Superbe réalisation que cette animation de 4 étudiants de l’Ecole Supérieure des Métiers de l’Image de Bordeaux (ESMI). Découvrez le rugby tel qu’il pouvait l’être lors de temps reculés où sa forme ovale apparaissait comme étrange à premier abord et dont l’utilité s’est rapidement fait ressentir! On se croirait dans une confrontation entre deux tribus ou entre deux nations mais où les règles ne font pas fixées et qui donnent libres courts à toutes parades! Je profite de l’occasion pour revenir sur l’événement Les étés TIC, qui s’est déroulé à Rennes du 1er au 3 juillet, et qui a rassemblé plus de 400 personnes, dont notamment les Blogueurs de l’Ouest, que je salue amicalement! Bonne découverte et merci aux concepteurs pour leur graphisme et leur animation! ;-)

Unexpected, delightful; I did enjoy this fireworks animation by PES.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Holiday projects | Digg this!

Fortement inspiré par la série Ace Combat bien connu des possesseurs de Playstation, le jeu F.A.S.T. de SGN récolte les lauriers des amateurs de combats aériens : venant de nulle part, ce jeu s'est hissé parmi les hits de l'AppStore grâce à ses graphismes, son animation et son mode (...) Merci de passer nous voir pour lire cette actu en entier ;-)

Some useful jQuery plugins for developers, such as easing animations, form validation, and mouse gestures plugins.

20h50 Eleventh Hour (série) 23h05 Threshold (série) 22h15 Fringe (série) 20h45 Final Fantasy VII (animation) 22h20 Les survivants de l'infini (film) Family : 20h45 Pirates à la noix (animation) - Nouveaux Programmes TV

(TrendHunter.com) Kanye West is soon releasing his video for the song 'Street Lights,' but it has been released online for Kanye fans. The video, which was created by Javier Longobardo, is seriously old-school looking,...

The 2nd animation promoting the debut novel from James Palumbo.

(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.) Sean Bonner: The Crazy Frog Brothers doing Axel F. For great justice. Link Andrea James: Ryan (an animation on an animator) Link Xeni Jardin: From the guy who brought you cult film classic THE ROOM, Tommy Wiseau's "The Neighbors." Link (via @bonniegrrl) Richard Metzger: Pink Slip - I won't describe it, but if you dare, it's NSFWish Link RT @toschie Sean Bonner: Today's Grindcore history lesson: Napalm Death Link Xeni Jardin: Hidden MacBookPro feature: it Transformersifies itself into robo-ship + flies away. OK, not rly but watch. Link Sean Bonner: Santa gets blown up by girls in skimpy outfits with big guns. WIN/FAIL you be the judge. Link Jesse Thorn: First episode of Andrew WK's new show Destroy, Build, Destroy! is currently free in iTunes: Link Andrea James: The most fortuitous engineering disaster in history: The Salton Sea Link Sean Bonner: Can I have my own Japanese coffee making robot too? Link Susannah Breslin: Screw the environment. Gay Talese cares about the cut of his cuff. Link Xeni Jardin: Every Zach Galafianakis clip from Tim + Eric, evar: Link (via @ericwareheim, but blocked outside USA) Jesse Thorn: The hilarious Tig Notaro performs a signature bit, "No Moleste": Link Susannah Breslin: Inside the Erotic House [NSFW]: Link Andrea James: Hypnotic time lapse of balloon festival (worth sitting through the :30 ad) Link Richard Metzger: All-female rock group Fanny on Sonny and Cher circa 1971 Link Susannah Breslin: SuperObama has SuperBig ears: Link More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com...

(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.) Sean Bonner: The Crazy Frog Brothers doing Axel F. For great justice. Link Andrea James: Ryan (an animation on an animator) Link Xeni Jardin: From the guy who brought you cult film classic THE ROOM, Tommy Wiseau's "The Neighbors." Link (via @bonniegrrl) Richard Metzger: Pink Slip - I won't describe it, but if you dare, it's NSFWish Link RT @toschie Sean Bonner: Today's Grindcore history lesson: Napalm Death Link Xeni Jardin: Hidden MacBookPro feature: it Transformersifies itself into robo-ship + flies away. OK, not rly but watch. Link Sean Bonner: Santa gets blown up by girls in skimpy outfits with big guns. WIN/FAIL you be the judge. Link Jesse Thorn: First episode of Andrew WK's new show Destroy, Build, Destroy! is currently free in iTunes: Link Andrea James: The most fortuitous engineering disaster in history: The Salton Sea Link Sean Bonner: Can I have my own Japanese coffee making robot too? Link Susannah Breslin: Screw the environment. Gay Talese cares about the cut of his cuff. Link Xeni Jardin: Every Zach Galafianakis clip from Tim + Eric, evar: Link (via @ericwareheim, but blocked outside USA) Jesse Thorn: The hilarious Tig Notaro performs a signature bit, "No Moleste": Link Susannah Breslin: Inside the Erotic House [NSFW]: Link Andrea James: Hypnotic time lapse of balloon festival (worth sitting through the :30 ad) Link Richard Metzger: All-female rock group Fanny on Sonny and Cher circa 1971 Link Susannah Breslin: SuperObama has SuperBig ears: Link More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com...

Remember Al Gore’s PowerPoint show? Well, it went and won the Oscars. Okay, ‘The Inconvenient Truth’ was more about alarming statistics than the Microsoft Office application. But it did show that data is one part of the story. How you weave media clips for PowerPoint into powerful presentation is another. There is a formulaic method behind creating a really great presentation, but it is an art too.

Slideshare is a good place to see some really cool works of PowerPoint ‘art’. Check under your favorite category and you will feel genuinely inspired to do things with the graphics, fonts, bullets, sounds and audio/video clips on the canvas of a PowerPoint slide.

Whether you are on your first presentation or on your umpteenth, it’s always better to be prepared with the right resources to back up your ideas for the PowerPoint slides. So here’s looking at 10 websites for free supplies of media clips for PowerPoint.

Sound Clips Wave Central

I wanted to end one of my presentations with a ‘Beam me Up, Scotty’ sound clip from Star Trek. I got the 11KB file from here. The site is not much to look at but it is a rich dump of sound clips from movies, TV, commercials and some special effects types too. The site has a search page, so it is easy to get to your sound clip if you know exactly what you are searching for. If you are searching for a ‘something like this’ kind of a sound, then it’s a chore as all files are listed by name only.

CCMixter

This is a community music site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. It includes many tracks with non-commercial sharing licenses and some under sampling licenses. Users can of course submit their own music and remixes. The site has very good organization with a bunch of categories and filters. Also, the “Download this page” feature allows you to download your preferred collection all at once. Overall, this website has a very selective bunch of MP3s. It’s not for the run-of-the-mill presenter but more for the guy who knows what he is doing with his music.

Sound Bible

From prankish sounds (give the farts a miss in your PPTs) to cool sound effects, this site has a good collection. With the tiny sound clips you can add sound effects to your buttons or transitions. Sound clips fall under royalty-free and free sounds. A ‘pleasing to the eye’ look makes browsing complain-free. If you are looking for a specific sound and can’t find it here, there’s a simple request form for help.

The Open Directory Project

The DMOZ page on music and audio loops is worth a look. Though some of the websites mentioned there might not be free.

Movie Clips YouTube

The ultimate reservoir of videos will hopefully not be short of the perfect clip you are looking for. With a large user base YouTube is the perfect place to find a video corresponding to the idea you want to project. For instance, a visual demo can help make your “How To” presentations to be more effective.

Also read - 18 Free Ways To Download Any Video off the Internet

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive’s Moving Images library contains thousands of digital movies uploaded by Archive users which ranges from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download. The videos are grouped under sub-collections like computers, sports, youth media, independent news, spirituality etc. If the video falls under Creative Commons, the logo will appear on the left hand side of the movie’s detail page.

Channel Federator

Nothing breaks monotony like humor; and cartoons are the best agents for it. Channel Federator is like the Cartoon Network for the web. It is a community-driven website of independent animators. From hand drawn sketches to slick Flash based ones; the uniqueness is that none of the cartoon podcasts are longer than 5 minutes. The short clips are perfect for presentations.

Atom

This is the human equivalent of the above animated one. From spoofs to extreme humor, the independent bunch of video creators takes a saucy look at everything. Right now, I am looking at a video on teamwork... Could be useful for the next HR meeting. The clips are brief and embeddable.

One Web Resource for Comics Strips

- Fresher Image

This is not a top to bottom PowerPoint website, simply because clip arts and other graphics such as banners, bullets and buttons find other uses. But undoubtedly, this is a treasure trove. I find this website an invaluable source of free single panel comic strips.

One Web Resource for Animations

- Animation Library

The site features about 13,748 free animations grouped in 18 categories for use in presentations or other web media. The site also has a little one-page section on animation tutorials. The one negative was the non-functioning search bar.

The internet is chock a bloc with freebies. The human problem is laying our hands on the right one at the right time. And with the boss breathing down your neck for the Monday morning presentation, speed becomes a vital though an inhibiting factor towards creating a great presentation. Let’s hope these ready at hand resources give that bit of breathing space to let your inspired mind flow... and kickass.

Which free websites do you use to extend your PowerPoint presentation’s capabilities? Present us with your options.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Being Geeks, I’m sure you all thought that this was going to be something related to Norton Antivirus, right? But no, we’re talking about Norton, the century-old motorcycle company here. Norton Commando Transformer was produced by Steve Twist for his Computer Visualization and Animation major project. Check it out, it’s pretty ... (Read on Source)

In their own words

“We have recently extended the reach of Vizzl technology to allow users to do more than just search their friends: http://www.vizzl.com/ currently allows users to search Amazon, Ebay and YouTube using the dynamic and intuitive Vizzl interface.”

Why it might be a killer

Because it will be used by many people in order to find interesting material about a wide variety of matters with precise filters and high definition images.

What it does

Are you looking for pictures, images, books, video and other items related to a wide assortment of topics? In that case you should consider this site as a real and convenient option to take a look at.

No matter what you might be looking for, this is a new way to search for it. In fact, this is not just a regular browser but an alternative that will give you convenient results from Amazon, Ebay and YouTube. This site can be defined as a data visualization tool that uses animation and customizable filter to ensure a highly visual and intuitive search process.

That is very cool since these sources are among the most popular sites where to search for products and information. In case you are looking for a book on Amazon or eBay, you just need to follow a very simple procedure and the system will trigger a number of results. One of the best things about this site is the fact that it is very easy to use.

On this online resource you will be able to search for many matters by using customized filters in order to find more accurate results. I have personally used the site to search for soccer and other sports and I have to say that it is accurate and it provides fast results. In addition to this, all the images you can find on it are high definition. Learn more about this solution at Vizzl.com

Some questions

Is there any additional feature coming up soon?

Link: http://www.vizzl.com
Our Review: http://www.killerstartups.com/Search/vizzl-com-the-visual-search-tool

 

Publisher Namco Bandai has secured the US publishing rights for the Dragon Ball Z franchise for five years.

The agreement is for all major consoles and handheld systems, beginning in January 2010, but the publisher has also secured rights to release three Dragon Ball Z games by the end of this year.

"We are very excited to have signed this long term agreement with Toei Animation and FUNimation Entertainment, which grants Namco Bandai Games North American multiplatform rights to the testosterone-driven, action-packed world of Dragon Ball," commented Makoto Iwai, COO of Namco Bandai.

Read more...

PDFZilla is a desktop application that quickly and accurately convert PDF files into editable MS Word Documents, Rich Text Documents, Plain Text Files, Images, HTML Files, and Shockwave Flash SWF Files.

Features:

• Convert PDF to Word – Convert PDF to Word with all text and Graphical data.
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• Convert PDF to Images – Convert PDF to BMP, JPG, GIF or TIF files.
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• Convert PDF to SWF – Convert PDF to Shockwave Flash Animation files which can be published on websites.
• Page Selection – Convert all the pages, or partial pages of PDF file.
• Easy to use software – Add a PDF File -> Select the Output File Format -> Click on Start Converting button, then just have a cup of coffee.

Scène ouverte slam poésie, chanson et autres organisée par le collectif "Mots et chants jet !" aura lieu le 20 juillet 2009 à partir de 20h à Ô Génie association (bat à chicha associatif) 11 rue sabaterie 26000 Valence.

Vous ne connaissez pas le slam ? Vous pensez le connaître ? Alors venez découvrir ou redécouvrir un slam différent dans une ambiance intime et festive !

Que vous vouliez dire des textes ou simplement écouter de la poésie et des chansons, n'hésitez pas !

Scène ouverte animée par Kriss

Entrée libre, adhésion à l'association obligatoire et gratuite, une consommation obligatoire (à partir de 50cts le verre)

-//- agenda Animation - Valence, Drôme (26) - le 20-07-2009 -//-

Hi, I'm a CS major and understand the software side of getting a hackintosh to run. I'm not very strong in the hardware side and have never build a computer from scratch myself. I am also fairly new to building a hackintosh and making sure everything is compatible. I do a lot of video editing, animation, and rendering. I want to build a strong mac for about $1500 with a $2000 max.

Does anyone have a configuration build that would meet this? Or can give me a general idea of parts I should get. I also wanted to buy an old used Mac Pro case off of ebay to build this in. Would that be possible or would it just be too hard?

Thanks!

['Diamond In The Rough' is a regularly scheduled GameSetWatch-exclusive opinion column by Tom Cross focusing on aspects of games that stand out, for reasons good and bad. This week, Tom continues his previous discussion of calls for video game design reform in the areas of narrative and story. In the latest instalment, he begins with a discussion of what "narrative" is.]

Narrative can’t help but have an internally coherent organizational logic (called “plot”). The important things about this logic are that it a) unfolds in time for a reader, that is, has a beginning, middle, and end, b) that the experience of reading is one of reading—of discovery and deciphering rather than production and self-creation, and c), that because of this, narratives appear for readers as pre-existing objects, things separate from a reader that demand to be seen and interpreted.

This last point is critical: narratives happen to readers, and speak of an intelligent, exterior design to readers. This is true even when we tell stories to ourselves (the principle on which psychoanalysis works)—we encounter a structure of meaning, or plot, outside ourselves, and re-narrate it to ourselves.

Narrative always comes first, and unless we’re very clear about what we mean by “story spaces” or “tools for making narrative,” it’s unclear how we might provide readers with tools, rather than pre-existing narratives, out of which they themselves will produce narratives, ex nihilo.

Narrative is, to borrow an academic jargon, always there already. It’s naïve to imagine for the sake of polemic that video games, just because they’re new media, are exempt from these rules about narrative, which are something like rules for human psychology. As Brooks argues, we’re just wired this way. We see narratives everywhere, and when we as authors (or, yes, video game designers) produce meaningful artifacts, whatever we call them, we can’t help but encode meaning in them that a reader is going to decipher.

Narrative Possibilities, Emergent Possibilities

It’s implausible to think that a game could ever exist where players could continually find a consistent, long-term level of narrative fascination without the aid of game-provided elements that are already narrative, elements that already have encoded in them some meaning that the reader has to interpret and put to work.

A game like Far Cry 2 is successful at playing with gamers’ expectations and goals because it has a strong back-story, varied narrative-based and setting-based game mechanics (the physicality of your character, your animations when healing wounds or taking pills, your connections to buddies) that allow players to create their own (hopefully meaningful) narratives within these game spaces.

To say that this is simply a “game space” is to deny the machinations of the designer (even in Gaynor’s ideal game world), their construction of a world, a chain of actors, and a set of rules and motivations that propel multiple narratives through that gamespace. Still, if this is what narrative is today in a video game, then what could it be? What could the future of narrative look like?

I’m not talking about a set of conversations that you can only have with a set number of people, which, when activated in the (always the same) correct order, leads to a reward of some kind of all-encompassing, culminating narrative climax, or that same climax mixed with or preceded by a difficult in-game dilemma. I’m also not referring to multiple chains of branching dialogue and story paths that ultimately lead to one of several conclusions. This may be the form that narrative takes in modern games, but it’s just a certain kind of narrative, not narrative.

When I talk about narrative, I’m referring to the product of an author, a collection of ideas, settings and characters (and their actions) that can be interpreted by the viewer or player as a set of related occurrences and human interactions. As a human being who watches events unfold around us, we understand the potential for actions, reactions, missed opportunities (and missed failures).

While games today have rigid narratives, it’s wrong to think that narrative itself is the problem. The error lies in thinking that because some elements of RPGs and open-world games today are or are parts of a narrative, they can never be sufficiently dynamic or flexibly organized enough to allow user interaction with them.

These interactions can produce an emergent narrative, which, on the above definition, is something too complex to have been completely foreseen and provided for by the designers, and was produced by the user’s interaction with the simulated gameworld. This isn’t just the privilege of some soon-to-be-developed toolset of the future; the tropes and technologies are already here.

How? A game could present multiple actors, and in-game entities that had their own goals, made decisions based on their own desires (as created by the designer), and thus affected their surroundings, and possibly the player. If the unit of simulation isn’t resources, vehicles, day-night cycles, but characters, agents with a scripted set of goals and behaviors relative to the gameworld and the other characters in the system, then it is possible to run a system whose compositional elements are narrative.

The possibility of creating such a system clarifies how much the vagueness of the idea of “story space” and “emergent narrative” depends on uncertainty about what narrative is. Saying that if we give users a good enough toolset, they’ll make their own stories, is as much to say, “we don’t know what story is, but we know that it’s out there.”

To return to Blade Runner: the game created a cast of actors who seemed to follow their own paths dictated by their own motivations. What is so impressive about this idea is that it allows for the “unique” gameplay moments that you’ll find in a game like Fallout 3 for Far Cry 2, but with the difference that those moments carry meaning in themselves that the reader has to decipher, rather than being opaque meetings of meaningless avatars in a simulated world that we naively imagine will “become meaningful” for a sufficiently imaginative reader.

It’s also worth noting that in that game, game spaces abounded. Every payoff for every interaction was determined by your investment in the game and your character, and your reasons for doing what you did, how you expected the game world to react. The fact that it could surprise you, did surprise you, shows that the game allowed for more “emergent” narratives than any recent game.

People like to say that the Fallouts, Far Crys, and GTAs of the world allow for unpredictable, unscripted, emergent narrative moments. In fact, those moments aren’t properly narrative, while Blade Runner was. Think of the kind of moment that people have in mind when talking about emergent narrative in those games.

If I kill a person who I was supposed to help, thus necessitating a firefight with their relatives or friends, then yes, it’s “emergent”—something unscripted and procedural happens and I participate. But it isn’t narrative except in a world where opaque, meaningless random occurrences between human-like entities, empty of content, can be called “narrative” because we’re imagining a user who, like a kid playing with dolls, fills in all the semantic gaps.

Nothing Emerges

And so what’s happened is not an “emergent narrative.” It’s emergent, and the narrative elements are stage dressing that, insofar as the event was unscripted, cease to matter. If in-game actors start killing each other but there’s no narrative armature for why that happens, then it’s beside the point that the agents happen to represent people, friends and relatives or whatever.

The new thing that’s happened with them happens in spite of and entirely separate from their status as characters, because they and the game world can’t speak meaningfully to us as readers about what’s happened. If we project meaning onto it, it’s separate from the meaning that was already coded into it (that the actors are characters in a story)—those elements become throwaway, even though the whole point of making them characters in the first place was, obviously, to create a meaningful world.

Unlike those games, Blade Runner attempted to simulate a game world that could quite happily continue to function without your input at each juncture, and a world in which “function” meant interaction between characters with goals, and “interaction” meant conversation and communicative action. Those things happened in the game, and it wasn’t supposed (impossibly) that the reader would bring it all from the outside. It was possible to miss events and characters, and thus have other events cut off from your purview.

This is not the same as saying “I had a different experience in Fallout 3 because I missed quests my friend did; we can now discuss our emergent gameplay experiences.” Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 may provide users with hobbled narrative tools, but they do not provide actual independence. You may be able to “go anywhere and do anything” in these games, but what that actually means is “go into some areas, fight guys, and wait to activate missions and story segments.” A game that actually allowed for emergent narratives would need a game with strong narrative blocks (like Blade Runner) to keep the flow of events cohesive, in the face of the player’s actual freedom and independence.

In Fallout 3 quests will never start unless you start them. Alistair Tenpenny will sit on top his tower waiting for a supposedly inevitable nuclear explosion for the entire game, if you see fit. This is in no way interesting or fun, nor does it provide me with an exciting experience. In fact, knowing that Alistair waits atop his tower for me (and only me, no one else can do it, apparently) is unpleasant. Why doesn’t he go hire someone else? What if I then decided to kill that person, necessitating attacks against me by Alistair?

This is not a far-fetched notion, and games attempt to provide such branching story paths all of the time. The problem is that there is never a question of the world’s self-sufficiency or linear temporality. If I sit on my hands watching zebras frolicking, the Jackal and other warlords will stew in their bases, waiting for some brave mercenary to aid them.

This is where proponents of emergent narrative have a point—the narrative elements of these games are indeed too static. But to say that those games are static because they use narrative elements, and to imagine that there are non-narrative, “emergent” aspects to these systems waiting to be mined (and that can be divorced from the harmful aspects of “narrative”), is to mistake one problem for another, insufficient dynamism for something inherently wrong with narrative.

What is an Emergent Game?

It may be quite possible for me to, as Gaynor writes, find developers and games that create spaces to have exciting, new experiences. It’s recently become much easier to find them in fact, in the form of The Path. The Path clearly subscribes to the school of thought that desires emergent, unpredictable narrative experiences and creations (on the player’s and designer’s part). Yet Gaynor contends that such games “Provide people with new places in which to have new experiences, to give our audience the kind of agency and autonomy they might not have in their daily lives; to create worlds and invite people to play in them.”**

But does this sound like a space that can be differentiated from its user-created adventures? It may all be well and good to have exciting, unscripted firefights against mercs on a field in Far Cry 2, but I would strongly argue that such player generated narratives (maybe, in your mind you’re just trying to let off a bit of steam, hang out in the plains, when you get jumped by soldiers. Maybe you’re angry at one of these soldiers because they killed your buddy) are inextricable from (and thus highly dependent on) their structured, designer-produced settings and narratives.

In fact, insofar as they require the user to apply the backstory to them, as they surely do, they’re boring because they don’t have content of their own. And insofar as they relate to the broader narrative frame (as they often do despite themselves), they violate the dictum of story space as sole preserve for the appearance of that rare new species, “emergent narrative,” and smuggle narrative in the back door.

Furthermore, to say that a world – where you could do things (any things) and have those things be meaningful – could exist necessitates that the world be carefully, expansively designed, its players extensively fleshed out, embodied, and horribly, plotted. If a game, its world, and its denizens do not impose a logical set of responses upon your character due to your actions, then a player will always know the “gaminess” of their setting. In most games, gamers instantly (or quickly) recognize the systems of action, reward, repercussion, and recognize their place and weight within the game. It’s rare that you find a game that knows how to make players explore their worlds conceptually as well as physically, and even rarer are the games that get this right.

I find it hard to create “meaningful” moments or experiences in a game that so clearly accepts (uncritically) the standards of FPS design as does Far Cry 2. It’s telling that what “emergent” gameplay and narrative amount to in games is a different kind of enemy assault, a riotous, chaotic battlefield. It’s still the Bioshock problem, the “two people killed the enemies with different powers” fallacy of “choice” gaming.

What if your interface for the shooting itself changed? What if the terms by which you “won” or “lost” an encounter changed regularly? What if these stopped being the only possible outcomes? Instead, your goals changed from killing everyone to getting captured, or doing something outside of the shoot/be shot at paradigm. To move further outside the kill/die and win/lose video game rhetoric (to a more experiential model, say) is almost incomprehensible to games, designers, and gamers, and with the tools and examples we have today, I’m not surprised.

Gaynor’s argument assumes that a reactive, highly realized and modifiable world can elicit genuine emotional responses in me, possibly even responses I’m unfamiliar with. I don’t care how reactive your world is, I cannot be interested in the actions of my character if they are not couched in a broader human context and narrative. This is why so many games fail to elicit responses from gamers. Their characters, plot, and world are at once artificial, unbelievable, and uncomfortable in their own skin. They consistently fail to transparently direct and modify the world in a responsive, enjoyable way (for the player).

When I relate to fictions, to the actions of my avatar and the hidden or visible results of his actions, it’s because they take place within a recognizable, human spectrum of actions, existence and response. If there’s no reason for the queen dying after the king, after all, I’m not sure I care. And I don’t care to dream up a reason all on my own.

A Hopeless Cause

Much like in the blander shooters of today, all of the emergent gameplay and experience in the world can’t make up for badly realized characters and stories. Likewise (and far more importantly), the autonomy and ability of the game world to function, play out, and possibly self-terminate (in parts) is key to the realization of Gaynor’s ideal. I think you need a tangible thread of narrative force running through a world to make these things important, otherwise every happening has the potential to be “meaningful” to me.

This thread can exist anywhere, it can be different for every user, but it will exist, and it will not do so just because a user willed it into existence in the absence of coherent emotional and logical stimuli. This isn’t the case in real life, and it’s not the case for one individual. Yes, one potential gamer may find the relatable experiences of her in game character interesting, but there is a difference between one player and a community of players, and between interesting and engrossing.

Next week, I want to talk about how Gaynor’s goal is one that I appreciate, despite the impossibility or inadvisability of some of his prescriptions. As he hypothesizes: "Under the immersion model, instead of relying on an authored message encoded in a single traditional narrative stream, meaning arises from the content developers' ambient characterization of the gameworld itself and the non-player characters who inhabit it. Instead of gaining perspective by seeing specific events through the eyes of a particular character, the player gains perspective by himself inhabiting a world apart from his own daily experience and coming away with a sense of meaningful displacement."*

I think that this is quite possible, but that there are necessary designer-heavy elements that must inhabit this world, especially if the “sense of meaningful displacement” is to be achieved. I also think that these elements must inescapably answer to the broader rules and results of being part of narratives. To aid me in my discussion, I’ll bring up the notion of “Island-based” tabletop quest creation and modification, and the graphic adventure The Last Express.

* The Immersion Model of Meaning
Storymaking
** Being There
The Challenge of Non-Linearity
A Peek into Game Design

[Tom Cross writes for Gametopius and Popmatters, and blogs about video games at shouldntbegaming.wordpress.com. You can contact him at romain47 at gmail dot com.]

FINALLY! After a year of long hours, amazing projects, a move to a bigger office and millions of key frames later we finally finished off our new reel. This past year, Spillt was fortunate enough to work on 3 major network show packages, a VOD network re-brand, some amazing IDs and a feature-length documentary title package. We were also called upon to refresh a long running broadcast campaign for a major college. Everyone here at Spillt loves what we do and we wanted to thank all of our clients for making each project both successful and a pleasure to work on. The ‘09 Spillt reel is jam packed with new work, created with tender love and animation goodness. Hope you enjoy and give us a holler for all your motion design/animation needs. We manage everything from concept to final delivery. Here’s to the rest of 09!

went to universal studios today since alli's parents have never been there! gotta love that place!! Charles' Twitter: http://twitter.com/CharlesTrippy Alli's Twitter: http://twitter.com/AlliSpeed My Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CharlesTrippyFriendcore My Main/Skit Channel: http://youtube.com/CharlesTrippy Do you want to create an outro for the vloggity vlogs?! Here is a link to download the theme song for animation! http://bit.ly/oxYRy You can @reply me or alli a link to what you make on my twitter or email me at charlestrippy@gmail.com SO WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THESE VIDEOS? well, a friend of mine (shaycarl) started doing a video diary for a year. I thought it would be interesting to try and begin one as well but not just stop at a year (let's go for two, or three!). I think it's really interesting to be able to look back years (when i'm old and boring) to have proof to be like "look, I was fun at some point!". So enjoy, subscribe, and keep coming back daily (because they're new videos each day!) Also, be sure to check out my main/sketch comedy channel http://youtube.com/charlestrippy Outro Animation By: http://www.youtube.com/ithinkmynameispoop Download the theme song (mp3) by Charlie Puth here: http://bit.ly/16Pw0j download the theme as a ringtone for your cell: http://bit.ly/OVp20 then go check him out charlie puth http://youtube.com/charlieottoputh

Author: CTFxC Keywords: charlestrippy hulk alli zoey marley universal studios rollercoaster mummy hot puppy simpsons ride jaws spiderman rockit Added: July 2, 2009

What’s a web site without an image gallery these days? Galleries are used for products and portfolios and they have been getting sleeker, faster and lighter over time. jQuery plugins are available for almost every function you can think of, everything from widgets to animation effects. As a designer, there are many functions I’d like to add to a web site, however I don’t have the technical prowess to program or put it together, but I do know enough to slot some jQuery onto the page. Thankfully there are many developers out there who generously share their work and there are indeed some fabulous galleries and slideshows available as plugins.

Here are five sleek offerings which are available for free and are easy to implement on your site.

jQuery Lightbox is a simple and elegant way to overlay image on the current page.

See the demo here
Download and read more about installation here

Space For A Name, Gallery View is a beautifully clean and versatile gallery. It contains thumbnails, a semi-transparent overlay for image descriptions and captions for the thumbnails.

See a demo here
Download and read more about installation here

Mb Gallery is a clean, full featured photo gallery, with navigation toolbar, thumbnails, and auto-size frame. The gallery smoothly adjusts itself to the currently selected image size.

See a demo here
Download and read more about installation here

S3 Slider is a slideshow offering smooth transition of images with a semi-transparent area overlaid with the image description.

See a demo here
Download and read more about installation here

Galleriffic allows for two types of gallery setup, “simple” and “advanced”. The simple option uses text links to link to each image in the gallery while the advanced choice displays thumbnails on the left hand side. Other features include bookmark friendly URLs, image caption and descriptions and slideshow options.

See a demo here
Download and read more about installation here

Have you used these or other jQuery plugins on your website? Have you any recommendations for other galleries?

Dans la série vieux machins qu'on avait raté, je voulais vous faire partager cette super chouette animation très très caféinnée !

Un jeune homme timide essaie d'entamer une discussion avec une jeune fille assise sur un banc...
Virgile est une animation réalisée par Clément Soulmagnon & Gary Levesque élèves de Supinfocom

Via Fubiz

• Vidéo (12 Mo | MP4) : Voir la vidéo

Sur le même sujet :

• Vidéo : Scoop Volante
• 

3 jours de spectacles, concerts, animations, cirque, bal, danse, théâtre, forum, conférences, miam et glou locaux. l'ensemble sous chapiteaux et en extérieur entre amandiers, soleil, vignes et phasianidés



Vendredi 14 août à partir de 18h:
Bal
Le...Nôme (chanson françoise)
Le réparateur (rockpunk)
Pâté crou (rap en croute)

Samedi 15 août à partir de 14h:
Cie Tourneboules (contes clownisés)
Cirk oblique (clown manip motorisé)
Raymoundo circus show (trash clown pyrotechnie)
Inner rose (reggae)
Bernette et félicien (aérien)
Spline et la mauvaise herbe (tango dégenté valse rock)
Poutrelles fever (extra festif rock)
Films jusqu'au petit matin

Dimanche 16 août à partir de 10h:
Marché de producteurs locaux
Le journal de grosse patate (theâtre à partir de 5ans)
Les rues elles (danse musicale)
Cie matière premières (burlesque animé)
Zinaa (latino trad)

Et durant les 3 jours:
La Fraction impromptue (danse-jeux impro)
Convention de jonglage
Des assos, des animations, des jeux...
Et des surprises!

Malgré l'amour qu'on leur porte, les chiens et autres animaux de compagnie ne sont pas conviés à l'évènement.
Camping et parking gratuit
Nourriture à prix libre et boisson artisanale et locale
Feux interdits (car drôme provençale), à 20km au sud de Montélimar en direction de Valréas

Un évènement au fort caractère doté d'une ambiance des plus familiales, tous publics au coeur de la Drôme provençale, à vivre et revivre...

Horaires/tarifs:
vendredi 18h-02h_6E ou aux jeux
samedi 10h-02h_12E
nuit vidéos 02h-06h
dimanche 10h-22h_6E
pass 2 jours 15E
pass 3 jours 20E

contacts: kissbalade@free.fr / 06 18 69 46 83
site: www.kissbalade.fr
-//- agenda Festival - Valaurie, Drôme (26) - le 14-08-2009 -//-

3 jours de spectacles, concerts, animations, cirque, bal, danse, théâtre, forum, conférences, miam et glou locaux. l'ensemble sous chapiteaux et en extérieur entre amandiers, soleil, vignes et phasianidés



Vendredi 14 août à partir de 18h:
Bal
Le...Nôme (chanson françoise)
Le réparateur (rockpunk)
Pâté crou (rap en croute)

Samedi 15 août à partir de 14h:
Cie Tourneboules (contes clownisés)
Cirk oblique (clown manip motorisé)
Raymoundo circus show (trash clown pyrotechnie)
Inner rose (reggae)
Bernette et félicien (aérien)
Spline et la mauvaise herbe (tango dégenté valse rock)
Poutrelles fever (extra festif rock)
Films jusqu'au petit matin

Dimanche 16 août à partir de 10h:
Marché de producteurs locaux
Le journal de grosse patate (theâtre à partir de 5ans)
Les rues elles (danse musicale)
Cie matière premières (burlesque animé)
Zinaa (latino trad)

Et durant les 3 jours:
La Fraction impromptue (danse-jeux impro)
Convention de jonglage
Des assos, des animations, des jeux...
Et des surprises!

Malgré l'amour qu'on leur porte, les chiens et autres animaux de compagnie ne sont pas conviés à l'évènement.
Camping et parking gratuit
Nourriture à prix libre et boisson artisanale et locale
Feux interdits (car drôme provençale), à 20km au sud de Montélimar en direction de Valréas

Un évènement au fort caractère doté d'une ambiance des plus familiales, tous publics au coeur de la Drôme provençale, à vivre et revivre...

Horaires/tarifs:
vendredi 18h-02h_6E ou aux jeux
samedi 10h-02h_12E
nuit vidéos 02h-06h
dimanche 10h-22h_6E
pass 2 jours 15E
pass 3 jours 20E

contacts: kissbalade@free.fr / 06 18 69 46 83
site: www.kissbalade.fr
-//- agenda Festival - Valaurie, Drôme (26) - le 14-08-2009 -//-