Next up was a workshop by Brown Bag where they described their experiences using the animation toolset ‘Toon Boom Studio‘ to create a new children’s tv series ‘Wobbly Land‘. It seems to have a steep learning curve, particularly if you are used to Flash (no tweening!) but they had great technical support from Toon Boom’s creators, including 2 weeks of training. TB also created custom effects plugins for Brown Bag, that helped give the show it’s unique (and very non-generic vector animation) look.

The last workshop I attended was ‘Machinima FilmMaking’ (the art of making movies inside video game engines) by Friedrich Kirschner, the developer of Movie Sandbox, a heavy modification of the game Unreal Tournament 2004 that turns it into a Machinima application. The game world becomes your stage and the characters your actors, who you can direct as you please, either ‘live’ or through pre-defined scripts.

Some cool input methods were shown, one involved controlling your ‘actor’ like a virtual puppet using the strings on a usb golf controller. Another made use of the Xbox 360′s Guitar Hero controller so your machinima actor can jam on some chords.

Also demoed was an innovative supporting technology called Milkscanner, a low budget but highly effective method of scanning 3d objects using a webcam, lego, a bowl and some milk(!). A (small plastic) elephant was gradually submerged in milk, each stage captured by the webcam and then the software assembled each ‘slice’ into a 3d wireframe suitable for import into Movie Sandbox. Great stuff, innovative and nutricious!

Anomie
An experimental art piece showing the journey of an amnesiac from a healthy state of mind to a state of uncertainty. Through a route of non-linear interactivity, the user helps guide the character to the reason of his ill health and the incident that caused it.

M.A.M.M.Y.
M.A.M.M.Y. (mass audience multimedia-media yeah) is a social networking site for the creative students of DKIT, where they can communicate, collaborate and display their work. It uses bluetooth to beam recently uploaded content to students mobile phones.

R.E.A.C.H.
The R.E.A.C.H. (Routine Education for Autistic Children at Home) team produced an e-learning CD-ROM for autistic children to show them how to get ready for school in the morning. Their research found that autistic children are visual thinkers so it uses a cartoon based approach to effectively communicate it’s message.

Delirium
Delerium generates a visual representation of the current mood of the user using music and colour. The users temperature is recorded and inputted into the computer, at which point images and a piece of music appears and floats around the walls of the room. Questions appear onscreen that the user answers, after which these answers are compared and contrasted with the temperature reading.

The Land Of Luna
An exploratory game aimed at 8 to 9 year old girls. The game is from a first person perspective. The user plays the character of Lana who is transported to the world inside her snow globe, where she must collect a series of objects in different levels to save her friend Noah. There is no time limit on the game, so as to encourage the user to explore the world and interact with the characters.

Reuben Chinaski
An interactive exploratory autobiography for the digital age. We see the main character, Reuben Chinaski, on his deathbed. He is too weak to write his own biography so instead he tells the user about the ups and downs of his life. The user is free to explore parts of Reuben’s life in a non-linear fashion by selecting various objects in the room and letting Reuben explain what the object means to him through filmed narrated memories.

Seven Deadly Sins
Purge your soul of the seven deadly sins by engaging with this interactive experience. Memorize sound sequences inside the confession box while hit with some far out imagery.

Tactical Control Force
‘Watch tomorrow’s news today”, in TCF you control a live newsfeed by taking place in a series of games. The outcome of these tests shapes the narrative. A real adrenaline rush as you try to avert a national emergency in real time. The installation for this piece is a sort of survival bunker / command post, which helps intensify the atmosphere further.

Zeppelin’s Universe
This game’s target audience is kids in a public waiting room who are feeling restless. The main character, Mikey, goes into a dream state where he meets Zeppelin the Wizard. He has four tasks to accomplish to allow him to return to reality, or else he will be trapped in Zeppelin’s Universe forever.