The video explains most of the process. And it’s a couple of months old now but I keep forgetting to add it here. So here it is.
Also there are images in the details post.

I’m starting a new project. It’ll be going for a while. I’ve got to have it finished by 2018. I’m not going to take that long, at least I don’t plan to. I’m starting a DVA (here’s a link)

So there might be some weird posts over the next few years, while I work on this thing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

M

If you haven’t heard, Freeplay is going to happen in Melbourne in about a week and half. It’s turning into a pretty significant event. Not only because of the stellar lineup of people. Not just because most major game conventions in Australia are slowly dying. But for me it’s the way the talks have been put together. Grab a bunch of people and take them out of their comfort zone. Then put an audience in front of them. What could go wrong.

Why am I mentioning this? Well I’m on a panel called “101 things I learnt in Game Design School”. The idea comes from this book, which is a personal favourite of mine (buy it, it’s really good). The way it’s working is that all the Freeplay speakers (there are about 600,000 of them) offer a thing they learnt. And then we panel about them. The last bit is a little hazy but Helen assures me that it’s under control.

Before my friends get out the pitchforks, it wasn’t my idea. I’m not a game designer. And I never went to a Game Design School. But I do run one (which might be the only reason I’m on the panel) and I hang around a lot of Design people so I’ve leached a lot of ideas though the years.

As prep I sat down to see if I could write out 101 things that I actually do know. I present them below as a way of throwing myself at the mercy of the court. If I’ve learnt anything it’s because people much smarter than I already figured it out and shared it with me. This talk is for them.

Click Details to get the list.

This was day 1 for the Alternator Brisbane Dev team. The amazing thing is nothing exploded.

So myself and 3 other people are looking after the Brisbane side of the Alternator Game project for the ABC. The project is going to run for about 6 months. I’m going to endeavour to document the whole thing and drop out updates. I want to make the whole stressful and insane process a little more stressful and insane by being as open as possible.

And so the video above. This is our first clean, build, break, fix, network, install day. And the funk music makes it sound a lot more awesome. We’ve moved into K Tower in the Valley with Defiant Development. A brand new studio started by Morgan Jaffit.

More info to come, as we wind down from all the red cordial of yesterday.

Music by Kutiman “The Mother Of All Funk Cords”
You can buy his stuff here And you should because he’s awesome.

I finally had a weekend off so I put together this face tracking PONG demo using openCV. It’s just like the original PONG. But. With. Your. Face. There should be a nice HD version at Vimeo. I try to explain what’s happening in the video so watch it to hear what’s going on. Strangely enough keeping composed while trying to smack cubes with your face is a little tricky.

March was insane. I got back home and the next day was the first class of the year. And I haven’t stopped. Every project I was working on came to a grinding halt. Which was a little annoying. But there is great stuff coming down the line that I’m looking forward to getting out there. GFSGames has their first lot of 3rd years and they are awesome.

But next week is the mid term break so it’s scramble to get ahead time. No rest for the wicked or the convenor.

MattD

a Pollock via iPhone and Pollock via Pollock by matt ditton (AKA polymonkey)

Tomorrow is Saturday and it’s really my last day of holiday. Sunday I’m getting a tour of the TOKYO GEIJUTSU DAIGAKU new media department from my old processing buddy Saito. I get the plane home on Monday, touchdown Tuesday and stand up in fronts of the first class of the year on Wednesday. I’m already damn tired and I’ve got a backlog of 40GB and growing of photos and video to get through. I’m leaving the photos for the plane.

Just one thing though. Visually this country is exhausting, Tokyo specifically. I’m good with iconography and body language so I’ve had no problems getting places or talking to people, just no existential topics. But I can’t read the language so I’m constantly searching for english in any signage. And the sheer number of fonts is driving me insane. How do people stand it here? After a day walking around I’m happy for any small part of familiar grounding. It did make me smile when I thought I saw comic sans at DisneyLand.

Guess what they sell ? by matt ditton (AKA polymonkey)

We’ve been here a day and it’s raining. Which is better than the snow that was falling when we first got here. If you follow the link above, I’ve started a flicker set with all the photos. Off to get some lunch and avoid the cold.

050908_01_Tori_gates by matt ditton (AKA polymonkey)

From Saturday the 13th to March the 2nd I’m on holiday. I’m heading to Tokyo and camping in a hotel room for 2 weeks. Urban touristing. The sights I see will be the concrete and kitsch of the Tokyo MegaCity. I’ll be posting photos and a few posts no doubt. And I still have to finish my experimental gamplay entry for the month. So I’ll be doing stuff. But nothing serious. To kick that off there is another photo after the jump (click the post to see).

050909_01_Choco_Collon by matt ditton (AKA polymonkey)

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Right click and save this file -> save_me_some_frames

Really that paragraph has everything. Timing Pulses. Wave Trains. Phase Reversal. Tensor Fields Passing Through Zero. Seriously it’s amazingly cool. I can barely comprehend what it’s on about, and that’s just from the introduction. But it just emits a level of sci-fi geekery that you rarely find. Just one of the daily gems I get from twitter. Specifically from Nick Porcino (Meshula), go follow him.

I now have to go make something where a tensor field passes through zero.