Waggle Words
A Strategic Word Game
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Unite 2016 – VR Technical Solutions and How They Influence Design
Graeme Borland, Anton Hand, Julie Heyde, Kayla Kinnunen and Elliott Mitchell at Unite ’16 Los Angeles
One day into Unity’s flagship Conference, Unite 2016 (Los Angeles, CA), Vermont Digital Arts’ Elliott Mitchell was unexpectedly invited to speak on a panel, VR Technical Solutions and How They Influence Design. Of course, Elliott gratefully obliged!
Watch the video below to hear some entertaining VR war stories from a group of VR pioneers including: Graeme Borland (Owlchemy Labs), Anton Hand (RUST LTD), Julie Heyde (VR Unicorns) and Kayla Kinnunen (Independent).
Björk Digital – Virtual Reality Taken To A New Level
Musical pioneer and artist extraordinaire, Björk, has been diving head first into Virtual Reality with her traveling art exhibit Björk Digital. The VR exhibit is a work in progress which features four VR music experiences from Björk’s “Vulnicura” album. Our resident artist, Elliott Mitchell, was fortunate enough to have had a small role working with environment art on one of the VR pieces. Checkout this video clip from Björk’s Instagram account which includes some of Elliott’s handy work!
GDC: It Takes a Village: Growing Vibrant Game Developer Communities
In case you missed GDC 2016, and you are interested what makes a vibrant game developer community, check out the GDC Vault release of the all star panel Elliott Mitchell assembled: It Takes a Village: Growing Vibrant Game Developer Communities!
The panel, comprised of key organizers from the Boston and Austin communities, offers the audience valuable insights into organizing events, meet-ups and co-working collectives which in turn fuel local industry growth for the future. Speakers include Elliott Mitchell (Vermont Digital Arts), Adri Mills (Independent), Dawn Rivers (Harmonix Music Systems), Michael Carriere (Zapdot), Jono Forbes (Defective Studios) & Andrew Eiche (Owlchemy Labs).
Leviathan Project: Mixed Reality At Sundance
There has been a lot of buzz lately about Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), games and filmmaking. Since our founding in 2008, Vermont Digital Arts has been on a mission to be on the forefront of blurring the lines between film and games.
Vermont Digital Arts recently had the amazing opportunity to lend a hand with Leviathan Project which is currently being demoed at Sundance New Frontiers. Leviathan Project is a mixed reality installation with its roots Scott Westerfield’s best-selling trilogy, Leviathan.
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Leviathan Project is a work in progress and a result of the magic that happens when visionaries like Alex McDowell and Bradley Newman, in collaboration with 5D Global Studio, Unity Technologies and Intel work together to transcend storytelling mediums. Elliott Mitchell, Vermont Digital Arts co-founder, was brought in late in the project to help out with the final push for Sundance. Elliott worked on some VFX and Lighting Design. It was akin to standing on the shoulders of giants.
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If you are able to get to Sundance, check it out! Otherwise, here is a link to a recent Engadget article which goes more in depth about Leviathan Project. Also, checkout the Leviathan Project’s Instagram account. You might see photo’s of Robert Redford…
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Leviathan Project’s next stop is the Vision AR/VR Summit this February 10th and 11th in Hollywood, CA. Catch it there if you are able!
UVs: The Good, Bad and Ugly
UVs are often shrouded in mystery, or simply an afterthought to many 3D artists and game developers. Not only are UVs essential to texturing 3D models in Unity, UVs are required for Real-Time and Baked Global Illumination(Lightmapping). Unbeknownst to many, UVs may also have a profound influence on runtime performance and an artist’s iteration cycles.
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Earlier this month, Elliott Mitchell (co-founder of Vermont Digital Arts) delivered a quick ten minute lightning talk on the subject of UVs at the Boston Unity Group. His presentation is a high level overview of UVs for the given truncated format.
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Keep an eye out for a more fleshed out talk on UVs in the near future. There is so much more to cover. Here is a link to Elliott’s slides.
Unity Asset Store Gives Waggle Words That Extra Polish
Check out this video of Vermont Digital Art’s co-founder, Elliott Mitchell, as well as Adam Simonar (NVYVE Studios) & Evan Doody (Darkwind Media) talk about their favorite Unity Asset Store products. Elliott is using Circular Gravity Force, Koreographer, and Chromatica Studio in Waggle Words for VR and mobile. Check out the game footage!
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Circular Gravity Force
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Koreographer
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Chromatica Studio
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