Seminar 5 Storyboards
Click the 2nd and 3rd image to enlarge.
These were done in the Week 5 Seminar. Explanation below each image.
This is some rough sketch based on Kyle’s idea for building a virtual environment from the tangible lego block interface. By using cameras placed at appropriate angles and then using an algorithm to generate the 3d space. Reilly and I discussed this with Jane, as there are MANY possibilities here. Kyle’s was to create an environment that could possibly be dropped into UT for a player to explore.
Reilly and I had similar game design ideas, mostly inspired by the upcoming PS3 game LittleBigPlanet. We could use the lego blocks to design a 2d environment that players are dropped into providing a platforming experience. Or perhaps even a car racing game where the player tests the physics with ramps created…and then having to go back and alter their lego construction so that the player can launch their car at the correct angle to land on another piece of terrain.
After further discussion with Jane we decided to try think of other ways to use Lego, we were feeling inspired by the Case Study my team presented today, the reacTable.
As Kyle’s idea mentioned, the camera would read the colour of lego blocks and then apply certain texture in the Virtual Environment. We took this idea, but wanted to change the output, as Reilly has outlined in his post below. The drawings above represent our ideas that he has written about. The Lego would be looked at from a top down view for the sound tracking (like a non-linear AV editing system), and the side view would replicate the amplitude (volume) of the audio, as per the regular sound wave images we are used to seeing.
The tracking camera may also read the values of samples placed above (looking down onto the lego board) as higher pitched than those below. There are a lot of interface design issues, and many, MANY possibilities with this system.
The main issues that could appear would be if there are valleys in the middle of the ‘construction’. The camera can not read these from the sides if obscured by other blocks, and getting a reading from the top would be hard too. A setup involving IR technology *might* work, but I’m not sure on the small distances an IR camera system can distinguish between.
Anyway, Reilly and myself really like this idea, after running it by peers and Jane they agreed it was pretty cool, and I’m thinking it would be great as a final project, but possibly hard to pull off technically…
I was lying in bed but couldn’t sleep because I just kept thinking of new ideas. I had to get up and map this one out.
After speaking to Tim (a peer) about the idea and music feasability of it, he brought up that it could be tricky depending on the samples used because of how discrete the length of the blocks are. To ‘fix’ this, I say we just base it on a loose timing system. This isn’t going to be like Fruity Loops with 16beats per second and a million samples to fill in the looping gaps.
This idea was inspired by the ReacTable in a way. I was thinking this whole system would be a great idea for kids to experiment with, so wanted to built something extra to give the idea more depth by the ability to add and change samples on the fly. As above, there would be a touch screen with a list of samples on the left, touch a sample to play it (they should all be less than 2 seconds in my opinion). Now, to link a sample to a block, touch the marker on the edge of the sample, and drag your finger along to the corresponding coloured block (perhaps it is just a 3d model of a block). A link is created and any blocks that are now read by the camera with this sample, will output this sound. So a user can quickly change the entire sound of their constructed model.
To unlink the sound with the coloured piece, simply move your finger across the ‘virtual wire’ joining the sample to the block, and the connection is ‘cut’.
I think this could be done with a Flash interface, rear projected onto a surface, and using an IR marker as the ‘touch sensor’ to read the movement, similar to how GraffitiLuv 2 was done.
I would like to do up something like this a bit better in Flash to communicate what I mean, but I haven’t used Flash in a long while and its best not to get caught up in this. What do you think of that as an addition though? And my other ideas?
