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nickburn · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on the Oculus Quest and VR after One Week

Last week, I obtained an Oculus Quest, fulfilling a goal I had for this year of buying my first VR headset. I’ve been really interested in VR for years, and now feels like a great time to get into it, if you have the dough. Since I’m still fairly uncomfortable with traveling, I figured a headset would allow me to escape to faraway lands from the comfort of my studio apartment. The Quest in particular was enticing because, unlike most powered headsets, it doesn’t require a tether to an expensive PC or console. Now that I’ve had some time with it to explore the headset and some apps, I’d like to talk through my first impressions here.

The Oculus Quest

I got the 64 GB Oculus Quest through Amazon for $400, and I feel like it’s important to say that upfront. I recognize it’s a privilege just to be able to afford something like this right now, let alone have a decent job that allows for it. VR is not as cheap as it should be yet, but I think it will be within the next five years or so.

64 GB is plenty so far, and I can’t see the size limit becoming a problem for a while. Maybe once more premium apps like Half-Life Alyx hit the Quest I’ll regret it, but for now I’m totally happy with the smaller hard drive. The controllers are super comfortable and responsive, though figuring out left from right takes some getting used to, especially with something blocking your vision. But it’s easy enough once you realize that the second trigger is on the inside of the controller, so the wrong orientation will feel awkward. The device and controllers are very portable, if awkward to transport because of their shape and fragility. I expect I’ll have to purchase a carrying case for them sooner or later, but for now a backpack has sufficed.

The headset itself is truly a wonder. The four cameras on the front can create a live black and white feed of your surroundings so you don’t bump into things if you walk with it on, and they can even track just your hands for additional control options (currently in beta). The straps allow for easy size adjustments, and they’re tough enough that I don’t feel like they’ll wear down any time soon. There’s a slider for the lenses to adjust your viewing angle if things still look blurry, and the lenses themselves blend nicely into your vision, so you truly feel like you’re in another place with the headset on and running. The built-in speakers only heighten this effect, providing a surround sound experience in a small package. There are headphone jacks on the sides of the headset as well, but I haven’t had cause to use them yet.

The hub interface experience is fairly smooth, and you can choose your background environment for it from several thematic choices. Getting around the menus is easy enough, but it can be hard to know what to look for or even where to start. There are a few free demos, but after that you’re on your own to discover what’s best for you. Since VR is still so new to most people, I would like a little more guidance there, but I’m enjoying the process of discovering things for myself too. One nice thing is every game is listed with a comfort rating, so you know which are likely to give you motion sickness and which are basically 3D movies.

Beat Saber

It’s no secret Beat Saber is one of the most successful VR games so far, and it lives up to the hype. It’s a rhythm game where you have to slash at different colored blocks with the corresponding saber, in time with the music and in the right direction. You also dodge obstacles on occasion, either by leaning or ducking. This sounds simple, but it allows for a ton of different patterns and complexity. The best levels have really satisfying sequences to perform, and it does almost feel like conducting or drumming along with the music. The main campaign is surprisingly lengthy and difficult. At one point, it starts to require you to go against your instincts and mess up songs on purpose in order to not let your combo go above a certain number or to hit a required number of misses. I’m sure they were added to give the game some more mechanical depth, but I’m not sure they’re necessary. Fortunately, there’s also a solo mode and leaderboard where you can play any song you have access to on any difficulty you like. I haven’t bought more songs yet, but I suspect I will before long. Overall, this is an easy game to recommend and a must-play for anyone with access to VR.

The Climb

I’m a novice rock climber who hasn’t been able to go to a gym since March, so this game caught my eye. It gives you the experience of free soloing (climbing tall, long routes without a harness or other people) and bouldering (climbing very short but difficult routes, which is the style I prefer in real life). So far, I’ve only tried the tutorial, and I’m still working up the courage to go back. The game gives me a lot of vertigo and kind of freaks me out, as your character screams for their life whenever you fall (which, in the tutorial at least, will happen often as you learn the controls). Falling is a very real part of climbing, but if you’re doing it right, you should never get hurt. Free soloing is only really attempted by the most expert climbers, and even many of them die in their attempts. A better way to experience it though is through the Free Solo 360 VR documentary by National Geographic, which is free on the app store and thrilling to watch, just like the regular doc. I’m sure I’ll go back to this game soon, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to get used to falling in VR.

National Geographic VR

This game is very cute and allows you to play the part of a National Geographic photographer in Machu Picchu and Antarctica. So far I’ve only started the Machu Picchu route, but I really like it. Your producers tasks you with getting different shots, and you have several locations to choose from in each area. Not very deep, but the views are great.

Job Simulator

In Job Simulator, you play a boring, everyday employee for sentient, floating robot TV’s in a few different roles, and it’s awesome. There’s tons of physics objects to play with, which is definitely one of my favorite parts of VR. The writing is clever, the world is cartoon-like and inviting, and it’s much better than actual work. This is another game I’d strongly recommend for VR beginners like myself.

Netflix VR

As weird as it sounds, I like Netflix in VR. The TV in the environment seems much larger than the one I own in real life, so it feels bigger even though it’s virtual. I like the cabin setting and atmosphere, and it beats staring at my apartment walls. I was able to watch several episodes of Death Note in a row pretty easily, although the headset does start to feel heavy after a while. I wouldn’t say this is the ideal way to stream TV by any means, but it’s worth a try as a fun distraction.

Other Odds and Ends

I’ve dabbled with various other apps and games so far, as one does when one acquires a new electronic toy. I started the tutorial of Vader Immortal Episode 1, and it has you deflecting lasers and slashing robots just like a Jedi, so I’m excited to start that game properly. I was able to hook up my headset to my PC in order to try Google Earth, and it’s great. I don’t think my PC will be able to handle much else, however, so I’m thinking about upgrading it relatively soon. It is nice to know, though, that all you need to make the connection now is a USB 2.0/3.0 to USB-C cable. Until May, you had to buy a special $80 cable directly from Oculus, so I’m glad they removed that barrier. I still feel weird about Superhot in VR. I’ve tried it once before, and the demo still felt awkward to me this time. You have to be so precise in Superhot that dodging bullets while attacking and moving becomes really strenuous, and I don’t think the game really accommodates that well.

Next Steps

All that said, I’m looking forward to digging into all the games I’ve only touched the surface on as well as exploring new things. I’ll try to continue to document my thoughts here so you can all share in my journey with me. I’m coming to realize that VR time is separate from my regular gaming time, in that the experience is totally different. It’s not a replacement for the games I own already; it’s an expansion on a medium and still very new. But there’s something very freeing and magical about VR that comes with the masking of the senses and trickery that the headset provides. Very soon, within the next three to five years even, I think it’ll be much more commonplace.

Thank you for reading if you got this far! And let me know what comments or questions you have here or on Twitter. :)

#vr #oculus quest #video games #vacation ideas #beat saber #job simulator

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firesoulstuff · 6 years ago

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Time is a Cruel Mistress

In a comment on AO3 Otterfluff asked me to write a role reversal where Sara was the one working with The Legion in season 2, and holy hell am I in love with the idea!

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378978/chapters/38798978

Leonard pauses outside the brig.

They’ve done it. They’ve successfully stopped The Legion of Doom from taking control of The Spear of Destiny, though not without aid from a few alternate versions of themselves hailing from a now erased timeline where The Legion did win. Of course those Legends have now all faded into non-existence, some more painfully than others. Not his alternate, he had managed to survive until they very end. It had felt strange, talking to another version of himself from another timeline. But he never has been a trusting man, and while Captaining this lot has forced a bit of trust into his nature it’s been… ridged, structured. He’s the Captain, the boss; a role he has played many times before. Yes, he will admit that with this group the trust is beginning to seep deeper than anything he’s willingly fallen into in the past, but there are still a select few things he feels he can only trust with himself.

She is one of them.

Looking at him, at this past and yet also present, altered version of himself is… well Leonard wishes he could say it’s strangest thing he’s ever done but after the past year and a half there is a lot of competition in that department. Maybe it cracks the top ten, he’ll decide later. For now he has a question burning in his chest.

“Is she real?”

The other him snorts, “She kissed you, didn’t she?”

It’s stupid, because of course this other him knows about that, but he still stagers back a step. Yes, she kissed him. When he rounded the corner behind the medical van in the army camp. Sara was there, leaning against the van and picking at her nails. In hindsight he should’ve known something was off. She was wearing too much mascara, too much black leather, with her hair too curled to be the same Sara who died at The Oculus. But he was also partially convinced he was hallucinating. It’d happened to Mick a few times, the product of a guilty conscience according to Stein. But then she’d kissed him, and it hadn’t felt like The Oculus, but…

“Yes,” his alternate self finally answers. “She is.”

Leonard feels his heart stop, he wants to smile but he cant; not when the look on his alternate self’s face is telling him this still isn’t good news.

“She’s from 2013.”

There it is, the other shoe.

“She’s just left The League.” The other him goes on, “She was on her way back to Star City when The Legion grabbed her. They told her she would die in a bomb in a few years, and about her sister. None of the good she’ll do as The Canary, black or white, has happened yet.”

“And something tells me they didn’t bother mentioning it.” He sneers and his alternate nods.

“Afraid not.”

For a moment Leonard just glowers at the galley’s main table, his hands pressing down hard on its surface as he tries to form a coherent thought. This alternate him has spent a year living in a timeline where The Legion won, where Sara was allowed to change all the bad that happened to her. He knows himself, he knows he would’ve checked on her soon as his memory returned. He wants to ask if she was at least happy but...

He’s fairly certain the answer to that question would’ve hurt no matter what, so he refrained. He’s still curious even now as he lets himself into the brig, though he knows it doesn’t matter.

She’s standing in the center of the cell, her arms at her sides and curled into fists; staring him down in a very captured-assassin like manner.

“So,” he drawls, trying to come off as conversational as he can. “2013 right?”

“What’s it to you?” She spits; a venom in her voice that he’s never heard before.

“Well,” he starts, trying his best not to let her tone bother him. “That is where we’ve just landed. Want to make sure I drop you off in the right time.”

She cocks her head in a way that makes it hard to tell whether she is considering his words or a variety of ways to kill him and make off with the ship.

“I was in the right time.”

Well, that answers his earlier question.

He sighs, stepping closer to the cell until he is practically pressed against its glass.

“Believe me,” he says, his voice low. “I would like nothing more than to bring you back to the day you got on that boat and let you stop yourself, or at the very least allow you to save Laurel.”

“Don’t you say her name.”

“I have searched for loopholes, I have checked the timeline over and over again for any little event I can change that might save you, and I swear to you that I will keep searching. But for now you have to go back.”

She’s silent, so is he. He hadn’t meant to tell her so much, but once the words started spilling out there was no stopping them, not even her hostile interruption. She may not be the Sara he remembers, not yet, but she’s here, and this may be all he ever gets with her.

“Why?” She asks, her voice sounding almost… broken. “Why do you care so much?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. He knows what he wants to say but he has to keep in mind this isn’t his Sara. This Sara just escaped The League, she just left Nyssa, and she is fully aware that come April 2016 she will die in a time bomb; he’s not sure how well it will go over with the timeline if he tells her that only happens because she takes his place.

“Come on,” he finally settles on, nodding towards the door and pressing the release for the cell.

They venture off the ship and into the cold air of the night. They’re on a rooftop, The Waverider cloaked behind them, and Leonard hopes Sara doesn’t see the melancholy expression on his face as he watches her wander over to the building’s ledge and survey the skyline.

“You brought me home?” She asks, turning to him, and with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, the fingers of his right fist curling around a small devise, he shrugs.

“As of right now I can’t save you. Least I can do is give you a lift back. Unless you wanted to walk from The Himalayas.”

She steps away from the edge then, closer to him, until she’s in his space and looking up at him.

“Who are you?” She asks, all threats gone from her voice. “In the future, to me?”

He tightens his grip on the device in his pocket, suddenly painfully aware that it’s now or never. He’s already going to be up all night searching for loopholes in time, but if he allows this conversation to go on he might do something that will really screw things up.

“I can’t answer that,” he says, but her response is only to take a step even closer.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he says with a sigh, pulling the memory flasher out of his pocket and not even flinching when her wrist presses against his, holding a steady knife aimed at his throat. Her eyes are still curious but also challenging, just daring him to move one more muscle. “We never get to find out.”

And with that he pulls the trigger and turns away, back to the ship before her vision can clear.

#DC's Legends of Tomorrow #sara lance #leonard snart #Captain Canary #season 2 au #doom world au

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brosauruswrecks · 8 years ago

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Dev Diary 1

If you’re reading this, you’re a (potential) fan of Brozilla. So thanks for your support! This is our first week of development of Brozilla (I swear it’s different from Godzilla).

I guess I should start off by introducing the team.

We are:

Rogelio Espinoza in the role of CD (that’s Creative Director by the way)

Zheng Guo as the TD (Technical Director)

Roy Huang as the DD (Development Director)

Kireeti Vetagiri as PD (Producer Director) (I want a dual-word title)

I guess we should start off by explaining what this game is all about. It’s a VR Monster Simulator Arcade game. It puts you in the shoes of a building-sized monster called (surprise, surprise), BROZILLA as you lay waste to a city with your gigantic fists, fireballs spewed from your mouth, and other acts of general destruction. Where does Brozilla originate from though? Why did he choose to attack THAT city? Is the moon really made of cheese? Not even we, as the developers know yet.

For the time being, we are planning to launch Brozilla for the HTC Vive and , maybe, for the Oculus later.

We’ll be using Unreal as our engine and Zheng is working on understanding it as soon as possible as our Tech Director. The rest of us also have begun to explore Unreal and at a glance, it looks leaps and bounds ahead of Unity in terms of the visuals and the way physics is handled.

Roy, as our Dev Director, is in charge of making sure everything gets done on time and managing all our tasks for the day or the week. He’s using a kick-ass Trello board for the purpose and so far, he’s done a pretty good job of it. In Rogelio’s words, Roy seems very “reactive”.

To kickstart our planning process, we decided to make a verb/noun chart to highlight the interactions among the objects in the game. It sorta looks like this. (Actually, it looks exactly like this.)

We swear to god, we understand MOST of (PARTS of) the diagram.

But it’s pretty self-explanatory, huh?

Now for a few words from the CD, Rogelio,

“The main breakthrough of the week was finally working out how to get the Unreal Engine VR template with the Vive. Due to the nature of Unreal, we had some trouble understanding the workflow since it’s quite different from Unity. Fortunately we found the Unreal for Unity Developers chapter from the Unreal Engine guide and that’s kickstarted our understanding of the engine.

As the game designer, I started working out the details of the actual gameplay by making a Verbs and Nouns relationship map. I met with the team and we started brainstorming nouns, which led to new ideas like ambulances giving you extra health points, hospitals dropping MRI machines that you can consume for more mana, and having a RAGE meter than fuels up the more things Brozilla destroys which gives you access to Ultimate attacks.

To differentiate it from the SUPER bar, used for special attacks, the latter was now fueled by any energy sources you consume such as gas trucks, gas stations, MRI machines and generators; which in turn made eating people, or vehicles with people, the only way to up your health. In the end we decided to just make one power bar and make it work similar to fighting games, some special attacks would cost different amounts of points and ultimate attacks would cost the whole bar.

This simplified the combat system, as we don’t want to overwhelm the user with useless information. We just want them to smash!

Then I started working with the enemy behavior. Helicopters would circle around the player, being mostly an annoyance that only becomes a threat if ignored, kind of like a mosquito. Turrets are a new addition to the enemy arsenal; they come in different forms, mostly a variation in damage output and height. Then we have the fighter jet, it flies in a straight line towards Brozilla, shooting bullets all the way, when it comes close to the player, it shoots a rocket missile. These are fast and damaging enemies, but they are also really noisy, so they have a tell when they’re about to appear. Finally we have the tanks which are the most damaging enemies but also the easiest to aim at, since they have to get close to you to damage you. They only move back and forth, mostly backing up, trying to stay out of your reach.

The main goal is to get to the main building, which is hard to destroy. It has to be damaged until none of its health points remain. The building will have different destroyed states until it collapses.

We also played with the idea of having some powers be triggered by certain objects, like instead of having the flamethrower breath be an innate power, Brozilla would have to consume a gas truck that will temporarily allow him to shoot his fireball in a flamethrower way.

Brozilla’s size has been a point of discussion since we want the player to feel like he’s big enough to destroy buildings and smash cars but small enough it still feels like they have to make an effort to destroy. I compare it to when Mario consumes the Mega Mushroom and becomes a giant and stomps his way to the finish line until the effect runs out. That’s the only thing you can do, stomp away. It’s boring. There’s no real agency.”

Here, we have our design whiteboard we use for visualizing new concepts

Well, thanks for tuning in for this weeks update on Brozilla, that’s all the time we have for today. We love all our 5048 fans!

#devdiary #gamedev #vr #vive #htc vive #game development #game design #indie

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operationrainfall · 4 years ago

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Title Fujii Developer Funktronic Labs Publisher Funktronic Labs Release Date June 27th, 2019 Genre Meditative, gardening simulator, VR, adventure Platform PlayStation VR, Steam, Oculus Age Rating Everyone Official Website

Since college, I’ve been a fan of minimalism. It started when reading minimalist American fiction from the turn of the 20th century, and extended into video games with titles such as Shadow of the Colossus and Journey (which, incidentally, are two of my favorite games ever.) There’s a beauty in simplicity, a kind of tranquility when you’re given something concise and pared-down to only its most relevant forms. Fujii goes a long way toward capturing that same serenity through virtual reality, even if, in the end, it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

You wake up in the dark and make your way toward colored lights in the distance. Touching them causes them to light up and open a path for you. Since I was playing on the PlayStation VR version, your in-game hands move in tandem with the Move controllers, and for the most part it was pretty responsive. It got a bit finicky if you walked too close to the flower or orb of light or whatever other object you wanted to touch (and you can interact with almost everything). Walking was a simple matter of pointing your Move controller in a direction and pressing the center button to sort of hop to your next spot. Using the triggers lets you grip objects. I spent probably more time than was necessary picking up the weirdly cute creatures in the world of Fujii and petting them. It’s that kind of game.

You can absolutely pet the wildlife and it is glorious.

Fujii has four distinct locations. There’s your hub world nestled inside a tree where you can plant the various exotic seeds you find by traversing three independent and unique biomes. The first two biomes are labyrinthine exploratory areas where interacting with the environment opens up new pathways. The third biome is similar to the opening sequence, in that it’s a dark pathway you have to light up. It was a chill time just exploring the areas, finding hidden nooks and crannies, and petting the aforementioned wildlife. (Seriously, every game needs to let you pet the animals.) The only real goal is to collect enough seeds to take back to your hub area. I spent about 30-45 minutes in each of the first two biomes, and I can’t say for certain if the amount of seeds I needed was all the ones in the location or an arbitrary amount. Fujii is very light on direction. Other than some very basic controls that are etched into the landscape, the game doesn’t tell you how to do anything. It doesn’t give an objective other than find seeds. It goes beyond minimalism and into more experimentation territory. I feel like it would have been a smoother and more overall positive experience if the control schemes had been laid out cleanly and simply right from the get-go (Fujii does this when teaching you how to move). The first half hour or so of my playtime was me fumbling about with the controls and trying to figure out what I was doing. It took away from the otherwise low-key vibe the game gives off.

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Controls aside, Fujii is impressively lovely. The locales are vibrant and distinct, popping with color and texture. Interacting with the animals and plants are what give life — literally — to the world. Gripping or touching the flora and fauna, or sucking up water with your hands and spraying it on the environment, are the main mechanical gimmicks of the game. You collect items by grabbing them and storing them in a little flower pocket inventory. The most fun I had was trying to find ways to get to some far-off item I could see high up on a giant plant or hiding behind a rock barrier. You can pick up an assortment of wild looking seeds, as well as various creature eggs to populate your hub. There are also glowing spheres that unlock doors, which help you reach other seeds.

The first two biomes feature their own version of a Simon Says music puzzle, and honestly I wish there were more of them. Fujii bills itself as a sort of musical adventure, but those puzzles are the only real meaningful interaction you have with the game’s music. Otherwise it’s tonal responses when you go near something. The game itself has really good music that absolutely sets a relaxed tone, I just wanted more of the interactive elements those Simon Says puzzles offered.

You can store the seeds, eggs, and orbs you collect through each biome in your inventory.

My biggest issue with Fujii is that it’s aimless. I spent about four hours with the game. The stated goal is to collect seeds. You bring them back to your hub and plant them, then just tend to them. I think. The game doesn’t offer any input. Collecting for collecting’s sake isn’t necessarily a bad thing (I enjoy Nintendo games, and those are chock full of them), but usually that collecting adds something to the world. You can learn about its inhabitants, wildlife, history. I still don’t really know the world of Fujii. The gardening aspect is also where the controls suffered the most for me, because the space around the planters is small and I’d often end up on top of them or too close to effectively interact with them. For me, it became minimalism without a purpose. It lacked the narrative cohesion that gave Journey‘s or even Flower‘s minimalism a sense of weight, and the collecting felt more arbitrary than the structured freedom of a relaxing game like Animal Crossing. It leaned more abstract in the way Flow did, focusing instead on mood and emotion. As an experience, it isn’t egregious (in fact, I laud it for being experimental), but as a game, it left me feeling unfulfilled.

I also can’t overlook the fact the game crashed on me during my first playthrough of the first biome, or that items would sometimes just disappear into the ether if I dropped them. Having both happen early in my playthrough admittedly colored the rest of my time with the game.

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Fujii was an interesting experience that ended up feeling like a half-finished game with underdeveloped mechanical ideas but a solid ethos. The game wants you to chill and relax, and to its credit it’s incredibly effective. There are very few games that can thrust me into the dark with glowing eyes in the distance and yet make me feel completely at ease. The visuals and music are great, but the gardening aspect just didn’t click with me. I’m glad it exists, though. Games are such a fantastic way to provide unique experiences of every stripe, and even if that experience didn’t fit for me, I’m sure it fits for someone else, and I will never turn away from experimentation within the medium.

Fujii is available on Steam VR, Oculus Quest, and PlayStation VR for $14.99.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″]

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Review copy provided by the publisher.

REVIEW: Fujii for PlayStation VR Title Fujii

#Fujii #Funktronic Labs #PS VR #Review #virtual reality

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dawnajaynes32 · 6 years ago

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James Paterson, Digital Frontiers

Developer, programmer, artist, designer. Mad scientist?

Call James Paterson what you want, but one thing’s for sure: his creativity knows no boundaries. Paterson started using Flash in early 1997, and made a career out of pushing the medium and his creations into new, exciting, and evocative territories.

He’s been a part of the web’s past and present, and will undoubtedly be a part of the digital future that’s yet to come, although it’ll happen without one of his favorite tools: Flash. In the very near future, the platform and web plugin will no longer be supported by Adobe. Like others who used Flash, Paterson has lamented the coming of the end. “I think because I grew up with it as my primary set of creative tools it was really a part of me. I had spent well over 10 years perfecting my craft with it, and had a setup that was like an extension of my mind and body. It took years to relearn everything and port as much of my world as possible to JavaScript.”

James Paterson, photo by Jonathan Chang.

Paterson’s studio, where the magic happens.

But he’s a realist too.

“Ultimately the switch to JavaScript was good and healthy… it’s a much broader medium and allowed me to take my craft to all sorts of new places.” And there’s no turning back, all for the better. Paterson has broken into new digital territories, pushing the boundaries of augmented reality (AR) with #normanvr and other digital platforms. He took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions about AR, developer tools, the web, Flash, and a (possible) future for Flash.

VR (virtual reality) sculpting has become a major focus for Paterson. “It’s sort of a natural progression of my drawing process, popped into 3D, thanks to the hands-on-ness of VR.”

Q. Who were the Flash artists, designers, and developers you admired during the early days of Flash, and why?

In the very early days there wasn’t much going on that I could find made using Flash. There were some ultra-early Shockwave/Director sites, notably Antirom (Tomato Interactive) and Noodlebox (Danny Brown) which caught my attention in the late 90s. Then when Flash started to pick up in 1998-99 I saw a little piece of open source by praystation (Joshua Davis) that revealed how to create a “frame loop” where code could run across time. That was my very first introduction to code as a kind of living breathing thing. I’ve been thankful to Josh for that kickstart into code ever since. Some other characters from the early Flash days who influenced me hugely were Amit Pitaru, Yugo Nakamura & Erik Natzke.

Q. How would you describe what you called code as a living breathing thing and that frame loop that Joshua Davis made?

Up until that point I had only used very contained “actions” to perform a bit of control over my animations. Things like clicking buttons to stop, play and jump around through animations. The “frame loop” that I saw in Josh’s open-source showed some code sitting on frame 1, then an action on frame 2 saying “go back and play frame 1 again!” This was the first time I saw a game loop/tick/enter-frame in action and it blew my mind. Learning to code can be intimidating, and baby-stepping my way in as Flash slowly progressed to become a more full-powered development tool gave me a very comfortable on-ramp. Seeing Josh’s frame loop was where something shifted in my mind from being about simple actions triggered by discrete user events like mouse clicks, to being a fluid dynamic system that was constantly shifting and changing over time.

Q. As Flash became more and more popular, you’d see Flash used for expressive, experimental, and artistic purposes. Plenty of sites would also use Flash with the entire site needing the Flash plugin, or it would just have Flash components such as menus or images or animations. Where would you put yourself on that spectrum of Flash artwork versus Flash functional work, and why?

I primarily used flash as a personal art medium. Specifically, my area of interest was bringing drawings to life through a combination of animation and code. I would draw endlessly in my sketchbook, then pick my favorite drawings to expand into living, breathing pieces of interactive work using animation and code. This eventually matured into building custom creative tools (something I did a lot in collaboration with Amit Pitaru) and also getting into more game-like territory. The further I went down this path the more I had to study programming and take it seriously. I was continuously outgrowing my technical ability and having to pause (sometimes for years at a time) to learn more before I could continue.

The more comfortable I got with the medium and programming in general, the more I would take on contracts doing “functional” jobs as you put it. Basically I would spend as long as humanly possible making my own work, then when I was sufficiently broke I would take on commercial gigs doing more practical stuff with the skills I had developed in my personal endeavors. These commercial projects could sometimes be challenging and satisfying, but were usually just a way for me to pay the bills so I could get back to the main event: making weird personal work.

Chalk on chalkboard, from a wall in Paterson’s studio. “They are a combination of stream of consciousness/automatic drawing (a process I call psychic vomit) and plans/code for whatever I’m working on.”

A mural by Paterson in the parking lot of B-Reel Los Angeles.

Q. When you first heard about Flash being phased out, what was your reaction?

Flash was phased out slowly over a number of years, and while I could feel it happening I was still very much invested in it as a creative tool. The final blow was dealt by Steve Jobs in 2010, in his open letter Thoughts on Flash. My reaction was split down the middle. On one side, I agreed with Jobs about how inappropriate Flash was for making websites. I didn’t like Flash sites any more than the next person and was happy that they would be going the way of the Dodo.

But on the other hand, that was not what I used Flash for. For me it was my primary art tool. So with my own creative process, my reaction was one of deep sadness and loss. I had invested well over a decade developing workflows in Flash that were perfectly suited to me. I creatively grew up alongside Flash, so much so that it felt like a part of me. Once I read that letter by Jobs I knew it was totally over, and in some ways if felt like someone had come into my beloved studio, full of all my most intimate creative tools and processes, and burned the place down.

I know that sounds dramatic, but it really did feel that way at the time. I had to completely reinvent myself technically and creatively over the following half-decade, porting as much of my process to JavaScript as possible. This was a huge growth experience for me, facing that loss and then rebuilding.

Q. Are you still developing for Flash, in any way, be it with Adobe Animate CC or something else?

I occasionally animate using Adobe Animate, then drive those animations with JavaScript, but it is somewhat rare these days. It’s still a great animation tool, but I’ve moved on to other places and broadened my horizons in terms of tools and workflows.

Q. From curators I’ve spoken with, you’ve begun to work in AR and VR spaces. How are those platforms allowing you to push your visions and experiments further, and in what ways did Flash prepare you for the spaces you’re working in today?

AR and VR have been a fascinating to me ever since reading Neuromancer by William Gibson and other cyberpunk stuff as a kid. When it finally matured enough to really work, with Vive and Rift, I jumped right in. One of the main projects I’ve done in this area was to take my favorite parts of animating in Flash and create my own open source VR animation tool from scratch, called Norman. This was an incredible experience and such a fun way to carry some of the old school flash frame-by-frame lineage forward into the present. I used JavaScript to code Norman, and it runs on the web (WebVR) for Oculus Rift.

View this post on Instagram

Gonna miss you Gord #gorddownieforever

A post shared by James Paterson (@presstube) on Oct 18, 2017 at 1:05pm PDT

Q. At what point did you leave Halfempty, and when you decided to do so, what did working independently enable you to do that you had not done before?

I started Presstube in 1999 as a way to just get a fresh start after working on Halfempty for the previous few years. I had a wonderful experience working on Halfempty with Marty Spellerberg in 1997–98. He was the first person to turn me on to Flash actually! But in 1999 it felt like the right thing to do to break away and do my own thing. Halfempty was more of a magazine curating the work of many different people, and I just wanted to descend into my own creative rabbit hole.

vimeo

Q. What did getting published mean to you, especially being in such great company in the book New Masters of Flash?

It was a huge honor to be invited to contribute alongside all the amazing people in that book. Also just getting to share my process with others was a thrill.

Drawings by James Paterson

Q. What (possible) future do you see for Flash after 2020, when Adobe will end support of the plugin, and how would you want to be involved with Flash when it’s outmoded?

I’m not sure that Flash has any future to be honest, except to be remembered as a platform which acted as a catalyst for a sort of Cambrian explosion of creativity at the dawn of the internet. I will continue to draw on it to inform my workflows moving into the future, and try to rebuild my favorite old school Flash workflows from scratch.

Q. When the final nail goes into the coffin, how will you remember Flash?

Flash was at the heart of an open and switched on creative community in the early days of the web. It introduced a lot of non-technical creative people to the art of programming, and did so in an accidentally perfect gradual manner. It was the source of much frustration for users when it was used to build entire websites or aggressive banner ads, but for a small group of early creative technologists it was a profoundly inspiring and mind expanding technology. Thank you, Macromedia and Adobe, for that glorious ugly duckling of a creative platform!

Keep track of what James Paterson is up to on his Instagram.

Inspired by James Paterson and want to make contact with thousands of other creatives just like you? Attend HOW Design Live and you’ll be among the best and brightest in the industry. Register now!

Edited from a series of electronic interviews.

The post James Paterson, Digital Frontiers appeared first on HOW Design.

James Paterson, Digital Frontiers syndicated post

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trendingnewsb · 7 years ago

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Disney World is becoming a nightmare for people with motion sickness

Some famous mice appear in a parade at Tokyo Disneyland.

Image: yoshikazu tsuno/AFP/Getty Images

Hey, Disney: Your virtual reality rides are making everyone sick.

While I meet the occasional lucky soul who can ride in cars, planes, boats, and trains with no problem, the majority of people I know are affected by motion sickness to some degree. The CDC agrees, noting that “Given sufficient stimulus, all people with functional vestibular systems can develop motion sickness.”

SEE ALSO: Now you can virtually explore Disney parks without spending a buck

When I visited Walt Disney World last week, I didn’t think I’d have to worry. Most traditional theme park rides (roller coasters, log flumes, and the like) don’t generally trigger my motion sickness, or those of people I know. They rarely last longer than a couple of minutes, and so there’s only so much they can throw us around. Plus, the open air helps to alleviate the nausea.

But when I arrived and browsed the list of adult headliners, I realized that many of them didn’t look like the theme park rides I experienced as a child. Many of them now have heavy elements of virtual reality, something that I know from many hours of attempting games on the Oculus Rift was likely to make me very sick.

As a child, such rides were few enough that I’d be able to skip them. Now, however, it appears that avoiding VR would mean skipping some of the most popular, and technologically advanced Disney World attractions. I took the L and rode three of them: Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (I’ll let you guess which box-office-shattering franchise that’s based on), Mission: SPACE (an older ride that was rebooted last summer), and Animal Kingdom’s new blockbuster Avatar Flight of Passage. Unlike the headliners of my childhood, these rides all consisted of sitting in a dark room, donning 3D glasses, and staring at a screen.

Image: kent phillips/disney resorts via Getty Images

It’s not that the rides weren’t awesome. They were �� or they would have been, if my friend and I didn’t spend most of each experience trying hard not to vomit.

Avatar Flight of Passage, following what was almost a three-hour wait, was a stunning simulation of a journey through James Cameron’s Pandora on a magic dragon (or whatever it’s called, I haven’t seen the movie). Atop our virtual mounts we swooped and spun at terrifyingly high speeds, littering our journeys with corkscrews and barrel rolls. My friend and I stumbled out of the chamber very close to vomiting, and were nauseous for the next few hours, which hindered our experience on future rides.

Star Tours was even worse. We sat in a simulated spaceship that hurled through an asteroid field, ducking and dodging various space obstacles, abruptly changing direction and altitude every few seconds. My friend and I both had out eyes shut for about half the ride. We agreed that had it continued for another 20 seconds or so, we would have covered the chamber with our breakfast.

It’s clear from looking over Disney’s slate of newest rides, as well as those at competitors like Universal and SeaWorld, that such companies think virtual reality rides are the future. And maybe they are.

A friend who doesn’t get motion sick was aghast when I suggested that perhaps Disney could make its VR rides a bit tamer. “But those are the whole point of the ride,” he said of the corkscrews and barrel rolls. He has a point. In VR, Disney can subject riders to faster speeds and wilder, longer rides than it would ever have the budget to build IRL.

SEE ALSO: Humanity’s next challenge? Creating IRL avatars (Yes, really)

On the other hand, those rides meant I spent a good portion of my days at Disney World nauseous and wishing I was lying down. As more traditional headlining roller coasters are replaced by rides with virtual reality components, it’s less likely that I’ll choose one of those parks as my vacation spot.

So theme parks, as you advance into a new digital age, please consider your motion-sick patrons. We appreciate the “motion sickness” warnings, we really do. But at the point at which those warnings are on 75% of your most exciting rides, we still have to decide whether to spend a good chunk of our day waiting for our friends on a bench, or a good chunk of our day sick.

Is there any hope? I think there might be, as evidenced by a third ride, Epcot’s newly rebooted space-flight simulator Mission: SPACE. This virtual reality ride is so intense that the throw-up bags with which any sufferer of motion sickness is well acquainted are provided beside each seat. This ride has two versions: the “Orange” ride for the full experience, and the “Green” ride for a less intense experience.

Outside Mission: SPACE Green live space computers.

Image: eric tannenbaum

My friend took the orange ride, and confirmed that it was full of corkscrews, fast stops and starts, donuts, loop-the-loops, and everything that makes my stomach churn. I chose the green ride, and could not have been happier. The green ride was very smooth, and gave me the sensation of flying through space without throwing me back and forth.

In the future, theme parks should follow Epcot’s lead and consider adding a tame option to their virtual reality rides. Yes, the green ride was less exciting than its orange counterpart, but it was 10 times better than waiting outside, or vomiting in Mickey’s backyard. By offering guests an option to take a less intense version of a VR ride designed specifically to minimize motion sickness, theme parks can significantly improve the experience of many of their guests.

There’s clearly demand for this: While Mission: SPACE’s Orange ride had a slightly longer line, the Green ride still was having no trouble filling its pods. As a bonus, this would probably help reduce wait times (seriously, three hours for an Avatar ride is insane).

Yes, the future is great and awesome and exciting. But please, as you move forward into all its possibilities, keep an eye on those of us who are clutching barf bags while we follow.

WATCH: Construction is underway for the ‘Star Wars’ theme park and (holy crap!) it looks cool

youtube

Read more: https://mashable.com/2018/03/16/disney-world-rides-make-people-sick/

from Viral News HQ https://ift.tt/2GjTWjR via Viral News HQ

#IFTTT #Viral News HQ

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sweetlybeautifulmaker-blog · 7 years ago

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sglabs · 8 years ago

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Adopting Virtual Reality for English Langauge Arts (ELA)

Schell Games

We had the opportunity to attend the “Virtual Reality for English Language Arts (ELA)” workshop this May. The event was hosted by the TransformED arm of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit (aiu3).We were there with education consultants, technology coaches and directors, and middle school/high school English teachers from across Allegheny County.

The event began with everyone introducing themselves, what organization they were representing, and most importantly, what concerns these educators had when it came to virtual reality (VR).

The most common reasons for attending the session were:

Researching VR in their classroom

Recently got VR in their school and wanted use it effectively

Curiosity about how VR could help special populations within their school

Curiosity about if VR could help dyslexic readers

Wanting to understand what virtual reality was capable of

Brand new to VR, and want to learn more about it

Fear that educators would be wasting money on this new technology if they were not well-trained in using it

As one could see, people were across the board as to why they were there, but not a single person came with negative thoughts about augmented or virtual reality. It was a very positive group.

The SAMR Model

To get the educators thinking about how exactly to adopt VR for the classroom, Tyler Samstag, the Director of Instructional Innovation for aiu3, introduced the SAMR model. The SAMR model is often used when educational institutions are figuring out how to implement technology into instruction.

The educators were encouraged to think beyond the ‘enhancement’ plane (Substitution, Augmentation) and use the day to see how virtual reality can transform the way they teach.

(See Sabrina’s article about the transformational framework we use to design a transformational game.)

The VR Landscape

Once the SAMR model was discussed, Tyler presented an overview of the different types of virtual reality platforms available today, from Google Cardboard all the way to the ‘Big 3′ : PlayStation VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

Most of the day focused on how teachers could use Google Cardboard; it’s certainly the cheapest of the bunch, and schools should be able to get a classroom set (or partial set for students to pair up) faster than requesting funds for a high-end computer (or PS4) and one of the Big 3 VR headsets.

(We did a VR Primer update in late 2016. You can see it here).

Chris Milk- VR as an Art Form

Before we jumped into VR, the group was primed further by watching this TED talk by music video and filmmaker Chris Milk.

youtube

While we watched, we were charged to write down phrases that stuck out to us, what excited us, piqued our curiosity, and so on.

Phrases people liked included:

Empathy Machine

Suspension Gap

Taste the Lightning

VR makes ‘anywhere’ feel local

The ‘what if’ of virtual reality

It was interesting that this video triggered these ELA teachers to wonder how they could use VR to help their students be more empathetic with the characters they study. They also wondered if VR could truly be the “lightning” that could give students a special sensation while learning.

Dive #1: 360° Video Content

Using a mobile VR cardboard-like viewer, the group first explored 360° video content. 360° video content is when videos are recorded in every direction at the same time. Then, viewers are able to control their viewing direction, being able to see everything around them.

App used: With.in App also suggested: Jaunt

Videos in With.in teachers liked: 1) Invasion 2) Waves of Grace 3) Displaced 4) The Possible- Speed Machine

Ways to Integrate in an ELA Classroom: For Invasion, it was suggested that the students could write a prequel to it, allowing them to create and add their own narrative. Another teacher suggested using the video as an incentive to write on humanistic topics.

For Displaced, due to the topic being explored, it would have to be handled by a high school ELA classroom. But teachers liked it because it opens a discussion about empathy and perspective.

A teacher who liked Speed Machine imagined their students writing sensory details, and getting more out of descriptive writing if they used this tool in the classroom.

App used: Google Expeditions

Expeditions the teachers liked: 1) Historic New York 2) Monuments of Washington D.C. 3) TV Studios and Sets (Resource: Public List of Google Expeditions)

Ways to Integrate in an ELA Classroom: The teachers really enjoyed how they could visit the places that are settings in many of the books they’re reading. One teacher found an expedition that takes you to a castle in Denmark; similar to the one in Hamlet. They thought it could add more to the story if the students were actually able to see and visualize where these stories took place.

Dive #2 HTC Vive- Night Cafe and Google Earth VR

Since the overwhelming majority of the educators had never tried virtual reality until this workshop, they really didn’t know what to expect when they tried the HTC Vive. Some of them were even a little nervous; a plurality of teachers got a little nauseous using the Cardboard.

Nerves aside, they tried it- and people were very impressed. It is always fun watching people who are trying VR for the very first time. They liked it so much that several stayed after the workshop to jump into Tiltbrush, another VR experience Google created.

Are Teachers Climbing the SAMR Ladder Now?

Absolutely. We sat next to an eighth grade English teacher, and she is doing incredibly engaging projects with her students. She often uses Aurasama, an app that uses augmented reality (AR), and assigns her students projects that deal with presenting book reports or plot summaries and requiring several AR components.

Along with Aurasma, her students are using video editing tools like Touchcast, and the AR coloring app Quiver 3D. As if that wasn’t enough, she occasionally places her students in teams and they create a virtual reality world based on a scene in a book they’ve read recently by using Cospaces.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a positive and informative experience for the educators and trainers. Many of them left with the resolve to continue gathering information about VR and AR tools, and thinking of ways to implement them into the classroom. After talking with a number of them, some concerns were raised about fully adopting and implementing VR in the classroom.

Some were:

For the tethered VR experiences, would schools with Apple labs and computers be able to access this technology?

How can we prevent germs from spreading if the students share the equipment?

The research on the effects of VR on children is still new and inconclusive. Should students under 13 be warned before using it? How should it be communicated to parents?

Each of these concerns is valid and need to be discussed when a classroom, school, or school district is thinking about investing in virtual reality.

Tyler ended the session by giving the group a link to all the information he’s been gathering about implementing virtual reality in the classroom. You can access that information here.

#vr #education #teacher #virtual reality #ELA #english #AR #augmented reality #technology #English language arts #Google #oculus rift #PSVR #PlayStationVR #HTC Vive

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firesoulstuff · 7 years ago

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Me and You

flabbergabst requested:

24. “Are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?”

and

52. “I think I’m in love with you and that scares me half to death.”

For Captain Canary!

Read on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378978/chapters/28202070

The Waverider is very, uncharacteristically, quiet.

They had succeeded. They had destroyed the Oculus, and now everything has changed.

The Time Masters weren’t merely the guardians of time like they had people believe; they were tyrants molding history however they saw fit. They didn’t care how many lives were ruined or lost because of their choices; people were disposable to them. They were willing to allow Vandal Savage to slaughter whoever he wished in his brutal conquest to rule the world, because MAYBE he could defeat some alien threat that was supposedly going to attack earth in 2175.

Now that the Time Master’s are gone Savage is operating alone, but he has a time ship, and he has Kendra and Carter.

Today hasn’t been a total win for the Legends.

“Sorry about your staff.”

Yup, and there’s Snart with his ever-helpful sarcastic comments.

Sara supposes that she should be grateful to be hearing that break of the silence, considering how close they came today to losing the crook.

“I can get a new one,” She says with a shrug, still not making eye contact with him. She’s sitting on one of the barstools in the galley, nursing a bottle of beer, and while a part of her is definitely wondering about whether or not they’ll ever be able to track Savage down again and find their kidnapped teammates, if their teammates are even still alive or not, another part of her is replaying what the crook standing before her had said just hours ago in her room.

“Started to wonder what the future might hold for me. And you… And me and you.”

“Still,” He says, dragging her out of her thoughts and she finally looks at him, her unguarded gaze daring him to continue. “I want to thank you,” He finally leaves the doorway with that, sauntering into the room and leaning his arms on the counter so that he looks her in the eyes. “If you hadn’t stabbed through that trigger I would’ve been done for.”

She hums in acknowledgment, still not quite sure what his game is here. He isn’t here to pick up the conversation they had started earlier, she can see it in the way his eyes are watching her. He’s lost his nerve from before, it isn’t that his feelings have changed after his close call with nearly going out in an explosion, or at least she doesn’t think his feelings have changed.

Only one way to find out.

“Well, you can’t steal that kiss if you’re dead.” She glances up at him through her eyelashes and his face falls. He doesn’t want to talk about this, not now, but he’s the one who brought it up to her in the first place so too bad.

Still, she waits patiently for him to say something.

At first he glances away from her, looking down at his hands like they hold all the answers. Then he looks back up at her for just the briefest fraction of a second before he looks down again and this time he pushes him himself away from the counter.

“I should go see how Mick’s doing with consoling Raymond,” He just barely gives her the bullshit excuse before he turns his back on her and now she’s mad.

“Are you serious?” She demands of him as she rises from her seat but doesn’t move to follow him. “You’re the one who brought up thinking about the future, specifically one including us both.”

She’s not yelling, but she isn’t exactly far from it. She’s also looking at the back of his head, but she can see it in the way his hands clench that he’s closing his eyes tightly, and she can see the way he’s standing so stiff and rigidly; she can tell that he’s fighting a war within herself.

“That was a mistake,” He just barely utters the words, still facing into the hallway, and Sara sets her jaw and folds her arms.

“I’m not stupid Leonard,” she says firmly, but he still doesn’t turn around. “Do you think I didn’t see the way you were looking at me in 1975?” She asks, “Do you think I don’t remember Russia? How the entire time we were there you were trying to stop me from killing Stein, how you told me I wasn’t a killer anymore?” She can feel the tears starting to bring on the ridges of her eyes, and for a moment she wants to wipe them away, but she doesn’t. “You’re different with me, Leonard. I can’t it explain it but you are.” She could explain it, actually. She could let him know that she’s noticed his emotional barriers don’t stand as high when he’s around her, aside from right now when he is actively forcing them to. But telling him this would require admitting that she’s different around him as well, and right now her mission his to pull his head out of his ass, not to make him feel better. “So are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?”

His shoulders stiffen at her words, his entire body tensing up as he accepts that there isn’t going to be an easy way out of this. He turns to face her and she’s watching him carefully, analyzing every move that he makes.

“What question?” He asks her in what’s almost a snarl. “Do you want to go out with me?” It sounds ridiculous, sarcastic even, coming off of his tongue. They aren’t twelve, things aren’t as simple as “going out” or not. No, they’re adults, and they’re adults who have each been through a lot of shit. “I’m not good at stuff like that! I don’t know how to do that!” He’s practically shouting now, his tone bordering on hysteria, but she holds his gaze firmly until he’s left just standing there as his breath evens out. “I’ve dated before, Sara. It never lasts long and it never ends well.”

“Then why did you bring it up earlier?”

That’s a good question, and Leonard wishes he had a good answer for it. But he doesn’t. So he sighs and tries to think of one.

“Because I’m not stupid either,” He eventually ends up saying. “When you were pushing me to talk to Mick, when you somehow knew that I would never be happy if I didn’t at least try to patch things up… no one’s ever cared about me like that.” He flicks his eyes away from her for an instant before looking back, and she’s still holding his gaze. “I brought up that idea of the future earlier because…” He hesitates, wondering if he’s really going to say this. But he can see the patient look in her eyes, and he decides that he can’t avoid it any more. “Because for better or for worse this mission is nearing it’s end, and we don’t know what’s going to happen when it’s over. All that I do know is that I think I’m in love with you, and that scares me half to death.” He gives her a minute to react to that, to say something, but she doesn’t. He avoids her eyes and they fall into a heavy sort of silence, the kind that logistically can’t last. So he starts to leave again, and this time he actually makes it out the door.

But he doesn’t get farther than that.

“I think I’m in love with you, too.”

He stops in his tracks when he hears her words, and after a second slowly turns to see her looking at him with perhaps the most serious expression he has ever seen.

“I’m not good with the whole dating thing either,” she says as she approaches, stopping just in front of him. “I mean I’ve done it, but not since I came back to life, and even before that my track record wasn’t exactly great.”

Len opens his mouth to say something; although what he planned on saying he isn’t exactly sure, when their ever-present voice from above interjects.

“Captain Hunter is asking that everyone report to the bridge for a time jump.”

The two of them look at each other, knowing that they now have less than two minutes to finish this conversation before someone comes looking for them at Rip’s command.

“What do you think?” He asks her and she shrugs, avoiding his eyes and toying with a loose thread on her jacket sleeve.

“Hmmhmm,” she hums noncommittally, “What do you think?” Now she glances up at him and he takes in a breath before he places his hands on her waist and, slowly so that she can pull away if she wishes, leans over and steals a kiss.

The kiss is soft, and quick, but it means so much to both of them and it doesn’t feel like any other kiss that he’s experienced before. It feels like it’s the start of something great, and like he never wants to kiss anyone else for as long as he lives.

“I think,” he finally says as he pulls away, “That I want to see what the future might hold for me and you.”

She smiles at his words and their heads press together, both of them now sporting wide grins like love-struck teenagers. Then Sara gives him another peck on the lips.

“Sounds like a plan.”

#dc's legends of tomorrow #sara lance #leonard snart #captain canary #tumbler prompts

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dawnajaynes32 · 6 years ago

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James Paterson, Digital Frontiers

Developer, programmer, artist, designer. Mad scientist?

James Paterson, photo by Jonathan Chang.

Paterson’s studio, where the magic happens.

But he’s a realist too.

VR (virtual reality) sculpting has become a major focus for Paterson. “It’s sort of a natural progression of my drawing process, popped into 3D, thanks to the hands-on-ness of VR.”

Q. Who were the Flash artists, designers, and developers you admired during the early days of Flash, and why?

Q. How would you describe what you called code as a living breathing thing and that frame loop that Joshua Davis made?

A mural by Paterson in the parking lot of B-Reel Los Angeles. Paterson works as a creative director at B-Reel.

Q. When you first heard about Flash being phased out, what was your reaction?

Q. Are you still developing for Flash, in any way, be it with Adobe Animate CC or something else?

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Gonna miss you Gord #gorddownieforever

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Q. At what point did you leave Halfempty, and when you decided to do so, what did working independently enable you to do that you had not done before?

vimeo

Q. What did getting published mean to you, especially being in such great company in the book New Masters of Flash?

It was a huge honor to be invited to contribute alongside all the amazing people in that book. Also just getting to share my process with others was a thrill.

Drawings by James Paterson

Q. What (possible) future do you see for Flash after 2020, when Adobe will end support of the plugin, and how would you want to be involved with Flash when it’s outmoded?

Q. When the final nail goes into the coffin, how will you remember Flash?

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Edited from a series of electronic interviews.

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