Fake or Foto

This week, I have found a great topic for my original posting. In this class, we are discussing art of the digital age and how we interact with it, and this post goes along fairly well with that. Being a 3D modeler and animator, it is a major part of my job to create visually realistic images when called for. For example, the above image is a digital rendering that I have created using Autodesk's 3D Studio Max software. It retains virtually all of the characteristics of realistic imagery and properties including the number of bumps on the ball. The programming power that we are offered through programs such as Autodesk's Maya and Max software as well as Softimage's XSI provide us the ability to regenerate reality through digital means. When you view a movie with lots of special effects, does your mind sometimes wander off thinking to yourself, "Man that looks real!" or "Was that real?"? Because I am familiar with the various techniques used in digital manipulation and 3D modeling, I can spot the differences fairly easily, however, the ability to distinguish reality from virtual reality is getting much more difficult over the years due to the increase in technology and the decrease in human participation in reality as virtual reality is taking over our daily lives more each year. The company Autodesk has produced a few challenges over the year that test a viewer’s ability to compare and contrast and to eventually differentiate real images and digital renders produced through one of their award winning programs. I have posted a link to the challenge for you all to take and test your ability to not only separate digital reality and reality, but to compare them with shared relations.

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/fakeorfoto/challenge/

Out With The New, In With The Old

This weeks original posting focuses on a community project that I have been following since the very beginning of the project. Sega's Sonic The hedgehog 2, released in November 1992, became a worldwide best selling video game for the Sega Genesis and became a nostalgic icon for many. When Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 the console hardware used to run the game was nowhere near as sophisticated as the technology we have now. Games then were held tight to a limited color palette and 16 Bit processing power and not to mention the sound processing was terrible, though the tunes played are quite catch and nostalgic themselves. Now, we can generate more than 5 times the processing power and we can produce lossless audio for games as well. We are also not limited to a small selective color palette either. So with all of this ability that we have in the 21st century, we should be able to make new great games right? Yes, and now actually. The community at the Sonic Retro Forums have taught an old dog new tricks. They have created a new game based nearly entirely off of an old one. With this comers Sonic the Hedgehog 2 HD. The community, most of whom are trapped in nostalgic moments of ring collecting and midi synthesizers, have decided to test the limits of new technology in this new HD era with old ideas. Created entirely from scratch, they have produced new HD resolution visuals based on the 16 Bit counterpart and have made a playable demo. The community has not just recreated a cultural classic, they have revived it. The new HD version is scaled in many ways to look and feel just like the '92 version with the exception of new sprites, resolution, and a new soundtrack. This is not only interesting because of the amount of work done, but this is incredible because it is a community project with no influence from Sega at all. Not even a cease and desist order! It is also amazing to see concepts of the old such as art and sound being re-engineered for today's technology. Here is a link to the demo for t hose who want to see what has become of this project.

http://www.logotypes.se/sonic/HD/TechDemoSecondRelease.rar
http://www.logotypes.se/sonic/HD/D3D_dll_files.rar


http://forums.sonicretro.org