Visual Splendor

Technology and art have come a long way.  Movies like Avatar look more real than ever before. However, a sense of realism and engagement can be achieved in more ways than making every object extremely detailed. Color balance, the artistic interpretation of the subject, animating the subjects within the interpretation, direction, and editing are all very important when using computer generated imaging/graphics. The following commercials represent the highest level of CG animation in or out of the movies.

The use of the transforming, angular, polygonal figures invokes a kind of paper mache, origami, pixel art. The animation matches the visual style in that it almost looks like hand tweaked stop motion. The gradual addition of colors and the contrast to the black background focuses the visual work on the aforementioned subtle details. The music is catchy too.

Cardboard and paper are my sculpting mediums of choice. The UPS cardboard commercials all exhibit a masterful knowledge of cardboard. The texture and animation of the models in this commercial alone would have won me over. But the commercial also has very nice direction and pacing.

With a deliciously appealing color scheme, this commercial whets ones appetite. And this effect is only bolstered as the commercial continues. For the sense of scale is very important. Starting off small and then expanding to encompass mountainous mounds of produce, a sense of bold, full flavor is communicated. With a fan of her fan and a spin of her dress, this cartoonish senorita summons a blinder like whirl wind combining all of the flavors of her world into a single product. Salsa.

Update on Friday, February 26, 2010 at 8:39PM by Richard Terrell (KirbyKid)

Here's one more video. 

Echoes of Radio Lab: Numbers

Radio Lab is an internet radio show that's beyond fantastic. Beyond inspirational. After listening to this particular show titled "Numbers" I've been meaning to respond in some way. Though it is typical for my mind to automatically lean on game design, I think the Mixed-Media blog is the appropriate place for my thoughts. I can't guarantee that any of the following will make much sense to you unless you listen to the show. 

Innate Numbers: How to Get from 3 to 9

I've always wondered about people who profess to hate math. Not just people who hate it, but people who are more than devoted to living a life without numbers, operations, formulas, and equations. A life where the majority of one's configuring occurs when it's time to leave a tip. 

I've said before that addition may be the most profound operation known to man. And because it's so elementary, I thought it might even be universal. From this humble beginning, numbers add up to create a wonderful and strangely poetic yet quantifiable language. With this language I found unique similarities between a calculus problem and witty romantic poem. What was once just a colorful comparison, after listening to "Numbers" the metaphor of math as a language seems frighteningly apt. If there is an innate sense of numbers and basic integers are nothing more than a man made construction, I have to wonder if I'm missing something.

If it's all too late for me to feel numbers innately like Amazonians and babies do so effortlessly and freely, can I learn to? If learning to count on my fingers and toesies spirited me away from a universal yet limited world where half of 9 feels like 3, can I return for a visit somehow. If ignorance is a road, bliss a destination, and innate numbers a natural tourist attraction, can you tell me about it? I have to wonder if letting go of these innate numbers makes it impossible for me to relate to someone who can't speak in derivatives, divisors, and deviations. With the math I know and love mankind can fly to the moon. From the cosmos I'll see the innate world and it'll see me and we'll both wonder how the other got there. 

Erdös Numbers: A Map To A Better Future

The Erdös number has charmed my imagination. What a unique way to model the influence of one mathematician in the world of mathematics. When you put everything in perspective, we can see a web of influence that spans the math world. The Erdös number is more than just citing credit or tracing a bibliographic trail. The number represents the intersection and collaboration of people. It other words, it's not just the ideas that can travel around the world but the people themselves. It's a human network defined by branching relationships and focused on the function of publishing in mathematics.  

Is it odd that I dream of a life similar to that of Erdös? I'd love to be able to randomly show up at some game developers home and work on design problems and innovations. I can see myself doing research late into the night and then banging on game controllers or turning the TV up loud so everyone wakes up and we can continue working.  What a world. What a life. What an impossibility.

Or is it? Perhaps the real world is too big, too foreign, and too afraid to support a roaming game designer/consultant. But maybe the wide web can be bigger and more accessible. I've instant messaged across states, peered beyond national borders via Skype, and emailed around the globe. Maybe the lawn that I'll walk along first in the gaming industry is that of the indie movement. The grassroot game designers. 

What would your Erdös number be a model of?