Game trailers grow up
August 27, 2008
To the CG community, game-related videos – trailers, intros and in-game FMV sequences – are often seen as a bit of a laughing stock. But the latest generation show that they're a match for Hollywood's output.
There used to be a good reason why CG films for games received so much scorn. Produced on the microbudgets left over after the game developer had blown its wad on flashy in-game effects, there was little time or money for anything more than the mediocre. These films were clearly considered less of a priority for budgets than T-shirts with the developer's logo on it, which when combined with the components of most games -- aliens, orcs, explosive magical effects, and/or swords and guns the size of your average telephone pole -- you end up with something of about the same VFX level as the films you knocked up at
Design Language | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Whipping the Apple TV into shape
August 27, 2008
Those who know me know that I have a love/hate relationship with my Apple TV. I love it because it's just such a clever and convenient way to deliver iTunes Store purchases and media I've obtained in other ways to my TV and AV system. I hate it because it's far-too-prone to doing nothing in an impudent sort of way as I impotently mash the Apple Remote's controls over and over again.
The latter was happening often enough that I've spent more time with my DVD library of late rather than tussling with the Apple TV. But what a waste of cool technology!
Digital Arts | Christopher Breen | Read more...
Scare Tactics: “Fear is the mind killer”
August 22, 2008
This week the games industry have begun a major ‘crackdown’ on peer to peer sharing after the case against Isabella Barwinska by Pinballs Dreams who won with a £16k payout. This precedent now gives the industry license to go after all those folk out there who are pinching the wares.
While I reckon the verdict is somewhat extreme I do actually appreciate that the games industry has a job on it’s hands, with PC piracy seriously taking a dent out of profits. You could even argue that it’s the reason why there are so few independent developers left and the vast majority of gaming software is safe bet sequels and licenses.
Lateral thinking | Jon Bains | Read more...
Kick off the Bank Holiday with a huge-scale VJ gig
August 21, 2008
Our favourite VJ crew are returning to the National Theatre on the South Bank tomorrow (Friday August 22) for their fourth annual outdoor mix of music and visuals. Addictive TV combine bouncy electronica with film and TV samples, with matched clips projected onto the huge exterior wall of the Flytower. The performance can be seen all the way from the other side of the Thames – though it's best to be on the balcony of the NT, where crowds congregate for a bit of a boogie.
Addictive TV use Pioneer's DVJ-1000 decks with DVDs, allowing them to mix and scratch both audio and video as one. The show always great and the atmosphere's cracking. You can see samples of Addictive TV's work on their Web site. The remixed versions of Get Carter, The Rolling Stones Satisfaction and Blondie vs the Doors are the first videos you should check out.
Design Language | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Web 2.0's most ridiculous sites
August 19, 2008
The world loves Wikipedia, flocks to Flickr, and listens to Last.fm. And why not? Web 2.0 sites like them harness collective knowledge, promote interaction and communication, and improve the more you use them.
Alas, not every Web 2.0 site is a winner. Many are vague, pointless, or just plain silly. As Web critic Nicholas Carr notes, "If I were called in to rename Web 2.0, I think I'd call it Gilligan's Web," after the goofy '60s sitcom.
Digital Arts | Robert Luhn | Read more...
Another must-see music video from the Chemical Brothers
August 18, 2008
Midnight Madness is the latest music video from the Chemical Brothers, and like almost all of the DJ duo's promos, it's a corker. Pushing a digital download-only single in the run up to the release of the best-of album Brotherhood, the video for Midnight Madness matches previous work for the act by mixing a great idea and execution with subtle use of visual effects.
A QuickTime of the director's cut of the video can be downloaded from here.
Design Language | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Milli Vanilli, the Chinese, Apple and forgiveness
August 18, 2008
Remember Milli Vanilli, the late 80's-early 90's chart-topping pop duo eventually exposed as lip-syncing frauds? Being "economical with the truth" (whether outright lying or creating a breach of faith) will always be discovered, but whether there are consequences depends on how people perceive the untruth and how they are affected.
For example, I'll bet that, like me, when you first saw a football game on television where they inserted into the picture a line across the field showing the line of scrimmage you were mighty impressed. What a cool way to augment reality! We were already used to all of the graphics that the networks had used to show the score, review statistics, highlight players and so on, but inserting the line of scrimmage as if it were real -- wow.
Digital Arts | Mark Gibbs | Read more...
Even better next time
August 11, 2008
Agency life revolves around its projects. No sooner has one come and gone, than there’s more to take its place – the next one snapping at our heels, vying for our attention. There’s barely time to look around, let alone look back at what we’ve done.
What I am talking about is ‘the learning organisation’ – a favourite of Management texts – and the idea that people within an organization, both individually and collectively, must find ways to continually channel their learnings back into the process to produce better and better results. Personal growth is a welcome and healthy by-product of the learning organization.
The Engine Room | Huey Nhan | Read more...
What's coming next in Apple's laptops?
August 4, 2008
You can never be sure what advances will find their way into the next round of Apple hardware updates until practically the moment Cupertino makes the big announcement. But that doesn't mean it's not fun to guess a little bit.
Soon after Intel's recent announcement of its new Centrino 2 mobile platform, rumors began to circulate about what would be inside Apple's next round of MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops (which are, themselves, rumored to be refreshed in the near future). Since Apple's current laptop line is based on Intel's earlier Centrino (aka Santa Rosa) platform, most observers assumed that Apple would adopt Intel's new platform -- despite some uncertainty caused by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer's veiled reference to a "product transition" during the company's July 21 earnings conference call.
Digital Arts | Rik Myslewski | Read more...
Apple should apologize for leaving Mac users open to identity theft and malware
August 1, 2008
For the entire history of Mac OS X, Apple has had a grand time poking fun at Microsoft about a lot of things, but Cupertino has made a point of getting its licks in over Redmond's track record with security. The malware problem, the effortlessness with which Windows XP was attacked via Internet Explorer and other vectors -- oh, what a fun time Apple had.
However, through the Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 lifecycle, a funny thing happened. Microsoft really listened to the criticism, took it to heart, and started not just saying it took security seriously, but showing that it did. We can argue about how annoying some of the implementations have been, but the fact is, Microsoft learned. While the idea of a "patch Tuesday" may seem odd to a home user, for a network administrator, having advance notice of upcoming patches is a good thing.
Digital Arts | John C Welch | Read more...
Five Lightroom 2 features that should excite you
July 30, 2008
Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 has been out for less then a day, and I've already heard from a number of people asking about the new version. A few current users have asked if it's worth the US$99 (approx. £50) upgrade from Lightroom 1.0. Others who have been on the fence about investing in a $299 (approx. £150) photo workflow tool have asked about what Adobe did that make Lightroom 2.0 an improvement over the initial release. (I've also gotten a couple of the inevitable, "Which do I choose: Aperture or Lightroom?" questions, to which I say, download the 30-day demos and see which one feels right to you.)
I'm currently working on a full review of Lightroom 2.0, but here's a quick summary of five key enhancements that I think make it a compelling upgrade.
Digital Arts | Rick LePage | Read more...
Turning the to-do list into an art form
July 25, 2008
Some of us can't get through the day without an artfully constructed to-do list (complete with tick boxes, in certain cases) and a monitor entirely ringed with Post-It notes. When Canadian animator Jeff Chiba Stearns realized his addiction to scrappy paper reminders had got out of hand, he got creative.
His six-minute film Yellow Sticky Notes is currently sucking in the procrastinators on YouTube. It's a quick-moving, lovingly crafted history of the last nine years of his life, hand-animated on (you guessed it) Post-It notes.
Digital Arts | Alice Ross | Read more...
The Mac keeps driving Apple
July 24, 2008
Some 48 hours removed from the light and heat of Apple's third-quarter earnings announcements, a couple of things deserver further examination. And no, I'm not talking about the "Did someone just cough? Sell! Sell! SELL!" mentality that seems to have gripped the investment community.
What still stands out about Apple's third-quarter performance - for me, at any rate - is just how well the company's Mac business did. In case you missed Monday's announcement, Apple said that it sold a little bit less than 2.5 million Macs during the three months ending in June. That's the most Macs Apple has sold in any quarter ever. And if it sounds like I'm repeating myself, that's because I am - this is the fourth time in the last five quarters that Apple has set a new standard for Mac sales.
Digital Arts | Philip Michaels | Read more...
The upside of the digital downturn
July 23, 2008
Bit of a change of pace this month. Since we are rushing head long into another recession I’ve been thinking about what does this really mean for us in digital land? I mean we’ve already gone through one crash so this time round it’s bound to be better right? With the media creating the atmosphere of doom and gloom I thought it might be worth having a look at some of the hidden benefits of our artificially created ‘soon-to-be’ recession.
Anyway it’s going to be an interesting time regardless but it ain’t all bad. The best bit is we get to reminisce about how great the dot com crash was and how this one simply pales in comparison!
Lateral thinking | Jon Bains | Read more...
Friday fun: Head Gear shows off new work
July 18, 2008
Stuck for inspiration, or just scouting about the Web on a Friday afternoon? Check out Canadian studio Head Gear Animation's new showreel for dancing robots, milk-loving vampires and the cheekiest pop tarts you've seen all day.
Showcasing the studio's stop-motion, CG, 2D animation and mixed-media work, set to a swingy scratch track by Kid Koala, the reel is a whistle-stop tour through recent projects that's guaranteed to leave you with a smile on your face. The studio's certainly been busy recently – its stop-motion MTV promos have just scored the studio a gold award at the BDAs, while it's also been screening work at festivals in France and Japan.
Digital Arts | Alice Ross | Read more...
Nintendo Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music
July 18, 2008
Here at the E3 2008 games expo, I got the chance to spend some quality time with early builds of Nintendo's latest 'Wii Series' games: Wii Sports Resort (a sequel to Wii Sports) and Wii Music (once planned as a Wii console launch title). The early verdict: Both deliver the irreverent fun you'd expect, coupled with some crafty control methods that you perhaps wouldn't. Both are sure to be popular – even Wii Music – though I'm still not 100 percent sold on it.
Wii Sports Resort
Digital Arts | Danny Allen | Read more...
When not using Photoshop leads to disaster
July 16, 2008
It's easy to mock poor Photoshop work. There's so much of it around that there's even a whole blog, Photoshop Disasters, dedicated to shonky cutouts, retouching and the like – and the Daily Mail seems to have turned it into an artform. But a recent press photo sent to us by Sony shows exactly why Photoshop-based retouching is so necessary to avoid looking foolish.
At first glance, this photo looks like an other lifestyle-type shot of one of Sony's new laptops, the same that every manufacturer produces for its product launches. However, look closer and you'll see that the notebook isn't working as well as Sony might hope. Or at all.
Design Language | Neil Bennett | Read more...
How cool is Radiohead's camera-free promo?
July 16, 2008
When you've built your career on taking risks and experimenting, people develop expectations – and whether you think Radiohead are whingey, shoegazing miserablists or inspired creative geniuses, you can't deny that their newest video is a departure from the norm.
The promo, for slow-moving single House of Cards, was shot using only lasers and scanners and newly developed realtime 3D recording, giving it a uniquely glitchy, alien feel. The video has just been premiered on Google – another first – along with a making-of video in which Zoo Films' James Frost, the promo's director, talks over the project.
Digital Arts | Alice Ross | Read more...
Have you the nerve to play poker with coders?
July 15, 2008
The creative industry thrives on networking events -- not just because we're all sad misanthropes with no real friends of our own, but because the things that we look for in collaborators and employees are hard to discern using the usual interview process. But it's not every event where you get to see how fast other creatives can think on their feet when under pressure – and see how you measure up too.
On July 29, Adobe is hosting the fourth in its series of Pokercoder events -- a poker tournament where Web developers get to square off against each other. The game's Texas Hold'em -- the same as played on those late night poker shows you find yourself watching on obscure cable channels after getting home from the pub. The night begins across a series of tables, which are joined together as players are knocked out -- until a final table sorts out who can really hold their nerve.
Design Language | Neil Bennett | Read more...
Do good your own way
July 15, 2008
Each year, the Sunday Times publishes its Best 100 Companies to Work For. Open to big and small companies of 50 people or more, it’s a prestigious list to get onto and a tremendous tool to attract top staff. Any HR manager will want to be on this list.
But whether big or small, it measures all companies in the same five categories; leadership, well-being, belonging, giving back and personal growth – identified as the five most important things to an employee. Together, these measure how engaged employees are. The more engaged, the happier and more productive they will be.
The Engine Room | Huey Nhan | Read more...
