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Walking the Edge of Reality

A look behind the curtain to my world...
***DISCLAIMER***
Nothing... NOTHING... mentioned on this blog should EVER be considered
"in game" for any games being operated by myself or Darklight Interactive
More Than Meets the Eye
Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:16 AM

*** WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS! ***

Yesterday I went to my second viewing of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, this time at an IMAX theater. The first time was an arguably painful experience, but this time I mentally prepared myself for it and saw the movie in a different light, which actually made it enjoyable.

The movie's getting panned by everyone, especially the likes of Roger Ebert, but I realized something: every one of them goes in to this movie expecting it to be the next Citizen Kane, which is most obviously not the case, and begin to write newspaper fodder when it clearly was not the intention of the movie to be Oscar material.

What was the purpose of the movie? My son, who loved it and is the reason we went to see it twice, put it best... Giant robots blow stuff up!

Michael Bay has built somewhat of a reputation for being the premier demolition expert in Hollywood. Let's look at his past explosions for a sec, and this list comes directly from IMDB.

(Note that I'm referring only to MOVIES he's done. I don't think it appropriately to bring up Playboy Video Centerfold: Keri Kendall, no? Besides, I haven't seen it... I don't know if she blows up.)

Bad Boys: Bay blows up an airplane hangar in South Florida. If the explosion would have been any bigger, we'd be at DEFCON 4.

The Rock: Bay blows up quite a few things, most notably a San Francisco trolley (national historic monument... Woohoo!) and the entire island of Alcatraz.

Armageddon: Bay blows up Earth. Well, he tries to anyway, and damn Bruce Willis for ruining his plans! He *does* blow up the entire city of Paris as well as most of New York City.

Pearl Harbor: Do I really have to explain this one?

Bad Boys II: Bay blows up a multi-million dollar mansion in Palm Beach, not to mention several cars along the MacArthur Causeway. I remember that vividly: the MacArthur causeway filming shut down the primary artery heading in to Miami Beach for a week.

The Island: Actually, this is the only movie of his that I haven't seen. Can someone chime in on it?

Transformers: His most ambitious demolition to date, blows up numerous things like a military base, a city, and a bunch of robots.

And now we come to Transformers 2... I gotta say, I can't think of any 5-10 minute span in the movie where he *doesn't* blow stuff up. Let's take a list off the top of my head (I'm sure I'm missing something, and this is in no particular order):

- A house in a suburban neighborhood
- The entire city of Shanghai
- A "high security" military base
- An entire naval fleet, including an aircraft carrier
- Several buildings in... whatever city Sam's in.
- The Great Pyramid at Giza, as well as numerous locations in Egypt
- Princeton University
- The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
- Paris, France (he must really not like Paris)

And that's not counting numerous random locations in the desert, a forest, etc... He blows stuff up GOOD!

Also, you have to look at the technical marvel that is the movie: IMDB states in the "trivia" section that each frame on an IMAX screen took THREE DAYS to render. At first I thought that, with modern day's computing power, it was impossible.

Then I did a little math...

1) A "typical" IMAX screen is 72 feet wide by 53 feet high. For maths' sake, let's put that in inches: 864 inches x 636 inches.

2) It does NOT look pixellated obviously, so let's give Michael the benefit of the doubt and assume the resolution of the image is 72dpi; anything lower than that and it's apparent. That makes the resolution of the image a staggering 62208 x 45792, which is about 3600 times larger than a computer screen. That, assuming 24-bit color depth, also makes each frame over 8.5 gigabytes in size (uncompressed).

3) The movie is 149 minutes long. Obviously, not every frame has a robot in it, but a great deal does. For math's sake, let's assume 2/3rd do (I think it's more than that, but still). That makes for, ballpark, over 6,000 seconds of footage that needed rendered content.

4) Standard film is 24 frames per second (I don't know if they're using 48 dpi "IMAX HD"; for argument's sake, let's say no). That means OVER 150,000 FRAMES had to be rendered using the above dimensions. That puts the storage requirements in the "holy crap" range: uncompressed, over 1.2 PETAbytes.

Those numbers are probably higher than what they really were (IMDB is only reporting about 150+TB of space was needed), but you get the idea.

All the above makes Transformers 2 one of, if not the, most technologically demanding movies ever made.

Part of the problem, and the source of fuel for the critics, is the non-exploding stuff. There are of course Mudflap and Skids, who I would call more stereotypical than racist (guess they couldn't find Anthony Anderson). There's the tiny little robot that represents the typical Italian mob goon. There's a lot of swearing, from the reserved mother to the occasional robot (my wife was rather bothered explaining the "happy candy" the mother eats in the college dorm). There was a giant robot scrotum. You get the idea.

But it's all in good fun, and you have to take it for what it is: semi-amusing filler that makes kids laugh... I was really amused by the scenes with Jetfire, the old school SR-71 Blackbird (of course, now I have to take my son to the Smithsonian).

And it even has Michael York in it (I recognized the voice instantly)!

It was good, mindless fun if you go in with a different mindset. It's not a "Best Picture" nominee. It has a rather complicated plot and very little character development. But it *does* have robots - LOTS of robots - getting all blown to hell!

And now, some excerpts from the family viewings:

Wife: "[Son] has to go to the bathroom. Is it almost over?"
Me: "No, you got..." *checks watch* "...45 minutes to go."
Wife: "Seriously?"
Me: "Yeah. You've seen this before, right?"
Wife: "It's all a giant, fire-consumed blur."

Wife: "How do you explain a lap dance to an eight year old?"
Me: "I've never needed much of an explanation myself."
Wife: "What?"
*dramatic pause*
Me: "Oh, look! A Corvette!"

(Prior to the dormitory scene with Sam and robo-girl)
Wife: "Oh boy, this is gonna need some explaining."
Me: "Tell him she's a rob-... Oh... Never mind."
Wife: "How'd you know?"
Me: "That just doesn't happen in college."
Wife: *piercing stare*

Wife: "I want her makeup and hairstylist. After all that, she still looks perfect."
Me: "Yeah, and look at her run..."
Wife: "Are you staring?"
*dramatic pause*
Me: "Oh, look! A tiger!"

Posted by David "Nighthawk" Flor on Sunday, June 28, 2009 6:16 AM
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Fictional Reality
Thursday, June 18, 2009 1:21 AM

This has been a rather interesting year in the ARG world so far, you gotta admit. There have been numerous controversies as of late, many of which put in to question the little "sandbox" we all play in, as well as questioning the boundaries between the "real world" and the "make believe" world of alternate reality games.

The latest chapter to this involves the story of one "Martin Aggett". We have all been relating with him, talking with him as if he were one of us. He even wrote an article for ARGNet, and in the comments came to my personal defense (for which I am extremely grateful, and intended to respond properly but didn't find the time).

Now, as it turns out, "Martin Aggett" doesn't exist, at least not in the way we know him. The creator of Martin contacted me recently, sending me the apology that is now public knowledge days before he posted it. But what I found curious is what his expectations were: he was expecting me to be angry, betrayed, upset. I wasn't, not in the least bit. Puzzled, sure, but certainly not upset.

Why? Well, first of all, I never got as emotionally attached as many others have. Except for a few people that I am very close to (my "partners in crime" at Darklight, high school acquaintances, the former members of RedeemedSoft, etc...), I try not to do that with online acquaintances; on the Internet, with thousands of miles separating us, with the very unpersonal interfaces we use (forums, blogs, Twitter, IM, etc...), one can really only get so close.

Secondly, like I said, this is the Internet; in one way or another, however minimal it may be, we're all playing a role here, we're all creating an online persona that may differ from who we are in the real world. All my online acquaintances (with the few exceptions noted above) I treat differently than those I have in the real world. I express myself differently online, fulfilling a role I only have on the Internet.

Think about it... Do you know me better as "David" or as "Nighthawk"? In the ARG player community, how many people do you know by their real name, or at least know them better by their real name? Heck, my wife doesn't even know my online nickname!

In a sense, we're all roleplaying. I think someone said at one point that an ARG is a roleplaying game in which you play yourself; that's kinda true of the Internet as a whole.

But, in the end, it all comes down to "playground rules". Our little world that is unFiction has certain guidelines, guidelines that have been time tested and exist for very specific reasons. We may not like them (I've been known to go against them now and then myself), but they are a necessity to maintain a sense of order in the world which we play.

To "The Person Formerly Known as Martin": I can only assume you're reading this. For what it's worth, I admire you being up front and open about the situation, revealing the truth before the world truly collapsed around you. As others have stated, let this be one more learning experience to all would-be puppetmasters out there.

*ADDENDUM*

One thing I forgot to mention... the concept of creating fictional characters online is certainly not foreign to me. I, in the same manner as many PMs, like to give our characters substance. I attempt to create an online presence for my characters as best I can.

When I was developing "Downstream", I created the Facebook profile for our "cheerleader in distress", Jennifer Summers. Part of the creation of that page involved me "friending" at least forty students from her graduating year at the Celebration High School, something that I was admittedly very uncomfortable doing (especially considering some of those people I was "friending" were under the age of 18).

The difference between what I did and what "Martin" did? Although many of the people I "friended" approved me without batting an eye, others asked "who the hell are you?". To those, or to any person that wasn't playing the game, I did not respond. I knew to only play the role with people who were actively playing. Everyone who wasn't part of the game was met with dead air.

(On a semi-related note... Creating a Facebook profile containing an attractive, young girl such as Jen attracts a certain, exceedingly creepy audience. I lost count how many messages I got from way older guys hitting on her.)

I can run off numerous other cases similar. I've received actual, legitimate resumes and job applications through the DecepTech "contact us" form and email addresses. The Matrix Runners have received offers to do link exchanges. List goes on and on.

For all of these, again, I did not respond at all. I chose to not propagate the myth with people that didn't know it was a myth in the first place. "Martin" technically didn't have anyone to play with yet; his game hasn't even started.

Posted by David "Nighthawk" Flor on Thursday, June 18, 2009 1:21 AM
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Reality Bites
Saturday, June 06, 2009 10:28 AM

God, has it been that long since a blog post?

Well, yesterday I became unemployed... I'd like to blame the economy personally, because that's the only way "You're the best programmer we have... and we have to let you go." makes any mental sense, but whatever.

My problem now is three-fold:

1) I wasn't a full-time employee; I was an independent contractor. Which means I don't have the luxury of two weeks pay. My salary went from "moderately well paid" to "NOT paid" in less than a day.

2) I have two family birthdays coming up next week: son on the 12th and wife on the 15th of June. We *were* planning to go to Disney World for five days; now I just don't know. I can't face either of them at this point, to be frank.

3) I don't have anything saved up. Yes, I might have been making reasonable money, but it's because I had to. And mixed in with several unexpected issues we've had in the past few months there has barely been enough to go around in the first place.


And for the first time in my life I have no options when I'm out the door. I've been fired many times before, but each time I had the contacts and knew the people well enough that, if I got fired in the morning, I was able to get a new job by end of day with little or no difficulty. That's not the case here: I have no options, I have mobody waiting for me with open arms.

What does this mean for our big game? Well it's still going to happen, of course: hosting's paid through July, and I now certainly have enough time on my hands to put more work in to it than anticipated.

Will it be out by Spring's end? Most likely not... I would like to use the video game developer's mantra of saying "when it's done", but many of you out there might not get the significance of that. The game's coming along fantastically, and we have numerous talented individuals working on it, but it's far from being "just right". But I continue to ask that you trust us when we say that it *will* be worth the wait.


Finally, this puts my planned trip to ARGFest in serious jeopardy. I have a plane ticket, sure, but there's no way I can go anywhere until I've settled in to something long term.


In any event I'd like to thank everyone for their continued support. A lot of you asked "is there anything I can do?" Well... pray if you are so inclined. Beyond that, there's not much more I could ask for from you, but thanks nonetheless.

Posted by David "Nighthawk" Flor on Saturday, June 06, 2009 10:28 AM
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Leaving on a Jet Plane
Saturday, May 09, 2009 11:16 AM

First off, it's *almost* official: I will be attending ARGFest-o-Con 2009 this year. Flight arrangements will be officially made late Monday, the hotel room is pretty much squared away (I will be sharing a room with others, apparently... I trust they can keep my secret identity secret!), and registration will be made when the site lets me. And I'll hopefully only be missing one day of work, so that's good.

-=O=-

Now, to answer some questions on how the games are going...

I admit I was a bit disillusioned about DecepTech on numerous levels. The Facebook and Twitter efforts didn't go well, probably due to a rather small audience. The last puzzle also seems to have gone over the head of pretty much everybody, and I've been struggling to come up with an appropriate clue that won't say "this is the answer, people!"

And there are currently a BOATLOAD of games going on on unFiction, most of which with a much grander scope than my little endeavor.

But I can't let it go. As an individual, sure, I could write it off to a failed attempt, but as a corporate entity trying to make a name for themselves I can't. And, considering my last game did not succeed either, two in a row would look particularly bad. So, soon, I need to reboot it and wrap it up, hopefully as soon as possible.

Part of the problem is motivation: not only is it lacking because of all the reasons I mention above, but because our big project is so much more captivating.

So... "Downstream" will continue, and continue soon. Please stay tuned for some wacky events that will change the direction of that, hopefully for the best.

And then there's the "other" project...

Yes, we've been working diligently on our most wonderful of creations, and lately we have started to do some major creative changes as well as use some technologies we have never used before. Let's put it this way: I'm doing Flash programming (which, if you know me, is not something I'm well known for. Or fond of, for that matter) and my "partner in crime" is doing 3D rendering.

And we did say "Spring 2009"... I have to tell you something: coming from a game development background, I'm not a fan of release dates. My original project, The Opera, was in development for nearly THREE YEARS, all the time we stating the game industry mantra that it will be released "when it's done".

3D Realms said "when it's done" repeatedly... and we now see how well *that* turned out. I have no intention of making those same mistakes.

But I do warn you: it will be launched when it's ready and when it's right, not earlier. I will not rush this product out to satisfy people who are too anxious to wait. All the pieces must be in place, and our goal is to have a flawless execution of it. So, although we are looking to be on schedule for a Spring release, there is no guarantee of that.

Also, in addition to that big project, we are actively working on another project that, to be frank, I cannot elaborate on. Hopefully the timelines won't overlap... much... but we're not entirely in control of that one. We'll see how things pan out.

We ask that you continue to be patient with us. Trust me; it will be worth it.

Posted by David "Nighthawk" Flor on Saturday, May 09, 2009 11:16 AM
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A Place in the 'verse
Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:32 AM

Quantum Mechanics, in conjunction with the Austin Browncoats and "Can't Stop the Serenity", recently held an auction.

The prize: the option of naming a city in the Serenity universe, which would be published in the Atlas to the 'Verse, Volume One: The Trader's Guild Guide to the New Canaan Run book.

The auction is for "Equality Now":

Equality Now works to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world through the mobilization of public pressure. Issues of concern to Equality Now include: rape, domestic violence, reproductive rights, trafficking, female genital mutilation, political participation and gender discrimination.

We figured that was a noble enough charity, and we couldn't resist staking our claim in the Serenity universe.

We won the auction for a town on Higgin's Moon, which will be the quaint little town of Darklight. Of all the planets in the 'verse, we felt this planet was the most appropriate for a town of that name.

We also won the auction for naming a town on Ariel, the crown jewel of the Serenity universe.

So now we're wondering exactly what to do with that second one.

So... anyone out there have any good ideas? :)

Posted by David "Nighthawk" Flor on Thursday, May 07, 2009 10:32 AM
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