playground - exhibition in taiwan kaohsiung

19/12/2006 preparation for the exhibition

pictures from shek kip mei estate

This housing estate is going to be demolished on 17/10/2006

a documentation of an interactive installation : 4spaces:2sys

This work tries to break viewers usual perception on space and game through disorientation and confusion by a virtual environment which is formed by a dynamic maze appearing in three different screens being positioned in U-shape. Physical perception is also experimented by using a special walkthrough device (helmet).

There are two spatial systems formed – virtual and physical. Each screen represents an individual virtual space and therefore three virtual spaces together form a spatial system. The different positions of screens form another physical spatial system to the viewer as well.

The color of this work is intended to be reduced and simplified in order to minimize the effect of viewers’ memory bringing to perceive this piece. The virtual spaces that represented in the three screens are intended not to be synchronized. The centre screen is a dynamic maze, the partition of which will be reset in a certain period of time and the left and right screens are long corridor only. The purpose is to make the viewer to confuse by lying somewhere between can and cannot realize the relationship between those screens.

The design of the virtual space inside the three screens is similar in order to hold a spatial relationship in viewers mind and confuse them to expect the spaces are synchronized.

Viewers not only perceive the maze/space visually, but physically. Everyone has to learn to walk by their head before they manipulate to walk through inside the maze. They have to try by experiment for the movement of the head because they do not know the helmet connected with a joystick on the top. As a result, some viewers break the intended usage of the helmet by using their hand to move it.

click here to see the documentation

I am lazy to write this month. I have something to think about e.g. my future, direction and my work. It makes me feel tired. Tired to the existing situation, tired to make the work i did before although i am interested in making it. Tired to continue everything. After I know what to do in the coming year, I feel that I have a base or a foundation. On top of it, I can do everything that I want. It is difficult to plan but I need to back to my original place to start with. I need to go to a place with harmony and with people of the same sprit. To get back energy, the picture tube need to be recharged after exposure to the world for some time. Or it should be turned off for some time.

3D maze testing

click the screeen first and arrow keys / F5 reset partition

Flash 3D maze and Max

These few days I have make a big progress to my project because I have found an example of a 3D Maze for Flash. Since this example still have distance to my target, I need to understand the concept and logic behind before I can modify the script. The walk through motion inside the maze in the example is quite primitive but he use a very clever method(simple geometry) to simplify 360degree and xyz calculation. He used HitTest instead of collision detection which save a lot of time for calculation. He also used a wall for the maze as a unit for calculation of everything like partition, the width of path, the size of maze, the no. of walls and columns. Besides, he used zoom(scale ratio) to calculate the ratio for the relationship between y and z. He make use of the movie clip function and the actionscript 'globaltoLocal' and 'localtoGlobal' for interchange of scale ratio inside movie clip and the main timeline.

After trying to modify the maze to the shape, size and color i want, i will start to use Flosc or Flashserver to let Flash communicate with Max/MSP.

3D testing - 360degree xyz

click the screeen first and move your mouse

my testing on 3D geometry in flash - 2 blocks

click the screen and move UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT

This simple flash looks really simple but the actionscript that I've written is about 3 to 4 pages long because everything is written in script including the graphic. However, the perspective is wrong, is just the opposite, therefore the blocks seems crashing on you. I need to take time to fix it!