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Here's
information on some of my recent work.
You can follow up on most entries by clicking the links.
The pages pointed to here will remain on my site as long as
they are relevant, but the specific links on this page will
be updated from time to time with new items.
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Firefly |
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| Here's the cover of my first CD, Firely.
I wrote, produced, played, and sang the eight original songs that I included
on this disk, ranging from some up-tempo pieces to some slower and more serious
songs. I recorded the entire disk in my home studio, using
my piano, guitar, and lots of sampled instruments on my computer.
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It was a heck of a learning process to dig into the production work,
from figuring out a good placement for the microphone to
simply managing the many, many computer files. In the midst of the project
one of the metal pipes in my computer's power supply cracked, which leaked
thick green coolant that oozed all over the insides of the machine! Happily,
the computer was just barely still covered by the warranty. Apple replaced the
hardware and gave me back my old hard drives, and from those and my backups
I was able to recover most of my files.
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(photo by Alex Colburn)
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New
Songs |
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| I've finished up a new batch of songs.
Some are uptempo and humorous (or ironic or just playful), and some
are slower and more intimate. A few are of the cabaret, or even musical-theater,
variety, typically giving some insight into the personality or plans
and aspirations of a particular character. |
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In September 2005 I sang four of my new songs at Tula's Restaurant
and Nightclub in downtown Seattle, as part of an evening of different
singers. Because Tula's is a jazz place, I wrote a couple of original
songs with a more jazzy flavor to them just for this performance.
I considered accompanying myself on the piano, but I had the chance
to work with a trio, and I thought that would be more fun and would
allow me to focus on my singing. Here's a picture of the evening;
in this photo the bassist and drummer aren't visible, but they're
behind me.
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Interactive
Storytelling |
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Interactive Storytelling: Techniques for 21st Century Fiction
hit the shelves in March, 2004. Hooray! This book brings together
a bunch of ideas I've been thinking about since I worked on my interactive
story game Dead Air for the Microsoft Network. My viewpoint
is that there's some wonderful hybrid of games and stories out there
to be found, but that it's not in plain sight. We've seen lots of
creative people try to create interactive stories, but so far we
don't have anything that looks like it has the seeds of mainstream,
long-term success.
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The intent of the book is to clearly explain the tools of story
structure and game structure. With both of these in hand, we can
see why they've been so difficult to reconcile until now. And by
seeing them clearly side-by-side, we can start to think of new kinds
of entertainments that will avoid the rocky reefs that have claimed
the many stalwart ships of interactive story that have sailed in
the past, and chart a course to more rewarding waters.
The book is published by AK Peters.
You can buy a copy at your local bookstore, or over at Amazon
if you prefer.
Check out the Table of Contents and more
information about the book on its own web page.
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Morphs,
Mallards,
and Montages:
Computer-Aided Imagination
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| In 1996 I started writing a
regular column for the magazine IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.
This book (to appear in August 2004) is my third collection of columns,
bringing together the last three year's worth of articles. They've
all been updated and revised for this |
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gathering, and include new material that wasn't able to make it
into the columns because of space restrictions. Because I believe
in the power of visuals as well as the power of words, the book
contains over 900 figures. All drawn (or rendered) by me, with loving
care for each and every pixel.
Like my storytelling book above, this book is published by AK
Peters. It's avaialble now at Amazon.
You can read more about the book here.
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Cartoon
Master
La Coruna, Spain
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| A group of European countries
and companies cooperate every year to produce a series of conferences
on the art and business of animation. I was invited to speak at the
April 2004 |
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meeting on the future of
3D animation in La Coruna, Spain (you can still download
a copy of the PDF of the program).
To say that I had a wonderful time would be understating the case.
I got to hang out in Madrid with a friend for a couple of days, and
then spend a few days enjoying beautiful weather and stimulating company
in the oceanside city of La Coruna (as well as a morning in nearby
Santiago). Here are a few photos from my trip: |
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Crop
Circles |
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| Crop circles are a fascinating subject.
Whether you believe they're created by artists in the middle of the
night, visiting extraterrestrials, both, or neither, there's no doubting
that crop formations are frequently beautiful and remarkably diverse.
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For my September 2004 and
November 2004 CG&A columns,
I decided to look into the history and geometry of crop circles. Along
the way, I developed a little computer language for capturing the
shape of crop formations, which I naturally enough call Crop.
You can read a complete description of the Crop language here.
I decided to try out my language by creating a crop formation of my
own. There weren't any wheat fields ready for making art in Seattle
in February, so a couple of friends and I used a pressure-washer to
create a design on the roof of a parking garage. You can see this
design above. You can read about how we made it in my November 2004
column, or in my upcoming book Morphs,
Mallards, and Montages. |
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