Palmyra - Wednesday

I spent the day taking tours of the Smith cabin and frame home and in the sacred grove today in the pouring rain. Is was very peaceful and I was all alone because of the rain. I took lots of pictures (see, above) and I had a chance to feel the spirit of the place. I feel a love and an appreciation for Joseph and his family. It is inspiring to be where the last dispensation was started.

Palmyra - Tuesday

Well I am here and we had a good day of shooting. The light wasn't the best but we took lots of pictures of the Smith log home and the Smith frame home and the surrounding areas. We have yet to enter the Sacred Grove. I discovered lobster bisque at Flahtery's. We also had an awesome burger Wards followed by a large bowl of ice cream. Welden Andersen ate at least a half gallon (hence the picture).

Palmyra is everything I imagined. The the scenery is very magical - it looks just like the pictures I have seen all my life. I can almost feel Joseph off in the brush carrying the plates and fighting off his enemies. I also think of the Nephite battles that took place here and the richness of it all.

Cool Flash 8 Links

The new version of Flash will be available soon and Flash designers are giddy with excitement. A friend of mine, Dustin Andrew, has collected a list of links things that the new Flash 8 player can do. First, get the player here, then go and try these links.

Instructional Design Principles in the Scriptures

I have noticed lately a number of verses in The Book of Mormon and the Bible that seem to be instructive on teaching techniques. Being a multimedia designer working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I see these applying directly to church multimedia projects.

2 Nephi 33:6 - "...I glory in plainness..."
Multimedia tends to be more intuitive and it can create an experience that is more memorable. It takes less effort to consume and builds on familiar experiences. Text, on the other hand, takes effort to read and the brain needs to translate it into meaning. We spent the earliest years of our lives reacting to sights and sounds before we started reading. Seeing and hearing is wired deeply into us where reading was "installed" later. I have see a trend lately on the Internet where you have the option of experiencing a video of a news story instead of reading it. If I have a choice I always pick the video version. I heard somewhere that all technology evolves toward recreating reality.

2 Nephi 31:3 - "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding"
Another scripture on plainness, but more importantly that God adapts His message according to a person's understanding. For some people, God sends a vision and for others such a s Lehi a book to read (see 1 Nephi 1:11.

2 Nephi 31:3 - "For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding"
Another scripture on plainness, but more importantly that God adapts His message according to a person's understanding. For some people, God sends a vision and for others such a s Lehi a book to read (see 1 Nephi 1:11.

1 Nephi 11:1 - "...I was caught away unto an exceedingly high mountain..."
God chose to teach Nephi using an angelic "virtual tour" The angel stepped aside at times to let Nephi explore. Nephi saw a panoramic view of the history of the whole world. The angel guided Nephi and asked him learning questions. John the Revelator in the the book of Revelation (Revelation 17:1 is one example) and Lehi (1 Nephi 8:5-7) also were also given a similar "multimedia tours". It is interesting that there is a guide in both instances. God could have simply played a movie with out a guide but he chose to include a guide for some reason. Some modern theories of learning show that learning retention is higher with the use of a host or guide in learning activities.

2 Nephi 33:1 - "...not mighty in writing...for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.
..."
To me this says that speaking is more powerful than writing. I like the word "carrieth" here.

Alma 18:24-43 - "...And Ammon began to speak unto him (Lamoni) with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God? And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth. And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit? And he said, Yea. And Ammon said: This is God. ..."
Alma 22:5-18 - "...And the king said: Is God that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem? And Aaron said unto him: Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things both in heaven and in earth. Believest thou this?..."
In these two areas of The Book of Mormon Ammon and Aaron used many teaching techniques that can be directly applied to multimedia training

Isaiah 52:15 - "...So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider...."
This is a good passage that Highlights hearing and seeing (Audiovisual). Jesus Christ and the apostles also mentioned seeing and hearing numerous times (Matthew 13:17, Acts 22:15). It is interesting that seeing and hearing are are many times associated with the heart (1 Corintians 2: 9). In the context of these scriptures the heart is almost portrayed as an additional sense similar to hearing and seeing. The heart is where attitudes change and emotions dwell. Quite possibly visions are the way God chooses to teach because they are a universal medium that first deeply effects the soul then is afterward interpreted into common language by the person.

Late Night with NASA

I am up late tracing the Discovery on a live RealPlayer feed from NASA. It is scheduled to touch down at 2:43 AM mountain time. I hope all goes well. Live NASA TV is very relaxing - sort of a zen experience here.

Siggraph - Wrap Up

Well it is over and my head is full of virtual reality. I look forward to interacting with the real world again.

Here are some thoughts that I am coming away with:

-All technology always moves toward reality.
-The future of the Web is all about users contributing content and helping you build your site. Users will be more and more empowered to create their own high quality content. Our job is to provide a place for them to put it.
-Graphic design is one of the core skills that will survive through technological evolution. The tools and media will change but design, typography, and storytelling will not.
-The future belongs to those who do the whole enchilada. Specialists will always need to be looking for their next specialty.
-Process kills energy and innovation. Innovation and greatness usually happens when the rules are broken and a risk is taken.
-Having one person in charge of a project is better than a committee where negotiations sap time and energy.
-Rushing into new processes and technologies should always include a careful study of the craftsmanship of the past and why things have evolved to their current state. Disney Animation will succeed in CG because they are listening to their traditional animators and lessons learned from decades of experience.
-People have nice skin in LA.

Siggraph - Wednesday Evening

Doug and Brian and I took a cab to the Grove Mall location of the Apple Store. It was a very cool place. We were hoping to get a Mighty Mouse but they were out of them. We saw Fantastic Four then ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Minnie Driver was performing live while we ate on the balcony.

Siggraph - Wednesday Afternoon

The Social Web was a panel discussion about creating communities where the users create using your tools. For example, Soda Constructor is sort of like online tinkertoys that alows visitors to create bots then animate them.

Dodgeball.com is a site where friends meet and interact. It is designed in Flash and is nicely done.

Processing.org is another community that has been built by by users that contribute code to an open source programming language.

I need to explore how the church can provide communities that the users build. The youth site would be a good venue for this.

Siggraph - Wednesday Morning

Peter Morville of semantic studios gave a good talk about ambient findability and information architecture - which is also the title of his new book due in September.Here is a link to his presentation.

Howard Tiersky of CapGemini.com gave an ease of use presentation. He talked about personas, heuristic analysis, etc. Basically an IA 101 course. We already do this stuff.

The Disney Legacy presentation discussed the transformation from hand-drawn to GC. They were careful to preserve the principles learned for many decades. It was a good reminder of the value of using black, gray, and white, then color to stage a scene. Visual hierarchy is important and dont show anything that doesn't reinforce the story. Put a spotlight in the scene and then put the character in it.

They also showed a clip from Rapunzel that was ASTONISHING. It is the first time a master traditional animator has latched onto technology and made it look like a storybook instead of like Toy Story.

"Mighty Mouse"

Finally a new Apple mouse. I want one. Now if they would just make the keyboard the same as the PC.

Siggraph - Tuesday Afternoon and Evening

This afternoon we went to the Electronic Theater matinee and saw two hours of the years best animations. They were presented on the best digital projection system I have ever seen. The realism that can be achieved today is downright spooky. We also saw a great two hour presentation from Phil Tippets, Dennis Muren, and Rob Coleman who were the main special effects guys from Star Wars episodes 1-6. It was a retrospective of old techniques as well as some interesting detail of current CG techniques. Really, there wasn't much live action at all in Episode III - just the main actors on a small platform surrounded by CG environments.

Siggraph - Tuesday Morning

Just wandered around the exhibition floor all morning. I got to see an XBOX 360 up close. The graphics are stunning - very detailed. I also looked at a program called Martin Hash's Animation Master. It is very inexpensive and is on both Mac and PC. I got all sorts of junk and filled a bag - and I only walked half the floor.

Siggraph - Monday Night

I stayed and watched a special session about video game controllers. I was introduced to the "DDR" (Dance, Dance, Revolution) phenomenon and a new version of the game that is called Karaoke Revolution. This game detects the pitch of your voice and you sing along as well as dance at the same time on a pad and the eye toy tracks you. It looks really fun and will be available for all consoles for Christmas.

DDR is helping kids (and adults) to get in shape and now is helping them to learn to sing. My kids will love this.

Sony demoed a new eye toy that detects depth of field and the guy demoed various environments. One that was very interesting was where he played raquetball with a beach ball using his arms. An onscreen skeletion tracked his movements. Motion capture is merging with video games!

Siggraph - Monday Afternoon

George Lucas gave the keynote address in the form of a causal interview Letterman style. He spoke about the importance of digital cinema and putting previsualization tools in the hands of technophobic "old school" film producers. He was refreshingly blunt about a number of things. I wasn't able to see him in person but I was in the next room watching him on closed circuit TV.

I also caught the end of the computer animation festival. There are some pretty bizzarre minds out there.

Siggraph - Monday Morning

We got registered and went up to the computer Animation Festival where we saw a variety of attendee-submitted animated shorts. They ranged from virtual heart operations to funny cartoons to dark, dreamlike metaphors. I watched Teach, Laugh, and Escape. Chris and I are going to lunch then we are going to head back for the keynote address by George Lucas.