Benoit, qui est entre autres l'auteur du blog Shadows.fr, et qui vient d'être embauché comme rédacteur chez 3dvf, entame une série d'articles sur les associations françaises ayant un lien avec l'infographie ou la 3D. Et c'est l'association des Algoristes qui ouvre le bal, avec une interview du secrétaire de l'asso, votre serviteur. Bien évidemment le Paris ACM Siggraph devrait suivre bientôt.

Du coup histoire de ne pas me répéter, je vous invite à aller lire l'article de suite. Et j'en profite pour faire un appel, si vous êtes membres d'une association ayant trait, de près ou de loin, à l'infographie, n'hésitez pas à contacter Benoit (benoit -at- 3dvf.fr). Et si cela éveille des vocations, et que vous voulez participer aux réunions des Algoristes, ne serait-ce que pour voir ce que c'est, n'hésitez pas.

/* c'est ma mère et ma copine qui vont être fières de moi */

Interviews d'artistes à la télé: le plat pays des questions oiseuses baigne dans l'océan des réponses sans intérêt.

Philippe Bouvard

Last week, I introduced Kodu, the new XBox game editor made by Microsoft. I used the PC version to test it and although it is a very good idea, it very quickly showed its limits.

First of all, the terrain editor system is not very easy to use, and sometimes doesn't work at all. Moreover, using 4 modes to edit the terrain makes it very counter productive, cause you need to go from one mode to another every ten seconds.

Then, about the behavior system in itself, each icon/block is very easy to understand, the names and images are quite self explanatory. But the system in itself is more obscure. Some elements can't work with one another, and you loose parallelism. I tried to make a tron/snake (kind of), so i needed my cycle to always go forward, and only turn when i turned the Joystick right/left. I created three instructions :

1. When joystick pressed towards left, turn object on the left;
2. When joystick pressed towards right, turn object on the right;
3. Always move object forward.

When I only had instructions 1 and 2, everything worked fine, the cycle turned left/right. As soon as I added the 3^rd instruction, the cycle only moved forward, ignoring the two other instructions. I had to change instruction 3 to : When joystick not pressed, move object forward. Then I got the problem of trying to detect a collision to make the game over. And still got no solution as the instruction is ignored...

Finally what's very sad is the limited number of behaviors available in Kodu, some games will be almost impossible to make

Apart from that, the rendering and global look and feel is very nice, although a little too Wii for me, and you can add some effects on objects.

I'm definitely not up-to-date on the high-tech videogame world.

Rachel Dratch

I talked almost two years ago about Popfly, Microsoft Flash Silverlight game editor. Now they brought this to another level, maybe after seeing the success of Little Big Planet : with Kodu, one can create its own XBox video game.

Now what they've done is still in the field of visual programming, with the challenge of never using a keyboard. Only with the XBox controller, you can import elements in your game, create an environment with a terrain editor, and add behaviors to the game. Once the game is created, one can share it online wit other players.

Microsoft's Kodu

From my experience, Visual Programing editors have the choice between being simple, and being scalable. With Kodu, Microsoft made his choice towards simplicity : everything is represented as cute icons, no text needs to be entered... but you can only create the game mechanics Microsoft engineers thought of. Now I didn't test it (yet) as the program is still in beta, and I don't have an XBox, but i'll bet that we'll soon see youtube Videos of people pushing the system to its limit.

Edit : And since... well today, Kodu's team released on its blog a PC version, downloadable free of charge here.

I'm a fan of videogames. I like them. And to get to be part of one of them would be a fun and exciting thing.

Christian Slater

I've recently been invited to try the latest product developped by Dassault Systemes 3DVIA. Made with Virtools MP 3DVIA Studio, 3DVIA Scenes let's one make its own room, with one of multiple defined environments, and adding any 3D object available in the 3DVIA library.

When two or more persons are viewing the same Scene, they can chat together. And of course, each room becomes part of the 3DVIA library, and can be viewed by anyone, unless the author made the Scene private.

I guess one of the main use of this would be for one to design its own house (using 3DVIA Shape maybe) and the change the furnitures or decoration in 3DVIA Scene, making an extension in 3D space of the family space.

My dream home and "car"
(the house model was made by B. Rogez)

In rare instances you have to give up what you thought was a great scene.

Keenen Ivory Wayans

It's been a while since we've seen the first 2D games making use of physic engines, but here is the first one which I'd really like to play with. PixelJunk Shooter is a game available on PS3 Network, and is both a platform/action and a puzzle game (kind of). From what I've seen, you control a ship to rescue PNJ scattered in a 2D world.

According to the level, you're surrounded either by fire or ice, and need to use the available resources to make a way to the exit. You can drop water on the fire, or fire on the ice, each fluid being rendered with a smooth animation. An image being better than a thousand words, I'll let you enjoy the video.

PixelJunk™ Shooter E3 Trailer [Youtube]

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

George Carlin

La Cantine vient de me contacter pour me parler d'un de leurs événements qui se déroulera le 16 décembre prochain : R.A.D. art, ou Rapid Application Development for artistic projects. Le but est de faire se rencontrer des ingénieurs, développeurs, techniciens en tous genres, et des artistes, créateurs, en passant par des profils mixtes.

Quatre artistes disposeront chacun de 7 minutes pour exposer leur projet. Puis l'assemblée est divisée en quatre "ateliers", chacun allant où il le souhaite, pour essayer d'apporter idée, soutien et conseil aux artistes. Le tout se termine par une mise en commun des idées, puis d'un apéritif.

Vous pouvez retrouver le programme sur le site internet de La Cantine, et vous inscrire à cette soirée pour échanger des idées sur la création numérique interactive.

Le monde arabe, vous savez, c'est ce contact brutal entre deux mondes: d'un côté celui de la technologie, de l'autre celui de la magie.

Rachid Boudjedra

So Facebook engineers are geeks too. Indeed, if you use the classic cheat code "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter, Right Clic", a Lens Flare effect will appear in your Browser. Ok, it's useless, but hey, it's fun!

Oh and to remove the effect, simply close the page and open a new browser.

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A