A recent press release from Unity3d gave some impressive figures “Unity Technologies Surpasses 250K Developers Milestone and 35M Installs of Free Unity Web Player”
I am a big fan of Unity3d as you will have seen over the years and it is great to see the company doing so well. I do not think this success is purely technical, Unity3d is a great product but it has been the positive and open attitude of the company which if you ever talk to the CEO David Helgasson you will see why. It is a true startup come good.
The figures are impressive for the web plugin but the figures not shown, that are in fact even bigger is the fact that every iphone and droid can run Unity3d apps. Many of you will have even played or used some and possibly not even noticed.
I expect to see Unity3d appear in more and more schools as part of both art and science lessons, that was partly my intention in showcasing it on The Cool Stuff Collective. This is a tool and an environment that has both great simplicity and the ability to get as complex as you want. Programming and graphic/sound integration is the ultimate UGC. We also have lots of ways to deploy and share that content.
It seems that a set of simple course material prefabs would make a great module in both infant and secondary education to help find the story tellers, game developers, artists and programmers of the future by letting kids just get on with it and create. There may be some real gems of ideas bubbling away out there don’t you think?
Having seen the willingness to create with my own kids, watching a 3 year old choose to paint the Kart in Mario Kart on the DS and decorate away, or seeing a 7 year old revel in 3d modelling with the haptic device we really should be pushing this future tech (not just Unity3d BTW) into schools, helping teachers understand the creative and learning potential.
I know lots of people are, I know there is lots of resistance to change too. However some of this is not massive capital expenditure (most schools seem to have computers). In just the same way as many of us solo entrepreneurs are able to punch above our human resources weight with access to amazingly accessible technology, so should the classroom.
It is then not a lesson about computing or tech but about creativity, expression as well as STEM.
Fingers crossed we can ride this wave. It is certainly one I want to pursue.
Anyone out there have good Unity3d educational related prefabs?
future
Real or Virtual its all the same thing
My friend and (sometime theatrical agent) Scotty pinged me to tell me about a bargain at blades and bows a predator mask for £20. It seemed to make a great deal of sense to buy this as a prop for some of presentations, as well as out of personal interest.
It has just arrived and it is pretty cool, and very heavy!
I have taken to using some physical props when I present at conferences, in particular some of the 3d printed items. Something solid and tangible reflected from something in the virtual environment helps break down the barrier between audience, screen and concept.
The predator mask is going to be one such prop. However it feeds directly into the discussion of representation of self online, into reputation and into knowing who someone is.
In SL my epredator avatar wears a predator mask. I often quote that “I wear a mask but don’t hide behind it” and that it indicates a lot more than a digital replica of my actual face in certain contexts.
Saying that with a ppt presentation picture of me in predator gear and leather jacket in Second Life I tend toblend to point out my RL leather jacket and the crossover of personal branding and a willingness to share who I am. The predator mask can be used to then show that there are cultural boundaries and social norms that differ from place to place. Wearing the mask would be seen as a slightly mad act, but showing it and choosing not to wear it in that context I think is a powerful message.
We talk often about real and virtual, there really is no such divide. We experience things, internalize them and try and make sense of them.The recent Horizon programme Seeing is Believing on BBC highlighted this more than ever. Demonstrating the NeuroPlasticity of the human brain and the combination of senses we use to predict what we are seeing. Including things like the McGurk Effect where are brains are unable to stop themselves altering what we hear based on what we see.
The point is virtual environments are real, not a total figment of imagination as they operate, run and we interact with them. A virtual environment tends to be experienced through the little glass window on our laptops which helps us deal with the containment of it. However its real people on the other end doing the same thing. Communicating and interacting with us and the environment. Whilst there is currently a line to be drawn the world around us is full of virtual structures and organizations. Does your company actually exist? Is that organization chart really real?
So I think we have shades of Real, all converted into the virtual experience we call memory.
All that because of a Predator mask? Well yes, though it is just really cool in its own right too 🙂
Augmented Reality – Evolution in 3 mins
On The Cool Stuff Collective this week, that just aired. I got to talk a little about AR. Whilst we did not show any of the more traditional camera/marker overlay for various reasons I think we covered a lot of AR ground from marker triggering with fiducial markers and creating magic mirrors all the way to the Vtech kids video camera that acts as a live AR magic lens. Then mentioning the display contact lenses as a future way of delivering information to us in physical world.
It was particularly cool for me to be able to use the Junaio triggering Royal Mail stamps that kick in a video of Bernard Cribbins.
Its a real bind getting a video feed out of some of these smartphones, this was a Droid, but the Iphone is also very awkward. So whilst we did connect and did trigger the video and it really does work it was better for Archie Productions to edit in the actual video.
I think we may end up with some more AR content down the line though as there are some really good products and demos like the ones we got to see in Finland OEM 2010 using Total immersion D’Fusion.
For the program I had created a Junaio channel for Feeding Edge which you get a floating Cool Stuff text model floating above the Cool Stuff TV logo if you point at it. Its all very doable! Just did not come out on the screen too well without that pesky video feed and screen shots don’t do AR justice.
Also the website going live with some Uk only video did mean I could pop into SL and do some virtual world augmented reality.
Epredator getting to see G33K me streaming into a media texture talking about another virtual world the brilliant Ledo Universe Online which goes live in a few days. You have to love the meta loop !
Also great to see the CYGLO tyres running on the TV more on those at http://www.nightbrighttyre.com/
A lot of places to talk.
Very often there seems to be an assumption that we all live, talk or work in one place online and offline. That is of course not true. All these places whether text, image or virtual worlds are collection of places and venues that suit certain people at certain times. The brilliant infographic has just surfaced showing a whole load of places and why we use them.
The image is from http://www.theconversationprism.com/
If you relate this to the physical world, to offices and shops, houses, rooms in houses you will see that it really does not fit the human condition to have one and only one place to communicate, or one mode.
This may scare people, how do I learn all these places and ways of working, but in reality it is no different to learning that a grocers sell and works differently to a barbershop.
One of the oddest days and the Kinect Rocks!
Todays recording of The Cool Stuff Collective(this just went live showing some of the parts of the show online though only in the UK 🙁 ) was probably the weirdest and funniest yet. For several reasons I think. The first is the pace and stride the production team at Archie Productions have got into and the building of jokes upon previous material etc. The second is those of us who are new to all this are more comfortable with the whole process and pace. So we have all found our voice. Another element was that one of the shows is the Halloween version, which is always good for a few odd experiences.
Where else would a pop crash grannie in a witches costume, a heavily pregnant make up guru and a tech geek spend time wrapping toilet roll around a long suffering show researcher to create a mummy gag? A fate later to befall another much loved character on the show this time with kitchen roll and gaffer tape too.
(There are some more behind the scenes photos in this set)
However for me the absolute highlight was being able to do my slot on the show on the Xbox Kinect. Having this set up on set at lunchtime meant trying it out a bit more. I got to see the development viewer for it (that we could not use on the show) that gave all the various sensor inputs and showed what the device was going, the points it was tracking etc.
We played Kinect adventures on the item and it performed really well. Everyone on the crew who had a look or a go just all said wow. November 10th cannot come too soon as I know the predlets are really going to enjoy this kit. Being able to not only sense you arms and legs and body movements but deal with depth and location in the room is simply amazing.
When players swap over or move into view the device knows its not the person who was there before. The recognition process takes hardly any time at all.
It is quite simply stunning.
Its not often I want a photo taken with a piece of kit, but in this case it was like a major celebrity turning up so I had to get a photo with it.
Sleeping on the job
The current episode of The Cool Stuff Collective ran on Monday (repeats on Friday Sat and Sunday on CITV). The show is really getting into its stride. I was a bit unsure of my Lego Universe piece as we did several takes, yet with awesome editing it came across pretty well I think. All the other slots in the show rocked. I love the bananas dropping on Sy’s head when monkey pulls the rope gag.
This was also the one where Elvis, Monkey and I had to be sleeping on the job after Sy’s intro about the team never resting. To say it was hot under that duvet is an understatement and for Monkey it was like the surface of the sun. Still we suffer for our art 🙂
It was very cool to be able to introduce Lego Universe as it really is a great MMO from what I have seen in the beta. The predlets loved it too so you can’t say more than that really can you! I am looking forward to programming my blocks in my own space very soon.
If I ever need to really write a CV ever again i am wondering how I place this whole experience. However in the book of the journey from the backroom to this odd entrepreneurial place with all the twist and turns that occured via virtual worlds I think it fits nicely in context?
Scanning a monkey
Episode 4 of The Cool Stuff Collective aired tonight. It is the best so far. It is one where I get to act too 🙂 Monkey has invented a time machine and I am helping him at the start. Its a speaking role too 🙂 I know that sounds odd but all the other things I do are me being me, so it was great fun to have done some of the other bits in the show that everyone else gets roped into to do too.
In the Future tech section this show we use the NextEngine 3d scanner as the main prop. We were actually scanning the fairy but as the intention was to explain the principle rather that spend time making a perfect model (which the scanner is more than capable of doing) we did not do too much spinning around of the fairy on screen. I had been practicing with how the scanner worked at home, as I really like to feel how things work through doing. It makes it much easier and more genuine to talk about it then.
As part of the end gag of the show I had taken the first scan I did (of predlet 2.0’s own monkey) and constructed a toilet like set of prims next to it in blender in windows on bootcamp on my Mac. i.e. a combination that I was not really used to.
This has meant that my coder art actually fits in it shows that you can just build anything and scan anything.
I never claim to be a graphic designer. I love the tools of that trade and the results of good design. Still it works on the show 🙂
Loved this show, and I must get back to helping monkey with his time machine/cardboard box covered in foil and wire
Unity3d Version 3.0 is live and looking awesome
I have been having a look at the beta of Unity3d 3.0 for a while, but nothing is as good as it going gold and live. It comes packaged with a wonderful looking demo called Bootcamp. There is a version of the demo (with a bit of an in game cutscene before getting to the 3rd person part.
The simplicity both of getting Unity3d running, i.e. its nicely self contained means you can just dive in and make things. There are some new scripts to help like a 3rd person script and a new demo character with animations of a construction worker. It really could not simpler, yet there are tonnes of features for the more pro focussed game programmer and graphic artist.
The demo uses a very large terrain with lots of detail and debris. The player character is using a locomotion system to animate over and around the obstacles. Physics is in full effect if you enter the derelict building and start shooting at windows and cans. Things deform, break and fly around.
Its all just sitting there on your hard drive ready to explore and see how its all created.
There are some handy hooks into MonoDevelop to allow editing of code, breakpoints and inspection as we have got used to on other development platforms. In true Unity style it just works.
If you have not already downloaded the free version, and you are in anyway a techie or designer go and get it now !
It really should be something in every school IT lesson too. The ability to make things happen with real programming behind it will make more kids get to understand programming and the sciences behind that.
I really wish we had had this when I was starting out, so now I want everyone to go have a go look.
Multitasking and g33king with AR Drone
Tonight The Cool Stuff Collective episode 3 aired. Recording shows 3 and 4 was the second time in the studio and everyone seemed much more relaxed. This was just as well as I had a Parrot AR Drone copter to fly around the studio and hassle Sy with it.
I had not really considered the extra pressure of flying in a confined space, keeping the Drone somewhere near where it needed to be and chatting with Sy remembering the key bits of script. The trouble is the thing is so much fun to fly and the show is so mad it does make that all very possible.
Video feeds from the iphone are not possible, though there are some Linux hacks to do it. However and the great @andypiper had both let me practice with his AR drone and telling me how to do a screen cap of an iphone which all gave the team at Archie Productions more cool stuff to edit in.
Now there would have been a time when I would have just gone and bought and AR drone but if I go around buying everything that turns up on the show my fledgling entrepreneurship would end up in bankruptcy.
I totted up the other day just in the 4 we have recorded to far the gadgets I have borrowed add up to about £16,000. Though having said that it is amazing that the tech we have is getting to be so accessible to those with good disposable income.
I really enjoyed, as I tweeted when i saw it in the edit, that I got to say Linux on a kids TV programme. Thats mainstream g33k 🙂
The predlets liked the show too. Monkey of course gets lots of laughs in out house. The banana delivery gag got quite a roar in the house too 🙂
It was great watching Janice and Victoria, the pop crash grannies wing it with Sy. Watching their characters develop and hearing the ladies banter before the shoot and work out some things to say, then just winging it and confusing Sy at the same time was brilliant. As a pro stand up he is well used to that sort of thing though 🙂
Friday is another recording day, and I hope it runs smoothly, with a hint of panic too.
I really hope the website gets sorted soon and that the footage makes it to an online form 🙂
A challenge to the closed minds – Not just game technology but game mechanics
I recently joined the panel at the Train for Success event in Second Life where we (Anders the host, Dusan Writer, Maria Korolov and myself) were there to discuss the pulling back from pure enterprise firewalled virtual world solutions by Linden Lab and a focus on the consumer experience. In part of that we talked about the various game related technologies that come into play in delivering a virtual world. Lots of the focus, quite naturally, is on the front end though I did point out the challenge of any MMO is the server based synchronization. In many ways we can get a browser or client to do all sorts of wonderful immersive stuff but its much harder to share a lag free experience and distribute to those clients.
It was interested to take the role of the “techy who knows a bit about game platforms”.
All of us responded in pretty much the same way that yes enterprise SL was not packaged and sold right, nor given the time to evolve but that we all use Second Life still as we blend business and social in so many ways. It was where I started to get traction with my colleagues and customers in 2006.
At the end we got onto what needs to extend to an even more interesting conversation as whilst the technology can continue to evolve and get better, faster etc it is the things we do with it and the creative endeavours that create interest and engage people.
Whilst there was an uphill battle to get the more mainstream business people to get over the apparent frivolous nature of avatar mediated communication this next wave is really go to scare them and challenge them.
Many of the IT departments and policy makers have decided “We don’t play games at work on our PC’s” that is the mantra used to block the use of anything remotely interesting. It is not without some reason, but the seed of reason grows into a giant forest of objection and darkness. Explaining, or showing that places like Second Life and Opensim etc are not games, just game technology used for another reason doesn’t always chop down the forest.
Now of course there is the gamification wave. The implementation of game mechanics and ideas into every application and walk of life. Business is a game, saying the right things to get that promotion is a game, getting the promotion is a badge earned and worn, winning the sales competition and going on a jolly is like a rewarding cut scene after a tough mission.
Many of these game mechanics, remembering the IT department “we don’t play games at work” mantra will not even touch any of the IT systems in a way they will notice. An Alternate reality campaign inside a corporation may use the phone system, emails, noticeboards etc. All hiding the game elements as a payload inside everyday tools.
At some point though, someone, somewhere, is going to say why cant we do this in a wonderful hi rez generated environment? Why cant we use gesture control like Kinect to navigate the sales figures.
It is a conceptual revolution with a massive social impact, as much as social media and the web. Screwing together plates on a production line is very hard to alter as a physical process to make it less soul destroying. Motivations of speed and efficiency and money for the worker help but ultimately it gets automated. The digital chores we make for ourselves clearly can be altered, you have a family photo as a backdrop on your desktop as a start.
There is a great article from the Harvard Business Review here I know statistics don’t work for the closed of mind as they will discount things that do not meet their believes but this is an interesting quote.
“At SCVNGR, we’ve been able to examine the statistical effects of introducing game dynamics into situations that are decidedly not games. We’ve seen simple game dynamics increase traffic to locations 4X over a matter of days. We’ve seen others extend the average amount of engaged time consumers spend at a business by upwards of 40%.”
Game mechanics motivate and entertain people. People pay to play games that are chores. Surely its in all the more straight laced and ROI induced business people to look at what they and their people do and see if they can spruce it up a bit. Bored or scared people are going to just do the least they need. Motivated and excited people are going to do great things.
So straight laced serious business people who use ‘this is the way we have always done it” whats the point of that…. people the ball is in your court (oh look another gaming/sporting reference).