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Animation Magazine interview (download pdf) 
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Texts about designing Virtual Spaces (download pdf) 
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Building Interactive Worlds (download pdf)
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Notes about virtual worlds The medieval monk who contemplates the fire ravaging the books of the library of his monastery understands that he is about to start something new without any help from the books. I feel sometimes like this monk who is forced to move away from the old manuscripts and to rediscover the evidence of his shadow on the ground. An ephemeral shaded area helping him to define his presence before any new space is built again. I need to undo something or to let go in order to build a new space. Since I am often looking to reuse spaces that worked really well in previous projects, I tend to spend time destroying previous projects to delete all storyline or reference to anything that would distract from the seed of space that holds the project together. I need to prune the project from everything that is not contained into a simple melody of space, into a basic geometry of elements. I can't wait to reinject the seed in the new project and to build freely again. Where can I find a seed of space, how do I know that it's the right one. I find them recently in dreams where spaces seem to exist before the story is being told. I start building virtual cameras from my dreams; cameras that can understand the players thoughts and zoom in some parts of the world. |
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| Expressionist movies from the 1920's, have old streets with buildings that ondulate like the air moving inside a musical instrument. I remember a german movie from that period where buildings had huge bellies extending above the street. The fantastic movies have a way to frame buildings the same way we look at people and notice slight deformations that bring expression to a face like a new way to look at a facade or a street. I am interest to see how the expressionist architecture can "blur the lines" between a built structure and the expresssion of a character. Anybody out there interested in virtual architecture with round bellies using curves and splines instead of square angles ? Unfortunately, the 3-D modeling tools are not yet spontaneous, physical, tactile and offering the feeling of breaking charcoal on paper, scrubbing oil paint on a canvas or kneading clay with the fingers. The mouse can't replace the pressure of fingers holding a pencil or pushing clay. When drawing a character with charcoal or graphite, the first lines are fast intuitive, spontaneous and precise. When more lines are added to the drawing, too much black threatens to ruin the equilibrium between the white paper and the structure of the forms. As the focus and concentration starts to blur, and the hand becomes more automatic. Do you experience the same thing while sculpting with polygons ? Although the preparation of a virtual set involves the same steps as designing with clay and paper, the time for creativity is a bit different in the digital world where the process becomes fundamentally non-linear because of the ability to save copies and go back to earlier revisions. Physical drawing or modeling has no undo button. JMG |
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