making space ships fly

ship flying and dynamic camera control mechanics from Thomas Kearns on Vimeo.

This is a short video from a project I worked on last summer.

I must disclaim: I had no responsibility in the creation of the graphics for the art assets or the heads up display.

This video demonstrates the full 3d freedom control/physics of the space ship, with the ability to fly up + down, forward + backward, banking naturally and rotating + re-aligning properly relative to the camera.

Camera control is simple full 3d, 3rd person follow cam, with ability for player override for optimal viewing relative to environment.

When I have time I will upload more videos of the design development of the control mechanics which explored many different approaches, ultimately settling into this fluid but conventional approach

Thesis: digital game beginnings

thesis: digital game demo 1 from Thomas Kearns on Vimeo.

This demo was built using the irrlicht graphics SDK, the bullet physics engine, irrKling audio library, and my simocc library for microcontroller communication.
For the past few weeks I have focused my attention (away from the physical game) at getting the foundation for the digital game working in terms of production pipeline, core systems, etc.

Specifically, as seen primitively in the demo:

the game is going to be 3rd person with a little big planet style camera, in which each obstacle can define it's own ideal view, to which the camera will smoothly slerp to (right now for testing, I have view quaternions being toggled by joystick)

the character is the demo md2 model for the irrlicht demo's controlled by a modified version of the bullet kinematic character controller, still have some orientation issues, but happy to have the player usable for testing purposes. (if someone wants to design a sweet character I’m looking for artists)

physics engine integration working pretty solidly.

and besides just having a kind of grey-box making pipeline, the crux of this demo is a not so apparent, but relatively sophisticated procedural environment system. using custom builder, factory, AI engine combo, new obstacles can be generated on the fly (right now based on time, or as in the demo, by button press).

Unlike a conventional tile based system the obstacles are nodes which possess x number of connections or edges which define variable parametric conditions, this is to allow the environment to grow in a much more organic way, not limited by a grid. At present there are only two node types, flat floors and a spawn point. This will soon be joined by fully animated, physically simulated platformer obstacles modeled in max and exported using my custom exporter. The essence of this system, which is largely in place though still buggy (overlapping obstacles aren’t eliminated yet) is an easily extensible, relatively intelligent, custom obstacle course generator.

views tied to obstacles, no overlap, and the QBert style obstacle tagging coming soon, then connectivity to the physical game ... the ultimate goal for this term (3 more weeks)

laser game prototype

Laser Game Prototype #1 from Thomas Kearns on Vimeo.

Here is the first working prototype of the electronics of one module for the physical game in my trans-reality game for my thesis at DePaul. Shown is the photo-transistor based sensing of a standard laser pointer. Sensitivity is controlled by a potentiometer. Visual feedback is by way of a tri-color LED variably throbbed by 555 based timer circuits, modulated by digital potentiometers, green when laser is aligned, red when not. An IR detector is used for monitoring the "cranking" up of power, and controlling the rotation of a motor that will be used for alignment. As power is added, the throbbing slows down once the player stops cranking (to run off to the next laser station).  The “drip” of power is sped up when not succesfully aligned.  This project is running on an Arduino microcontroller utilizing Zigbee based wireless communication which allows ad-hoc mesh networks of these stations to form scalable site specific instances of the games. 

The next step will be to build a second one of these and to put them both in mockup housing/mechanical assemblies so that game play can be tested.  Hopefully in a week or so we will be able to give it a go and then I can move on to the digital game. 

Loft Wall System

Originally developed by sand_box as a proposal for a residential client in Manhattan.  This dynamic wall system augments a pre-engineered electronically controlled high density storage system, by replacing the proprietary control system with a custom interactive control system which enables rich tactile responsiveness and procedural control for particular programmatic relationships.  The modular framework for the wall structure allows for a range of residential, commercial, or institutional programs to be contained.  By tracking the position of the wall relative to it’s context additional electronically controlled systems such as illumination, environmental conditioning, and entertainment can be activated or disengaged.  Developmental progress fell just short of realization with full construction documents, physical scale model prototypes, and electronics specifications.  Please contact me via sand_box  for inquiries or requests.