11-14-06 Tuesday
I just created this blog as a way to keep people updated on my new LGBT video game project. Plus, people can post their comments and ideas (as moderated by me).
Cami's new game making project
11-12-06 Sunday
I updated my school page. Can't believe I had so little on there before. Now it's better.
11-12-06 Sunday
3 Websites I like and why...
- Marvel.com
Besides the cool content, look at how they do their menu buttons. For more prominant pages the buttons are larger, and for lesser items smaller. This would go nicely on my site, as I've got varying sized pages and would like to promote certain ones more.
- DeviantArt.com
They have alot to sort and display here. I like their structured template look for showing the content. It helps cut through the information and allow me to get to what I want right away. Also, see how people can leave comments about an artists' projects? I'd love to have something like that on my site.
- Facebook.com
It's usable and popular. Lots of links to get to things from more than one direction. Intuitive photo adding/sharing design. Sharing friends, ideas, groups, thoughts, and anything else. Oriented towards a college audience.
11-5-06 Sunday
Pop-icon logo design
11-5-06 Sunday
Here's a cool game. Jenova Chan studies the flow state created by video games, so he made this to try allowing giving the player control over when they advance and move back. It's a fun game, simple concepts, and pretty graphics. Also, it's made in Flash. ^_^
11-2-06 Thursday
I had some fun with photoshop at our Media Art Group tonight
10-29-06 Sunday
The Healthy Virtual Space of MMOs - I just finished writing my argumentative paper on the positive influences of massive multiplayer online games. I'm not an MMO player myself, so this actually required alot of research on my part. I'm quite proud this, I really found alot of useful information and statistics. Be sure and give me feedback if you read it!
10-29-06 Sunday
10-29-06 Sunday
Secrets
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmericanFamily/story?id=2602098
http://secret.com/
http://grouphug.us/
In looking at these confession sites, I feel validated for ever having done something I was sorry for. It's nice to see lots of people "messing up". To hear their acts of great shame, I understand most secrets are quite funny and a little sad. To have something building up inside me, wanting to get out, and me being so afraid to say it outloud is excrushiating. Maybe if I go tell my secrets to these sites, I will feel a little less pressure and be able to tell to person that needs to hear this information.
In regards to secrets and power, I believe keeping a secret from someone you care for puts up a barrier. I stop allowing certain topics to escape, I stop sharing on things that would lead down that path. It becomes difficult to be as close to that person. And any comfort this person gives me doesn't quite mean as much as it once did, because they don't know the whole story. So, do I have power over them? Do I have more control over them? Maybe. But I don't have what I really wanted, which was a balanced and trust-worthy relationship.So I consider my power to be lost when I hide something that needs to come out.
10-22-06 Sunday
Thinking about the new project on the gaze. Here's what I've come up with.
10-22-06 Sunday
Breakfast Cereal assignment:
1 part Granola (no raisins)
1 part Rice Chex
That's what I do for breakfast usually. Mixin it up you know? So I imagine if I actually made this cereal, I'd have to add somethin to it. Cause I get bored with just 1 flavor. ps Soy-Milk is the best! But how come its so dang expensive?
10-19-06 Thursday
Ian just showed me this cool site: www.tokyoplastic.com It's got really smooth 2d and 3d animation. What most interests me is the DrumMachine animation with girls hitting drums with their heads. The beats are very clearly visualized in this preformance. This could be a nice interface for beat making software, giving the user a mental picture of what's doing what - this guy is making this sound every half a second, with the picture of a little drum.
Inspiring how much the artist communicates to all languages with sound and animation. The world is your audience on the web, why not communicate to everyone?
10-19-06 Thursday
I'm working on an argumentative paper on the social skills gained from massive multiplayer online games (MMOs). When I started I wasnt even sure if I believed it, but now evidence and paper are becoming strong. People who have read it are beginning to understand that MMOs are not just some black hole that players step into and lose time. So here's my second draft, with the final paper coming on Tuesday.
10-17-06 Tuesday
Here's some interesting things I've found on the ideas of curiosity & 'the gaze' (my notes)
10-16-06 Sunday
Voyerism and Me:
Since our next project involves ideas of watching others, I'd like to look at how I allow others to watch me. The impersonal, unknownable, viewership my website is a place I largely display of myself. Through my mediums of expression, I fill my cyberspace with the most ambitious and most confident parts of myself. I allow anyone to enter, anyone to see, but do not allow my viewers to post comments. Do I wish to hide from what they are feeling when they look at me? I do have a stats counter, so I can see where they log in from in the world, and how many people are interested in seeing what I am. There is some satisfaction that comes from knowing this.
Another forum in which I place much energy is through leadership and teaching activities. Here I know what to do, know how to react, and mostly come away feeling empowered and strong. But in this, more public, interaction, I do receive feedback. If someone is upset or frustrated or disapproving of my actions, I hear it and I feel it. I believe that this feedback is what makes this medium of expression more powerful. Because I can be hurt, I can then listen, change, and grow (or listen, hold fast, and stick up for myself). Either way, it looks like being looked at and admired doesn't give me all the inspiration I thought it would; it's through allowing my audience to express themselves as admiring, indifferent, and disapproving that I truely strengthen myself.
10-1-06 Sunday
Coming up with ideas for my game. After reading Schleiner's article, I've decided I'd like to help populate video games with more female heroes. This sketch shows two sides of my personality, one weak, one strong, both existing together. I'd like to comment on my fight to help myself be strong, my internal struggle to be a hero.
10-1-06 Sunday
And here's a piece of art I enjoyed. It's got a mix of mediums with a b & w photo background and pen-and-ink sketches with color in the foreground. I'd like to implement this kind of style. Perhaps taking photographs around boulder for the background.
This is artwork by Ana Maria Martinez
10-1-06 Sunday
My friend and I worked on some stop-motion movies today. Mine is about a frog who's gettin spied on by a snake. The frog's name is Phibian. The photo-taking isn't complete yet, so you'll have to wait on how this one turns out. Here's the rough draft.
Download Quicktime mov: Phibian and the Snake (44 MB)
9-24-06 Sunday
Instructions for how to play my favorite childhood game, Super Mario Bros.
9-21-06 Thursday
I'm working on this Mural for the Atlas building. Here's a praire dog and the background I finished.
9-21-06 Thursday
Pop Songs Remix - Here's a song by Osymyso in which he mixes clips from hit songs. There's 101 songs put together in 10 minutes.
Besides just enjoying the song, I'm interested because I'd like my sound remix to be in a similar format. Right now I've recorded clips from lots of my fav songs and I'm trying to mix them together. Osymyso has a different version that's a bit shorter and has a more cohesive feel to it.
9-18-06 Monday
Offensive:
http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&groupID=103883734
I'm on myspace and I just got invited to a "sex on live webcams" group. That's annoying. Not much I can do to stop this kind of invitation, but it doesn't happen very often. Clicking the link, I see a girl in her underwear, lookin all horny. I wish I'd get invited to a "powerful and successful women" group sometime. Lets get a few positive spams goin ok?
**Insert missing sketchbook entries from home computer**
9-10-06 Sunday
I've decided I'd like to be a video game producer. This is because of my love of making meaningful games, and how much I enjoy working with others to see a project come to life. I believe the experience of working on a project is reflected in the game; ie if we kept our deadlines, had effective schedules, and avoided too much crunch time, the product will come out being strong and appreciated. Here's some sites that talk about what a game producer does, and how to become one -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_producer
http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/07/25/ask-producer-where-to-start/
9-10-06 Sunday
Since it's Sunday night, I'm putting off going to bed. Why did the weekend go by so fast? Let me recall my day for you. Today I mostly did errands, like going grocery shopping, doing laundry, and cooking a big meal for eating during the week. I finished reading the database paper for Capstone, organized my team's schedules for CS Senior Projects, finalized my edits on my Writing papers, and avoided reading the text book for Object Oriented Programming (woops!). The officers for the Game Developers Club came over and we planned out Tuesday's meeting and then came up with events that we can get food funding for. Travis tried to fix my computer, but now one harddrive is missing ;) Oh, and I sent out about 9 emails for various reasons. The funnest part? Getting to watch 3 episodes of Buffy with my roommate. And of course, the joys of having completed all tasks for tomorrow. Yay for me!
9-7-06 Thursday
> We just had our first Media Art Group meeting. I had a bunch of fun. We looked at short-videos from various artists, a Flash game with photo-realistic art, and some tech-art things going on around campus.
> Next meeting is Thursday, Sept 21st at 8:00pm. Atlas 2nd floor lounge.
> See our new blog! http://cu-mag.blogspot.com/
8-30-06 Wednesday
Added an area for reading summaries and my first summary.
Game Dev Club - last night was the first meeting of the year. About 30 people showed up and we had a great time. A bunch of our old-members showed demos of their games and the new people got all involved with playing games at the end. I got to talk a bunch, which I always enjoy ;) And we started a contest for makin a racing game! Sounds like fun times are ahead. Oh, and I got like 8 people to sign up for the TAM Club mailing list. Yup yup. I wish I had had my camera, gotta remember that next time.
8-28-06 Monday
I've created this little page here for my capstone class. Yup yup.