Chris

Chris Heydra - cgheydra [at] gmail [dot] com

List Your Old New Media Icon

In 1986 Craig Reynolds made a computer model that mimics the herding of groups of animals on a two dimensional plane and the flocking of birds or the schooling of fish in three dimensional space quite accurately. His approach was to not try to control the behaviour of the herd, flock, school or other crowd as a whole, but to apply behaviour to the individuals in the crowd and thus letting individuals create the crowd on their own. The outcome of which seems a lot more complex than the 3 rules applied to each individual.

The distributed behavioural model he made has since been used in the field of CGI to make large numbers of actors move realistically. For instance the wildebeests in the Lion King and it was the basis for the orc hordes in the Lord of the Rings.

Pay Tribute to Old New Media

In 1945 Vannevar Bush proposed a machine called Memex. This totally analog machine could be used to find information from different sources much like the World Wide Web today. But the method of finding information was different then the Web. Unlike links connecting sources - and thus creating paths - being there, the user makes his own associations between items on an individual basis. Thus linking what’s relevant to him.

As tribute to this key feature, I’ve made Memex Online. A modern day version of his idea that does use the internet as a source, but lets a user make individual associations between items that are relevant to him.

It works by having two browser windows side by side. Each functions as you would expect. The user can read pages, follow links or do a web search. But the user can also save associations between the two pages currently being displayed, adding notes if he wishes. And while browsing across a page he as already made one or more associations with, the interface shows those associations at the bottom of the other browser window. Allowing the user to easily recall those earlier associations and notes.

Circle Pong

Circle Pong shows homage to the classic 1972 arcade game Pong developed by Atari. But with a twist. Instead of two players in a rectangular playing field, Circle Pong is played by one player in a circular playing field. The object of the game is to bounce the ball off your paddle as many times as you can. But the ball speeds up every time it hits your paddle, making the game more difficult if you play it longer. The game is developed with OpenFrameworks an uses a mouse to control the paddle.

Further ideas to improve the gameplay are to make it a multiplayer game. A second paddle can be added in a different colour. The ball would then change colour to indicate which player is supposed to hit the ball next. Another improvement would be to use a turning dial to control the game. Much like the original Pong was played. A turning dial would improve interaction by improving the mapping of user expectations.

(unfortunately a screenshot could not be uploaded because of quota issues)

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