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Star Trek Online official dev blog: Jeremy Mattson
Today marks the first of this week's three exclusive developer blogs from Cryptic's Star Trek Online team here at Massively. For Monday, we've got Jeremy Mattson discussing what it's like being a Principal Artist for Cryptic and giving some insight into their powerful character customization tools. He also delves into the past a bit, which should interest any of you City of Heroes fans out there, too. Be sure to come back again on Wednesday for our second installment of this week's developer blogs. We'll have an animator's perspective of life at Cryptic and working on Star Trek Online.
Listen to the WoW Insider Show today with special guest Mary Varn
Yes, our podcast is back again this afternoon at 3:30pm EDT, and this week we're welcoming Mary Varn, the creator and artist behind NPC Comic, a webcomic about a girl and her two cats who all play World of Warcraft. She'll talk with us about her work and her own characters, and since we'll also have Kelly "Cadistra" Aarons of the new Byron the Tauren Rogue comic on again, maybe they'll be able to share some insight on putting WoW-related cartoons together. Turpster and I will make sure it's not all about drawing comics, though -- we'll be answering emails and talking about the most popular posts from the last week, including what's going on with patch 3.3 and when it might drop, what's up with all of the outages lately, and what it takes to get all of the achievements. All of them. Should be a great show -- you can tune in over on our Ustream page at 3:30pm Eastern, or just head after the break. See you then.
David Hockney paints with his iPhone, results not typical
Artist David Hockney isn't afraid of picking up new media -- over the years, he's used Polaroids, photocollages, and even fax machines to create his art -- in addition to regular, old-fashioned painting. Now, he's taken to using his iPhone to create new works of art. The resultant "paintings" have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery and Royal Academy in London, as well as galleries in Los Angeles and Germany. Like artist Jorge Colombo (whose iPhone fingerpainting was featured on the cover of The New Yorker), Hockney uses the iPhone app Brushes to create his works. In an interview with the New York Review of Books, Hockney notes that he prefers and still uses the original version of the app, not the more recent updates. Hmm... maybe the reason our own Brushes paintings stink is because we're using the update! [Via All Things D]
Meet the Sparkplay Media team: Part One, pg. 2
Massively: Is there any MMO that has influenced your work on Earth Eternal, and if so how did it influence you? Alex Madrigal, Concept Artist: I've been pretty active with MMOs for about seven years now. I've played Final Fantasy XI the most, but I've spent a serious amount of time in World of Warcraft as well. I've dabbled in Everquest 2, Lineage II and most recently Dragonica. Artistically, I've picked something up from each of the games I've spent considerable amounts of time with. What Earth Eternal race represents you the best and why? Alex: I'd have to say that I'm probably most like the Ursine. I'm big, tough and hairy. Also...not so much tough, but definitely cuddly! If you could pick out your favorite part of Earth Eternal, what would it be and why? Alex: My monster designs. That will probably (definitely) come across as conceit, but the time spent with the team discussing, designing and fine tuning the monsters was probably the most fun I've had working on this game. To take something from a simply stated verbal concept and then see it grow through the stages of development is always exciting. Getting to draw strange things and seeing them show up in a 3D virtual space is a hoot. Plus it does my ego good when I hear people say that they think the designs are cool. And if you manage to find monsters you think aren't so cool – I didn't do those. [Laughs]What has been the most difficult obstacle for you to overcome in your work on Earth Eternal? Alex: Doing user interface work. Having come from an animation background, jumping headfirst into designing a UI was a hell of a hurdle. Dealing with a whole new set of technical limitations and rules was difficult at first. For my first UI, I'm pretty happy with the end result, but I prefer the pencil and paper/Photoshop route instead of shifting around tiny pixels. What has influenced your art style for Earth Eternal? Why this art style? Alex: I wish I could say that I was on the ground floor to help decide the artistic style for the game, but I actually came on as the concept artist about a year after the game's development started. I've been following a style set by another group of artists, but I have taken the opportunity to slather it in a healthy coating of my own personal style when possible. I'm heavily influenced by European graphic novel artists, and I really enjoy classic fairy tale illustrations. Things with visual texture and very rhythmic line work. Earth Eternal has rich lore and to me, it feels like a fairy tale world. I try to implement that kind of stuff wherever I can.Come back tomorrow for part two, when we get to speak with the lead writer, Matt Mihaly, and one of the programmers, Ryne Anderson!
iri5 releases the ghost from the cassette machine
Over the last few months, artist iri5 has been compiling a collection of work on Flickr under the heading, "Ghost in the Machine." The pieces start with old cassette tapes and end in awesome. To quote the artist: The idea comes from a philosopher's (Ryle) description of how your spirit lives in your body. I imagine we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging. Indeed. And they don't come much more awkwardly packaged than The Cure's Robert Smith immortalized above. Check out a close-up of his tussled chromium-dioxide hair after the break and be sure to hit the read link for iri5's full collection. The Jimi Hendrix experience alone is worth it.[Via GearDiary, thanks schillmoeller]
Guild leader wins Oscar
I didn't have any interest in watching the Oscars last night (so no, I didn't get to see Wolverine singing and dancing), but there was one piece of WoW-related news to come out of the big event. Steve Preeg is a visual effects artist who's worked on films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I, Robot, and last night, he won an Oscar for his team's work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And that's not his only achievement: he's also done everything but Sarth 3D with the guild he leads.Yup, we've heard from one of his guildies that Preeg is a guild leader in the game -- he plays a Combat Rogue with 450 Enchanting and Inscription, and runs a progression guild that's downed everything but the big black dragon and his three companions. he's even done all of the holiday events so far (though he's rolling with the "Champion of the Frozen Wastes" title).So he's picked up some excellent loot, both in and out of game (Oscars are epic at least -- the drop rate is pretty low). Congrats to Preeg and his team on the Oscar, and to his guild, good luck with Sarth 3D. Maybe if Anne Hathaway showed up for that you'd have him down by now.
Salvador DaBot: robot portraitist extraordinaire
Leaps and bounds have been made with Sylvain Calinon's robotic portrait artist since we first caught a glimpse of this amazing AI being -- and no, we're not just referring to the stylish beret and mustache. Now dubbed "Salvador DaBot", the portraitist has developed far more advanced conversation skills, along with a voice that sounds a lot less like Steven Hawking. We kinda miss that feather pen he was sporting before, but his movement's a lot more natural now and his new marker seems to have helped his drawing style -- similar to old-school comic art. See this awesome little guy in action after the break.[Via Sylvain Calinon]
EVE Evolved: Freeform professions
EVE Online is a game often lauded for its sandbox style open-ended gameplay. Some of the best parts of the game have been entirely developed by the players and this trend continues in the field of professions. At launch, CCP advertised the professions miner, trader, bounty hunter and pirate. Little did they know that players would add double-agent, stock broker, artist and many others to that list.What makes a profession freeform?:Put simply, a freeform profession is any job a person can fill that wasn't explicitly created by the game's developers. While mining and mission-running were deliberately created by CCP, there are plenty of professions that the players themselves came up with. In EVE's hyper-capitalistic world, everything and everyone has a price and if there's a demand for something, you can make a career out of it.In my early days in EVE, I noticed a shortage of research labs in the game and decided to capitalise on it. I flew around the fringes of empire space renting all the available labs and then sold them on to players for a huge profit. Going from a run-of-the-mill miner to a self-made real estate agent made me realise that EVE was something really special.Find out what innovative professions the players of EVE Online have come up with over the years.
Lead artist-ing with Champions Online's Christopher Chamberlain
Would you believe that this week's edition of Cryptic's meet the team is all about Christopher "Absinthe" Chamberlain, the lead artist in charge of characters, animation and FX for Champions Online? Yeah? Good. We were sure you'd believe, but we still had to check. It's not that Mr. Chamberlain is some kind of famous developer, he's just a very cool individual -- which also makes him an interesting interviewee. That is unless he used is crazy backwards-talking skills whenever you asked him a question. Then he'd just be a startlingly confusing interviewee.As far as his workday goes for creating characters and animations, we're once again forced to feel a little jealous. Most grown-up men don't get to play with form swords all day anymore, but Christopher does just that. Then after getting to play around for who knows how long, the man gets to sit down and decide how villains in the game will look. It doesn't stop there, but we'll let you discover what other madness this man is involved with on a daily basis.
Resto4Life interviews Druid artist Andrige
I could have sworn that we interviewed Andrige here on WoW Insider, but I can't seem to find it in the archives, so I guess Resto4Life beat us to it. Phaelia has posted an interview with the artist (and machinimist) behind some of the best WoW fan art out there, and to the surprise of no one I'm sure, he seems like a fun, down to earth kind of guy.He talks about his fascination with both the Horde and Druids, why he loves Feral, and what he's been up to lately -- he's planning to do a piece of the Night Elf bear and Tauren cat fighting each other, which should be awesome. He's also awaiting the art change in Wrath of the Lich King -- like a lot of players, he's tired of the sci fi and can't wait to get back into the old sword and sorcery style. He wouldn't turn down a job at Blizzard (who would?), but he humbly says that he's got a lot of work to do before he steps up to that level. Good for him. Finally, he shares some good advice about how to make machinima (the script for his film was actually written by a few people on IRC), and a few good ideas about Druid forms. A "Runic Wolf" -- I love it.Nice interview, and good to hear from the guy behind the art.
Watch a Stargate Worlds artist's video dev diary
Cheyenne Mountain has released a developer profile of Stargate Worlds artist Jake Johnson, who works on all sorts of visual assets -- most prominently the attractive skies of the game's many planets. Johnson talks about how he landed the Stargate gig, the assets he had the most fun creating, and the process he employs to create sky domes. Oh, and his favorite season of SG-1 -- Season 2. Good choice, Jake! Every one knows Sokar was the coolest SG-1 villain!SGW's skies aren't just skybox textures, apparently; Johnson composes a geosphere to blanket the game world. Planets and other celestial objects can be placed inside it after the fact. The video includes a sneak peak at the sky of the planet Dakara, so that's pretty cool. Also, there's a gigantic Stargate replica in the studio lobby. Nice!The clip is worth a look, if only for snickering at all the miscellaneous gaming memorabilia littering the art department's desks, including a copy of Battlefield 2, Mario 1UP mushrooms, and an XBox 360 controller. But don't take the controller as a hint; Cheyenne's Joe Ybarra made it clear in an interview a few days ago that the team is focusing on the PC for now.
Robot taxidermy provokes thoughts, awwws
Artist France Cadet has created what was clearly meant to be a thought-provoking treatise on animal rights, the changing relationships of humans and animals, our ethical concerns on hunting, and an ever-morphing perception of what it means to be human... but it also comes off as looking really, really cool. Using the better half of the Aibo-wannabe I-Cybie robo-dog, Cadet reprograms the half-bots -- called "Hunting Trophies" -- to detect movement and react angrily when a viewer approaches. There are 11 different species in the collection, including a robot impala, lion, zebra, and warthog. Guess what? Despite those lofty philosophical goals, each one is more adorable than the next. Want.[Via PROTEIN OS]
Graffiti artist creates real-time, 3D paintings
Regular graffiti not doing it for you? Looking for something a little more up-to-date than spraycans and brick walls? Perhaps you should direct your attention to the artist known as DAIM and his recent project creating real-time graffiti in 3D. By utilizing a multi-camera scheme, DAIM is able to smear virtual paint across an empty gallery space using special handheld markers which are tracked by proprietary (we assume) software, calling the project "Tagged in Motion." A picture says a thousand words, and in this case, a video says about a million -- so hit the clip after the break and see the work in action.Update: The software in use is not proprietary, rather it's the ARToolKit (or Augmented Reality Toolkit), which is an open source project. Thanks for the info Kenijo![Via Fresh Creation]
White Stripes get their own Lomography cameras
Don't look now, but Jack and Meg are at it again. Yep, the White Stripes are once more reaching out to the retro lovin', geeked-out crowd by offering up a set of "all-plastic," limited edition Lomography cameras. The JACK Holga and MEG Diana+ seem to only differ from their standard counterparts externally, but fans of the band are sure to appreciate the Rob Jones-designed motifs. Notably, the JACK Holga Starter Kit includes "an additional Fisheye lens, three filter set and a custom Peppermint lens filter," while MEG's version comes with the "Nobody Knows How To Talk To Children" ringflash and a custom Peppermint Film Mask filter. Both kits are available as we speak for $180 apiece, but you better make haste, as only 3,000 of each camera were constructed. Check out a few more looks after the break.[Thanks, Favian]
Alexitimia robotic blob sweats when you touch it
Incorporating sweat sensors into gadgetry is nothing new, but an artist from Buenos Aires apparently felt that just detecting the liquid wasn't nearly good enough. The Alexitimia robotic blob was crafted by Paula Gaetano in order to showcase "creative intuition that permits both the artist and the viewer to leap over logic, whether scientific or artistic, and emotionally experience the problem laid out here of reconciling the wet domain of nature with the dry domain of electronics." Pretty far out, we know, but this creepy piece of blubber reportedly feels like rubber to the touch, and thanks to the integrated touch sensors, an internal water pump allows the pores to perspire in a zany attempt at showing affection. No word on whether this thing can blast out streams if your handling gets a little too rough for comfort, though.
WoW as the artist's canvas
For a while now I have been snagging screenshots to use as my desktop wallpaper. It began innocently enough with a lovely shot of my mage on her flying mount against that breathtaking Nagrand sky. Somehow this idyll hobby of mine has turned into a sort of obsession, where I now have a filing system on my hard drive for various screenshots-turned-wallpaper. My foray into WoW photography made me think about how actual artists express themselves using the game as a canvas. We watch the machinima with rabid frenzy, are amazed at the ingenuity of those that capture moments for Around Azeroth, bask in the glorious talent of those that create fan art. We also take role play and express it in terms of performance art. I once went to an interactive media conference where a speaker presented his robot that played his MMO 24/7 in order to create a performance piece that included a row of characters that marched in a certain pattern day in and day out. Has anyone out there experienced, witnessed, or created performance art pieces within World of Warcraft? What was it like to be part of such an experience? If you as an artist are planning any pieces of performance art, let WoW Insider know about it so that we can showcase your event.
All-aluminum Front Runner hydrofoil watercraft plays in the kiddie pool
Sure, it's no USS Ronald Reagan, but Joey Ruiter's conceptual Front Runner is one sweet ride if you're looking to exercise 215-horsepower on a slick body of water. Shown at the recently concluded Grand Rapids Boat Show in Michigan, the designer unveiled his latest concept watercraft, a hydrofoil with "twin forward-mounted jet-drive motors." The futuristic design is fairly easy on the eyes, and would certainly garner quite a bit of positive attention skimming across the shallow end at your local YMCA. Aside from being crafted entirely of aluminum without a hint of glue holding anything together, the unique construction allows the boat to cruise in "extremely shallow water," which could definitely brighten up an extremely rainy day if you're in a low-lying area. Still, we've no idea if Joey has plans to commercialize this gem, but if he adds a hovering feature in the near future, count us onboard.
Sony unveils black P!nk-branded MS-A512A M2 memory card
Topping off a month full of pink gadgetry – with most items proudly supporting breast cancer research -- is Sony's own P!nk Memory Stick Micro. Contrary to popular assumption, this 512MB M2 card is actually black, but similar to its P!nk-branded PSP, is stuffed in pink colored packaging fit for a pop star, and also touts compatibility with the K790i / K800i, M600i, K610i, Z530i, Z550i and W300i Sony Ericsson mobiles. It comes bundled with a MS PRO adapter for use in one of your many flash card readers, and also sports a pre-loaded MPEG4 video interview of the artist as well as a DRM-free (albeit shortened) MP3 of "Stupid Girls." Should you just so happen to be a rabid P!nk fan, or just need a clever excuse to purchase an M2 card, the "special edition" MS-A512A should hit stores in November for an undisclosed price. [Via ShinyShiny]
Widget Watch: OnTour - know when your favorite iTunes artists are in town
OnTour is a Dashboard widget that scans your iTunes library and offers concert notifications when the artists you actually listen to are coming to a venue near you. The widget uses OnTour.net to collaborate all this information, and links are provided to buy tickets, as well as to the iTS in case you need to brush up on your choruses. To top things off, the OnTour.net site itself provides even more links to discographies and Google maps for directions. Nice.[via Lifehacker]
Widget Watch: Check new releases by artists in your iTunes library with newTunes
Tired of browsing the (often late) New Release emails from the iTMS to find out whether an artist you actually care about has released a new album? Sick of adding an 'Artist Alert' for each of the hundreds of artists cataloged in your vast library? Well pound those keys no more, frustrated iTMS shopper, for the newTunes widget has arrived. This widget tells you when new music you actually care about has been released by watching for new and upcoming work from the artists already in your library.Don't you love it when computers actually do the work for you, instead of creating more work for you to do? newTunes is freeware and can be had from Apple's Dashboard downloads section.