If you have some video that is pretty chunky, you can use this software called RIFE (Real-Time Intermediate Flow Estimation) to add interpolated frames.
Andymation uses this to smooth out some of his flip books – which gives some interesting results.
But it makes me wonder if this is the same technique/engines used by people like videographer guy jones to fix old movies like these:
Or you could go full-on for museum quality restoration like this:
M.C. Escher was famous for his wonderful mind-bending images. I loved his drawings as a kid because it created a sense of wonder, playfulness, and unlocked interesting new viewpoints and possibilities simply by violating a single physical or geometric expectation.
We’re used to the world following rules. If we leave a room, we would expect to go back into that same room if we opened the door. But in rendered scenes, none of those rules needs to be followed. We can actually make M.C. Escher like worlds a reality. But how – and more importantly – how could we use them to make an interesting gaming experience?
CodeParade walks us through many interesting effects that can be created using some simple non-Euclidian rendering and movement techniques.
As it turns out – games have been doing this for a little while. One of the first examples of slightly violating the rules of Euclidean space was the use of portals in the mega-hit game Portal (well, Narbacular Drop if you want to get technical). I say slightly because Portal actually does a very good job trying to maintain the physical properties of size, gravity, momentum, and physics of our everyday world when interacting with the portal. But, there are still problems like when you try to pass a portal into itself… or if you start messing with momentum…or if you start sandwiching the portals, etc.
Others started really twisting other rules of Euclidean space and exploring the results. Non-Euclidean spaces seemed ripe to create innovative and interesting puzzle games. I remember seeing early drops of Antichamber and being really fascinated by the simple, yet mind bending puzzles. As Digidigger explains, these tricks are accomplished with a combination of teleportation, creative use of the stencil buffers, and so forth.
Other games quickly followed like Manifold Garden that added the concept of infinite world wrap-around. Hyperbolica uses hyperbolic projection mapping. Then there were forced perspective games like Superliminal. As we quickly see, there is more than one rule to break in Euclidian space.
More recently and to greater effect – non-Euclidean tricks are being used in horror games. The experience of the world shifting around you definitely can create a very unsettling emotional response. Paintings that become doorways, rooms that change when you look away. Whole games have become based on these simple effects. Non-Euclidean techniques are here to stay. The real question is, how will we think of using them next?
Learning more:
Issues Valve ran into when making the game Portal:
How to create portals and solving the most common perspective, distance, scaling, collision detection, and physics issues you’ll encounter:
Hyperbolica devlog (13 video playlist):
Secrets behind how P.T. works. There’s also some pretty awesome exploration and disassembly by Lance McDonald.
Kishimisu walks you through the fascinating realm of writing programmable shader art and offers helpful insights and guidance to assist you to make your own creations.
Retro gaming has a solid community – even in the PC world. Prices of old hardware keeps going up as supply of working components goes down as time goes on. But would you be surprised to hear that people are out there making new components for these old machines? I already mentioned the recreated Covox Speech Thing, but there are even re-creations of Adlib, SoundBlaster, and other early sound cards. Enter the Orpheus ISA 16 sound card that can emulate just about any 90’s era sound card perfectly.
Dreamblaster available for purchase here: https://www.serdashop.com/RetroSoundcards
Update: There’s other makers of clone cards too:
My very first computer was a TSR-80. I learned to first code out of necessity – you had to type in all the programs you wanted to play. My dad then purchased one of these wonderful beauties: The IBM PC 5140 Convertible.
The computer was a miniaturized IBM XT 8088 system with only 2 floppy drives and no hard drive. Still, it was a huge step up with the ability to save and load programs from floppy disks.
I love that people try to preserve the history of these wonderful old machines – and you can find everything about the system including original boot disks, specs, and configurations. There also appear to be copies of the original boot disk and ROM set that work on MAME.
You can get stable diffusion to work on the new Mac M1 (and M2’s). Above is me getting stable diffusion running on my Mac Mini M1 with 16gb of ram (using these instructions).
It’s definitely not as fast as dedicated GPU’s, but it does have the advantage of not running out of memory like you will with graphics cards that only have 8gb or 16gb of memory. Most GPUs require at least 24gb of ram to run 512×512 stable diffusion images (without using lower resolution models). I was able to generate 512×512 and 768×768 images with my 16gb mac mini m1
This is one of the really big advantages of a unified memory architecture in which the CPU and GPU can access the same memory without needing to be transported across a PCI bus first.
Links
“Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.” – Painter and printmaker Chuck Close
In this GDC talk, Raph Koster explains what science tells us about creativity – what it is, and what it isn’t. Contrary to popular belief, creative work is not best arrived at by connecting with some ethereal muse, being a tortured, moody arteeest type, nor just sitting around waiting for inspiration. Creativity is also not just adding a very simple mechanic to something that already exists or re-skinning something in a new way.
Instead, the data tells us that creativity is something that can be developed, is a fairly straightforward process, and you can cause to happen when desired. I agree with him, and would also say even further: working in your field every day has connected me with some of my most interesting creative ideas – ideas that have payed me well and won awards. It was boring, everyday work that showed me what people were interested in, and then my curiosity lead me to new connections.
Favorite points from his talk:
It’s always interesting when the media covers projects that you worked on. Even more entertaining is to read the wildly incorrect sweeping generalizations that people make when commenting on news. This is a good reason you should just steer clear of comments sections and social media posts online. Instead, go to trusted, well respected, and reviewed sites with actual industry experts.
Incidentally he mispronounces the name Larrabee (as Laura-be). It is pronounced more like Lair-a-bee.
Back in the 90’s, computer audio devices were really limited. If you were relatively rich, you could afford a $150 Sound Blaster, or maybe a $75 Adlib. If not, you were limited to the very humble PC speaker. It turns out, however, there was one other option that didn’t get a lot of visibility.
The Covox Speech Thing (and a similar device called the Disney Sound Source) was an external audio device attached to the printer port and could output digitally generated sound. The device was a criminally simple 8-bit DAC created with a resistor ladder, an analogue output plug, and ran off simple digital signals from the printer port of the PC. How simple was it? So simple you can easily make it yourself.
Necroware does a great job covering the device, how to make your own, and gives you a full tour of the device as well as 90’s software you can use with it. Most notably, Tracker software which gave me tons of fond memories.
Serdashop has the Covox compatible CVX4 Vogons Tuning Edition for €20. Now on it’s 4th and final version – CVX4 uses very high precision 0.1% all same value resistors, and a reverse engineered schematic (based on a real original covox). Other DIY clones use 1% or 5% resistors. Probably one of the best versions out there.
Links:
Chris Zukowski helps lots of game developers market their games. He goes over the most recent data and shows the best practices for marketing your game on Steam. It’s an interesting mix of understanding your market and how to manage the algorithms on various platforms to maximize your wishlist subscription rate.