I don’t know exactly when that happened – I haven’t really been checking that lately – but I just realized today that my main website is the first result to show up when you do a search for “zeh” on Google.
Take that, ZEH Software! Eat it, Norbert Zeh! Try again, Pfau Zeh!
In a more serious note, the website is in Flash. It didn’t really hurt the search rank that much, did it? Heck, I don’t even advertise the URL.
Graphic designers, assemble! W3C is looking for a new identity for their scalable vector graphics initiative and, honestly, most of the entries submitted so far aren’t exactly up to the standard this project deserves.
So get your vector programs going – in the communist open-source spirit, I recommend InkScape – and draw nice polygons for them. Entries will be accepted until October 1st, 2006.
Who would have guessed that Microsoft is going to allow user-made games to run on both the Xbox 360 and the PC?
This news’ bomb has been just dropped and it’s bound to change the way independent, hobbyist and amateur game development works: by using C# and Microsoft’s XNA technology (a DirectX of sorts), people will finally be able to test their coding skills on a console platform (see some examples from the press announcement here).
There are some small catches, though (which can be found at the FAQ): to compile on the Xbox 360, you need an yearly XNA “Creator’s Club” subscription (at $99 it’s much, much cheaper than full-blown devkits); and mostly important, you can’t share the Xbox 360 binaries you compile with regular Xbox users: you need to share the source with other XNA developers so they can compile it themselves.
Even so, this is great news for people that want to learn how to create games (several game development schools have already commited to support the service), or want to develop something that they can later pitch for Xbox Live Arcade publishing (which’s probably going to have a bunch of new games soon). According to one of the XNA developers, they do intend to make binary distribution available on the future, but seem to be testing the grounds before commiting to it.
I more or less share the excitement for this news with the developer mentioned above… too bad Microsoft doesn’t even have a standing position on the Brazilian console market, so acquiring an Xbox is not only ultra-expensive but also frustrating considering we don’t have nearby Live servers or anything of the sort. Still, cool news to watch from a distance.
Coincidentally, Microsoft’s GameFest starts today, so we’ll probably see more news and information about it on the coming days. Like other developers adding support to the technology, so you can reuse their engines under the new service.
Update: Microsoft has just released the beta version of their XNA Games Studio Express.
Other sources: Shacknews, The ZBuffer
Yay Hooray has a long thread on redesigning famous logos in Web 2.0 format. Interesting and funny. The thread has been slightly hijacked by advertisements, and as any other Internet fad it’s bringing the server to its knees, but the logos are still there. Alternatively, you can view them directly through the collection on Flickr.
Thinking about logos, one can’t ignore the fact that even the most powerful identities can look quite crude on screen: when you look at something on paper, there’s a whole depth to it (even if you don’t consciously notice it) because parts of the design will get to your eyes first, and your focus plays a big part in isolating details. Also, you’ll always have shades of lightning and shadow when looking at something on a real surface, specially one you can manipulate, so when you look at something that’s perfectly square on your face, and projected by light – a logo on a computer screen, that is – all that depth is lost.
Much like the motion graphics field have in the past, we’re going through a period of adaptation, where most designers realize that identities that look great on paper don’t always translate that feeling to a screen, and they need something else entirely. This kind of decoration that’s present on most ‘Web 2.0′ logos – reflections, shadowing, top lightning – is a way to try and simulate that depth perception. It’s more than the just cheap look created by the old embossing and drop shadows (Web 0.5?)… and while it works in a way, it has become so mandatory that one can’t help but giggle at the list compiled at Yay Hooray. They’re the new swooshes.
As anyone can see, I have my own internet domain name; and sure enough, my domain is based on my name (zeh.com.br). When deciding on an email address to use on that kind of domains, people usually go for the easy or obvious route – for example, using simple addresses such as me@zeh.com.br or zeh@zeh.com.br.
Instead, when I was setting up my new email account, I decided to create separate mailboxes, so they could be used for different purposes – g@ for generic email (ie, might get spammed), l@ for subscribing on discussion lists, and sure enough, z@ for personal, humane email contact.
This has posed a number of problems though. Now, after a couple of years using that approach, I’ve learned that:
Shattering news, I know. Even so, I’m not stopping using one-letter email addresses. The solution (at least for less-then-smart websites)? Redirects like gg@. Thanks, Internet.
SomethingAwful explains Web 2.0. If you can get the first paragraph, you’re in for a laugh.
Well, actually, it’s not an account by David Candland himself, but sort of — Bungie.net has a new weekly update online, and this one is called User In Yer Face and cover some aspects of the user interface design flow on Bungie, specifically how they’re using Director to prototype the interface before actually coding it on their game engine. Other features covered are aspect ratios planning and screen navigation. A brief but good read.
Source: Tom Higgins
Japanese website PingMag has an interview (in english) with everybody’s favorite german type designer, Erik Spiekermann. It’s pretty lengthy and pretty cool – instead of focusing on the obvious (the history of MetaDesign and so on), it goes pretty deep into typography itself.
Source: OS X Code (r,s)
David Hayward (a level designer involved with Alien Swarm, among others) wrote an interesting article entitled Videogame Aesthetics: The Future. It’s a really long article talking about the aesthetics of games nowadays. It mainly talks about how games are evolving and how the general aesthetics are getting closer to photorealism – and the problems and solutions involved.
In what appears to be a fit of turnabout, gamers often murmur “Of course, it’s all about gameplay” when graphics blunder oafishly into the conversation. Well of course, interactivity is more fundamental to the medium than most if not all other parts of it. We’ll always stand by gameplay: but it’s graphics that will be handcuffing us to the bed during our next “business trip”.
Good read. Save it for a weekend read if needed.
Yesterday, the first public version of Defence Alliance 2 (Beta 1) was finally released. Defence Alliance 2 is an assault mod, featuring custom gameplay (new maps, weapons) and character classes (a la Team Fortress). Most of it has been done before, but I like to believe DA2 has put been put together quite well.
The reason I’m posting this is because I’ve done the interface work for the mod – drawing the new components, menus and dialogs and reskinning everything – so it’s cool to see it released to the public after a couple of months of hard work. It’s nothing extraordinary, and there’s some stuff left to be done, but thanks to the rest of the team, it feels really polished. If you have UT2k4 and you play mods, give it a shot.
It can be downloaded freely from the Defence Alliance 2 website. There’s also an online manual teaching the secrets of the game. You can also see reviews at Amped News (part 1 and part 2) and at Unreal Reviews.