When thinking up this figure I had in mind a modern version of the circular pillars turning into a square U shape, here at Impossible World, just that now three more-than-square pillars turn into four pillars. I really enjoyed creating the actual geometry, but when coloring it ended up being a hassle with all the gradients, even though I finally settled for a comfortable way to manage it.
Update: These kind of figures will be smoother to create soon, when Illustrator CS4 is released. Apparently it will support gradients with transparency, which it now does not. I just hope that there will be more settings for the gradients and that the tool will snap to points. I really wish Illustrator had some of the awesome features Flash has had forever.
After finishing this one I thought the many gradients made the figure a bit difficult to look at, even though it might look nice, it’s hard to appreciate the lines. So I made up my mind about putting up “wireframe” version of the figures as well, with a single line weight and without the colors, shades and background.
At work we are supposed to have private mugs so the general ones can be used by guests. I used a blue Christmas mug at first, but now I have one which is truly mine… me! Surely nobody will mistake it for theirs!
The process to generate this mug includes an eight year old idea, sawing, video recording, LEGO and custom software.
Read on if you want the full story behind the creation of the mug(s)!
Background
In 2000 I found photos made by Andrew Davidhazy, a professor in imaging and photographic technology, but by then I didn’t know how they were made or who had made them. Six months ago or so I found the files on my computer and could via Google Image search find where they came from!
Andrew Davidhazy utilized a scrolling film with a slit that exposes a beam of light over time, creating weird photos which fascinated me; especially those of people. As I didn’t know about this technique at the time, I came up with my own way of how to create similar images.
As depicted in the crude 3D animation above (from 2000-02-25) my idea was to use a video camera to record imagery, and then I would extract a column of pixels from each frame in the video to create my images. At the time I only speculated in what kind of apparatus I would need to rotate a camera perfectly around objects (like my own head) to create unwrapping pictures, but I never got to constructing anything as I was not very resourceful back then.
The image to the left is from 2001, generated by sitting on a rotating office chair while recording with a webcam. The software used in this case was a VB application which saved columns of actual screen pixels, made by a school classmate. Not especially practical but it worked, the entire thing was experimental.
In 2003 I begun to use parts of my thought out method with a static camera which rotated to create standard panoramas in Halo, a videogame for the Xbox. To do this I had my cousin create a specialized software to process the videos after my specifications. This is the same application I used for this project, five years later.
Creation Process
Now, in 2008, the concept sparked to life in my mind again when I got the pressure on me to find a private mug to use at work, and I decided it was about time to realize the old idea of unwrapping my head. Many of the things I would need this time around were readily available, or could be acquired cheaply. Here is what I needed.
Video-capable camera with lockable ISO/exposure setting.
A construction that would rotate the camera around my head.
Custom software to process the video with.
The Camera
The camera I used was my beloved Canon Ixus 75 bought in January prior to a skiing trip. It’s a cheap ultra compact camera but it’s the best video capture device I currently own, and it’s physically small enough to simplify the next step of the project. It captures a compressed video stream in 640×480 pixels at 30 frames per second, which had to make do. A feature I found after about 15 face scans was a way to lock the exposure/ISO setting during recording which generates a much better image. Too bad I didn’t find that earlier!
In accordance with my old idea of how to scan a head I decided I would create a device that carried the camera on around my head, looking inwards all the time. The easiest way to construct this was to use my old LEGO bricks.
The LEGO
First I created a vehicle with different speeds on the inner and outer wheels, which caused it to move in a circle. It ended up being way too hard to align it correctly for a perfect circle and it had to travel at a very slow speed to not vibrate or shake too noticeably.
My second concept was a whole frame that would rotate around my head. I experimented with different wheels and constructions. Wide tires would have too much sideways grip so they would only gradually follow the circular track, causing it all to wobble. I ended up using the thinnest tires I could find.
For propulsion I started using two motors facing each other on the construction, but as the motors got different speeds even though they were of the same model I used one large motor instead. I ordered the extra motor and extension cables to reach the battery pack from the LEGO store. In addition I bought additional tires off of eBay as I only had five of them from the beginning.
The final construction is supported by 16 wheels that is in contact with the surface, four of which are driven by the motor via gears, axles, screws and two differentials. The larger tires were added to counter some of the weight and to add grip. The camera hangs outside the outer supporting wheel which caused the inner to slip, causing the rig to travel outside the edge of the table.
The Table
First I got a second hand table which was one meter in diameter, sawing a hole in the center. This table was round and nice, but it could be extended; which meant the board was split in two. This caused the LEGO construction to jump as it crossed the seam to the other board. I went back to the second hand store again to find a table with a whole board. Finally I got a smaller table, square, and precisely the right size.
The Software
As I mentioned before I used the old application my cousin made for me when I created the Halo panoramas. One limitation it has is that it can only handle raw AVI files which cannot be larger than 1GB. To work around this I cropped the video to a small stripe and exported that without sound. A side benefit is that it saves disk space as well as making it lighter to work with.
The Scanning
I tried several different ways of positioning the table and myself before I got to the final scan session. This is how I ended up doing it.
I put the table on four stools to increase the height; so I could fit a chair underneath.
I bought a cheap lawn chair that fits under the table.
I using my Wii Balance Board (which I don’t use very much anymore, sadly!) to gain height from the chair, as I didn’t get high enough up as it was.
I hanged an Xbox Live Vision camera in the ceiling, hooked up to my Xbox 360 displaying a picture on the TV so I could align my head correctly.
I used a universal remote to deactivate the screensaver on the 360 when it activated.
I began with setting the camera to video mode, macro and fixed ISO value. Then I focused it on my hand which I put where my head would be, turned on the recording and inserted it into the LEGO construction and turned on the LEGO motor. Next I climbed into the setup, which almost always resulted in a sour shoulder or other muscle pain, and tried to align my head while the LEGO traveled around the table.
For a successful capture I need to sit still for about two minutes with the same face. Your face can relax when the camera has traveled past it, but the risk is that you change your posture if you relax too much. Some of the faces were hard to keep for two minutes, as well as not blinking when the camera passed!
Other considerations where lighting, angles and distance. I noticed that I got blue strikes through some images, and that was due to my wall mounted lamps getting into the video image. As for positioning, whatever you have closer to the camera will take up less horizontal room in the generated image, so to get a result that is as proportional as possible I needed to center my head. As you can see in the collection of scans keeping your head straight is also important. When you angle the head a whole lot of distortions enter the picture. If you lean your head to the side the whole image will be heavily distorted, but that was easy to control. It was harder to remember to look straight forward, if you do not your ears will be rotated and moved, getting different proportions compared to when you keep your head level.
The Mug
After several face scanning sessions across several months I finally decided I had images I was happy with. I cut them up in Photoshop and adjusted scales so my ears would be in the right places on the mug. After that I ordered three panorama mugs from Emmagjort.se, I found their price was very acceptable and even had phone contact to arrange the details, very nice!
This concludes the eight year old idea… fantasticly relieving! Of course I have ideas of how to make a much better construction from engineered metal parts, but that is 20 years off.
Yesterday (2008-10-05) I managed to do a really clumsy thing. I had my brothers visiting playing Zack & Wiki (not new but awesome!) so I was a bit out of focus when I battled with separating frozen bread slices for us to eat, after they had been grilled. After chopping away with less sharp tools I carelessly decided I would use my Global bread knife I got for my 25th birthday last year. It worked fantastically well, even too well. I had of course applied way too much force as the row of frozen slices previously had seemed like a solid object, but now the knife went straight through, into my unsuspecting fingers.
The first few moments of shock is quite unsettling. The feeling of seeing huge gaping gashes in your fingers is completely unreal, until the blood starts gushing out and you realize you should like… try to stop it. I ran to the sink to not mess up my kitchen, but as I was getting lightheaded and felt like fainting I got some tissues under my hand and laid down on the floor instead.
I called out for my brothers so they could phone my father, that was my instinctual reaction. He later managed to arrange a time at the emergency watch, and an hour later I was sitting in the waiting room filling out the damage report. 40 minutes later I got into a room and they began cleaning up my hand before the doctor would arrive, which took another 20 minutes.
The doctor had me straighten my fingers which hurt a whole lot and sent a funky jolt of pain through my index finger. At first they did not deem my injury very serious as a lot of dried up blood made it hard to see, so they went to another patient while the anesthetic got to work.
They got back a while later and began sewing me up. She originally didn’t think it was very deep, but due to the blood pumping out of the cuts she changed her mind. Instead of her first suggested one stitch on my long finger she used four, and five stitches on my index finger! The anesthetic wasn’t completely working when she started sewing, but I wanted it over with, and after enduring three or four stitches I didn’t feel much anymore.
Now I’m home from work trying to take it easy. Just using my fingers a little is quite painful, but I did get a fair amount of sleep tonight. Painkillers woohoo!
You might have noticed the friendly images in the text, below are some of the bloody and scary images, so if you aren’t into that kind of stuff avoid clicking the links! I’ve also added a warning screen if you step through the images in the display system.
WARNING
THE FOLLOWING IMAGES CONTAIN BLOOD & GORE!!
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! IMG1IMG2IMG3IMG4IMG5IMG6 END OF DANGER
I have been careful when cutting things throughout my entire life, so I’m not quite sure how I got to this point. My guess is that it was a mix of distractions, stress and frustration. Distracted as the others were playing a video game, and I was interested in the puzzles, stress as I was already late preparing the food and we were very hungry, frustration as I couldn’t get the slices to separate! And when it comes down to it, I was not even trying to cut something, I was just going to separate them! Of course I’ve gotten many tips and ideas of how to separate frozen bread slices without damaging your fingers now, like I wont think twice the next time.
After researching how to draw cylinders and ellipses in three point perspective I gave up on the idea and decided to go for approximations of the shape instead. It was a bit more work to create this figure than most others, but well worth it I think. I have sketched very many variations of this figure so I had to create it somehow! The relationship between the different elements seem to be deeper when the shapes are more complex, I like that… but it also makes me wonder how I can continue making figures like this.
My first and only MP3 player is a Creative Muvo 128MB, which has survived lots of things since about 2002. Airplane travels, rounds in the washing machine, too many bus trips… it has been very reliable, though without a display or even a shuffle feature it leaves you wishing for more.
This Tuesday I got a new MP3 (etc) player, finally. Yet again a Creative, but their Zen X-Fi 8GB. When looking for a new player I wasn’t so much browsing for MP3 players, but something that could do a little more. The Zen X-Fi can play back video and it has a very nice speaker built in, those were the feature who made me pick it. Now I have various videos I’ve made on the device as well as a bunch of Anime episodes. I’ve successfully watched two episodes so far, and it works very nicely at 2.5″ and 320×240 pixels. I love it :) But enough about the player.
I remember seeing a whole lot of the transparent monitor pictures online, very well made too, and when I discovered I can easily change the wallpaper on the player I just had to try this.
So, here it is… the translucent media player!
If I ever buy myself a laptop, I will do this for each and ever place I put it in! Well, maybe not.
Last week I was at the optician to try out one-day-contact-lenses. There, with the guidance of the professional optician, it took me an hour to insert and remove a contact lense for one of my eyes. As I am going there tomorrow again for a followup where I am supposed to wear the contact lenses when I arrive, I decided it was about time I practiced today. I’ve been postponing it as I have had a cold since the middle of last week, and it’s not advisable to use contact lenses when sick, but now I’m mostly fine.
I wasted the two first lenses I tried to insert, as it took too long, so it dried up… but on my third try, after 40 odd minutes, I got it in there! Dang, I really don’t like putting things in my eyes! Then, after finishing the right eye, I got the left lense in at the first try… I ended up mounting a mirror on top of my kitchen shelve so I could see what I did, even if I looked up. Then when putting the lens in I looked as far up as I could, and it kind of solved itself. After trying lenses I have a deep respect for those who can just slap them on and remove them in an instant… or are they just insensitive?
Then, thirty minutes later, I decided it was time to remove the contact lenses. This time around it was the complete opposite. The right eye gave me its lens almost at once, while the left eye almost had me panic. I see better on my left eye, so that lens is much thinner than the one I wore on the right eye. Which my explain why it went on easier. Now, when removing it, I had a really hard time to see where it went! At one point, I thought it had rolled up, but when I tried to grab it, it vanished! I rolled my eye about like a madman trying to find the little roll, and I thought I could feel it on top of my eyeball.
Eventually I took out my small Fenix L0D flashlight, which I carry on my keyring, to see if I could locate the thing. Then I could see a very thing outline around the eye, the lense was still on!! Whew… a few moments later and I had it out, and breathed heavily as my life was saved. I have a hard time seeing myself getting used to the horror of inserting foreign objects in my eye sockets.
I first drew this (with pencil and paper) late at night, before I turned off the light to try and get some sleep. I liked the look of it, but I myself deemed it un-impossible, in other words, possible. It wasn’t until I redrew it weeks later and studied it closer that I realized that it was indeed impossible, so here it is! It still takes a bit of work to wrap your head around it.
To see why this figure is impossible, compare the two different sides. If you follow both the top and bottom beams, you will notice that the ends will not match up.
Last weekend I downloaded a WiiWare title for the first time, Bomberman Blast. Funny enough the only game I have bought for the Virtual Console is Bomberman ‘93…
I had very high anticipations for this new Bomberman game as it features eight player mayhem not only online but locally as well! That’s one crowded couch! I knew of this beforehand and even wrote a suggestion for control setups for the developer, but sadly none of my ideas were implemented, not even using the nuchuk instead of the GameCube controller, sad face.
I tried to write some comprehensible summary of the game, but here are my immediate feelings about the game instead.
I was skeptical to a 3D-bomberman, due to the perspective distortion, but it didn’t take long for me to love it anyway! The graphics are smooth and nice, the levels look gorgeous and the sounds are a treat. I guess after playing Bomberman ‘93 for several months that’s what anyone would think.
It is quite easy to start to play, just add players, enter a game mode, change settings if you want and launch a level! You can register players, but I guess that is mostly useful online… otherwise you can play as a Bomberman or a Mii. Playing like Miis are quite nice actually, especially when there many people. No more “WHO IS RED AGAIN? WHO WAS BLUE? WHO IS THE GREEN GUY?” when you can see who people actually are, even if the Bomberman is cute and all :P
I recognized a bunch of powerups, like the throw glove, punch glove, kick boot, roller skates, extra bomb, flame, golden flame, triple bomb, water bomb, land mine, power bomb, spiky bomb and of course the epic virus skull! New powerups (for me) were the dangerous bomb, and the powerDOWNs, the blue flame, minus bomb and minus boot.
In addition to powerups you can pick up items which you use by either shaking your Wii remote or alternately tapping your shoulder buttons on your GameCube controller. These items are the rocket pack, shield and bomb disguise. They seem overpowered at first, but the rocket pack and shield takes a bit of skill and brains to use. If someone managed to use them successfully, it’s a laugh!
I have yet to play eight players. We did play six players, and it was a (huhu) blast. I have ordered extension cables for the GameCube controllers as the WaveBird controller is just about impossible to get your hands on now, cheaply anyway.
Oh, and I think the starting blast range is shorter than before. Probably as that enables smaller starting areas, which means room for more players! It has caused me to bomb a spot three or four times in a row without hitting anything though :P but that was way past midnight too.
All in all, if you are like me, and love local multiplayer games (well, it has online too), these will be 1000 Wii points very well spent! And as an owner of Bomberman ‘93 I have to say that getting Bomberman Blast as well is definitely not a waste. It is very much worth it, especially if you have many merry friends!
I first drew this figure on paper in perspective, a bit distorted. It was fairly complex so I decided I would draw it in an parallel projection to make it easier on the mind… bad idea. It was a great hassle to get the right lengths on everything, so I aborted that and went straight for the computer instead.
This figure probably has the most complex chain reaction of proportional relationships between surfaces in any of my figures so far. I basically worked my way through the entire thing without stopping, as one edit lead to the next and so on. I also found that in the end the lines didn’t match, but through error location I found the two mistakes which had caused the oddness, as well as another minor glitch. I finished it after four hours of concentration.
The outside of this figure makes up a traditional tribar structure, but embedded in the middle is a cube-ish framework. Between them there is a large amount of impossible connections.
I screen recorded the entire process of this figure. I’ve been a bit indecisive about posting how I create these pieces as it’s something I feel fairly unique doing, but it is fun to share. Hopefully it takes a bit of skill and motivation that is uncommon to make these creations. Below is the video embedded, but it is available in HD resolution by following this link to Vimeo!
Flumen Formula is one of my many spare time hobby Flash projects which is unfinished. This one I’ve spent a fair amount of brain-juice to create, so I better complete it or the waste would be terrible! The game is fully functional, but what it lacks is levels, and some polish.
Development grinded to a halt when it was time to design the 144 levels the game can handle, but after several months I got the suggestion that I should open up level creation for anyone who would dare, which is now what I’m doing.
So here you have it, your chance to make a contribution to this project!
The Game
Water flows from the blue block. Your mission is to move and rotate the colored blocks so the water uses all canals in the entire level, without any leaks, including canals that are immobile.
How to Play
To lift a block, click it and hold the button down. To rotate the block, use the scroll-wheel or the left and right arrow keys. To drop the block, simply let go of the mouse button. Give it a test spin to understand what it’s all about, use the link at the top or click the game logo.
Level Creation
I’ve written a description of how to create and test levels for Flumen Formula, and I present it here in Word, PDF or HTML format. Also available are reference material in PDF, PNG and Flash (in HTML) formats for the game board, the various blocks available and a sample paper conversion.
As mentioned above, levels can be pasted into the game and tested, right now! How to is described in the documentation!
Submission
To contribute your level to the project, please paste it in an email, or attach a .txt file with the level data, and send it to submit@7708.net. You decide yourself what personal information you want to disclose, but any type of name will do. It’s all that is needed for the credits. There is no deadline, but I will post a message when I have gathered enough acceptable levels!
Ownership
If you submit a level you grant me the ownership to the level data if you don’t specify otherwise. This is to simplify the process if someone wants to purchase a license for the game or the source code. If you do not want to grant me the ownership please note that in your email submission. In an eventual business transaction those levels will be removed from the game.
Credit
Everyone who gets their level(s) in the final version of the game will be mentioned as level designers in the credits and on any eventual site/page that accompanies it. If you go by a moniker, it shouldn’t be perverse, politically incorrect or anything else I wouldn’t want to say in public.
Genereal Feedback
Of course I also appreciate feedback on anything surrounding the game. Be it user interface, graphics design or anything. Feel free to send your feedback to feedback@7708.net or post a comment right here!
Thanks!
Note: The game itself is hosted on my private server, and not the server that hosts this blog, which is why it’s located on the 7708.net domain.
Update: My initial plan was to have this ready two weeks ago, but as I was finalizing the public release I came up with new features that changed how levels were constructed and other things that needed polish, so I’ve been postponing it several times. Two times the post managed to pop up on my front page as my social life kept me so distracted I forgot about when the post was going live, as well as denying me the time to finish the small details I myself thought necessary, sorry about this.
