e386 – Too Many Brits

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cityscape of London with Big Ben and a double decker bus
Photo by Aron Van de Pol on Unsplash

Special guest Ian Hughes joins Andy and Michael R for this edition of Games at Work, altering the British:American ratio for the weekly discussion on all things tech.  They get the party started with some examples of 3D mapping following on last week’s session.  Epic’s Unreal Engine-powered Twinmotion is available to subscribers of Autodesk Revit, allowing for faster collaboration and access to the 3D assets. 

Trombone Champ was even more in the news this week, with several people building a number of controller mods to allow for even more realistic trombone simulations.  Also there was an interview with the creator of the game who said it was a joke.  This ongoing story spun up several additional musical software examples, such as Instant Music (for the Amiga) and Rocksmith+.  

The team discusses gaming subscription services, including the news that Stadia is going to be discontinued in January 2023. 

In addition to the interesting examples of stable diffusion images, Michael, Andy and Ian discuss deepfake audio.  Respeecher, which uses archival voice recordings is one example.  Another story deals with Deepcake, and this story continues to evolve.

The team wraps things up for this episode with an offering from Hasbro for custom action figures and the game Hardspace : Shipbreaker.  

What deepfake of a celebrity would you most want to see?  Would you want a custom action figure of yourself?  Drop us a line at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

Follow ups from last week

3D mapping 

The Verge article: Gamin tech can be used to walk through buildings before they’re even constructed

MacRumors article: Tim Cook: Not Too Long From Now, You’ll Wonder How You Led Your Life Without AR

Polycam app for iOS

Games at Work episode 385 – It’s only a model

Random sidelines

The Bootloader podcast: Episode 1 – Rock Stars are Just Like Us

FullControl Design Library

Trombone champ – virality and controllers

The Guardian article: ‘It’s a joke first and a game second’: how the delightful Trombone Champ went viral

muzines article: Instant Music

ubisoft: Rocksmith+

Wikipedia entry: Onlive

Stadia

Digital legacy / recreations

Diffusion Bee

Collider article: Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm

Gizmodo article: Hasbro’s Selfie Series Action Figures Will Be Available In the U.S. Starting Friday

Ebay: Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure w/Engine Block Vintage 1975

VG247 article: Hardspace: Shipbreaker – now on Xbox Game Pass and PS5 – is an essential, searing rejection of sci-fi tropes

Feeding Edge

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e385 – It’s only a model

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architectural model of a building
Photo by Yaroslav Chaadaev: https://www.pexels.com/photo/model-white-concrete-building-9250129/

Models.  From AR to AI to fashion, this episode is chock-full-of models.  Andy starts off by using Polycam and his LiDAR equipped iPhone to model his studio, and share the object with Michael and Michael.  In a similar vein, a tweet shared by Ian Hughes shows how @ShapesXR can leverage 3D images in Google Maps to create 3D models to incorporate into mixed reality uses.  

Staying with the 3D theme, the co-hosts briefly touch on the Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 blockchain powered metaverse.  And of course, soon after the episode’s recording, there’s a whitepaper published by Lamina1 with more specifics about the development priorities and plans.  See the VentureBeat article for more details on this late breaking news.

Continuing with avatars and mixed reality objects, the team looks at the latest news from the world of fashion, where runway models will have avatars created by the iGoodi process.  And an intriguing set of NVIDIA AI capabilities to rapidly create mixed reality objects from a prompt.  Need a giraffe with zebra stripes? No problem.  How about a hundred different motorbikes?  The co-hosts take a look at Diffusion Bee, which allows those with Apple silicon Macs to leverage stable diffusion capabilities right on their own computer.  A post from Getty Images says that they will no longer accept art that was created by AI generative models.  

After touching on ActiveLook’s Light AR platform to superimpose health and running information on glasses, the co-hosts turn to a creative and playful way to engage with the iOS 16 Dynamic Island.

Wrapping up this week’s episode with a new game called Trombone Champ, Michael has an idea to use a plastic trombone and a raspberry pi as a controller for the game.  As it turns out, some game fans have already created a VR port where the handheld controllers are used to mimic the slide action for the game.  Check out these notions, as well as the parody Sousaphone Hero from the Onion in the show notes below.

What instrument would you want to see in a game?  Drop us a line at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

Polycam app for iOS

ShapesXR 

Wired article: Neal Stephenson Named the Metaverse.  Now, He’s Building It

Lamina1

VentureBeat article: Neal Stephenson’s Lamina1 drops white paper on building the open metaverse

Women’s Wear Daily article: Elite World Group Partners With Igoodi to Create 3D Avatars of Models

iGoogi Avatar

Engadget article: NVIDIA’s new AI model quickly generates objects and characters for virtual worlds

Venture Beat article: Nvidia Omniverse ACE enables fast deployment of metaverse avatars

Fast Company article: There’s a text-to-image AI art app for Mac now — and it will change everything

Diffusion Bee

ScreenRant article: These AR Glasses Display Your Real-Time Running Stats From Apple Watch

ActiveLook “Light AR” Platform Integrates with Apple Watch

ScreenRant article: What are ‘Pixel Pals’ For The Dynamic Island?

Washington Post article: He made a silly trombone video game. Then the internet caught wind.

Sweetwater link: pInstruments plastic trombone

Games at Work e100 – Malaria-Ebola and Freemium Games

The Onion article: Activision Reports Sluggish Sales For Sousaphone Hero

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e384 – TrAIning AI

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robot hand on a blue network background
Photo by Tara Winstead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/robot-s-hand-on-a-blue-background-8386437/

Andy and Michael R get this episode started with all things AI.  First, Michael shares his experiences with training an AI (see image below).  Next up, the pair consider Krafton’s virtual human Ana with her ‘Shine Bright’ video.  

Then the co-hosts take a look at a recreation of the Jurassic Park T. Rex breakout scene made with a PlayStation and Dreams.  Quite an incredible piece of work, and extremely faithful to the original movie scene.  Sticking with the AI theme of this episode, the pair consider ‘The Follower’ with the AI using open cameras to find video of people taking instagram photos.  

Then, Michael and Andy turn to the (smaller) screen and MacStories’ thorough review of iOS 16, and all of the new capabilities it affords those in the Apple ecosystem.  Check out the details on notifications, lock screen enhancements, shortcuts and much, much more.  @mattcassinelli shares how @macaulay_flower uses iOS 16’s background removal feature to curate an outfit history – check out the show notes below to see.  

The co-hosts wrap things up with a funny tweet from Ian Bogost, and a cool kickstarter for Book Wyrm dice.

Where do you see AI making interesting inroads?  What iOS 16 feature are you most excited about?  Drop us a line at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

Michael R’s Training an AI

The Verge article: Here’s Krafton’s virtual human Ana in action

Krafton

MacStories.net iOS 16: The MacStories Review

MacStories.net LockFLow: A Simple Way to Add Shortcuts to the iOS Lock Screen

Kickstarter: Book Wyrm Dice

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e383 – Notchy McNotchface

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iPhone & Mac with notches
Photo by Penfer on Unsplash

Back to full co-host strength this week, Michael, Andy and Michael start off this @GamesAtWork_biz episode with the premier of Andy’s new Opal C1 camera and appreciate its features.  Andy also shares the prompt he used for DALL-E to create an unsettling image of the Games At Work co-host team rendered as minifigs and dice.  

Next up is Disney’s new AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering’.  The team did not get the chance to take in the augmented reality experience in advance of the show, however, did so over the weekend.  The AR portion is short — the film is too! — and effectively transforms the area around the television into a woodland area with a waterfall, and a pool filled with leaping dolphins.  As a second screen, the experience is a great example of what is possible, and will likely become expected in entertainment, news and information sharing.  

Michael, Michael and Andy shift gears to discuss how the iPhone and iOS team at Apple have taken the notch and turned this obstacle into an opportunity.  The newly named “Dynamic Island” is the iPhone screen real estate that is taken up by the camera array.  This area is used as the center of a space that then bubbles out in an animated way to provide contextual information depending on what the user is doing.  AirPod Pros connecting via bluetooth, the Island bubbles out to show that the connection is up and running.  Getting close to a destination in Maps, the Island bubbles out to show the upcoming turn.  There’s an article from 9 to 5 Mac that speculates how the same user experience may be ported to iPad, if the camera array is placed on the landscape edge.  It is not out of the question whether the same bubble out experience could apply to the new MacBook Air, which also has a notch — this could be the case where the obstacle becomes the feature in such a clever way.

The team closes out this week’s episode with the exciting news that there will be a Monty Python based RPG, and muses whether one’s knowledge of budgies, philosophers or the airworthiness of coconut encumbered avians might provide an advantage in this game.  Have a look at the other bonus links below to see whether Michael, Andy and Michael picked the right one given their limited time for the episode. 

Which of the bonus links should we have talked about?  Drop us a line at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

Opal C1 camera

https://labs.openai.com/s/Kag36pExavazHrw7vA4BQmVg

TechCrunch article: Disney+ releases its first AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering,’ starring Brie Larson

Gizmodo article: Bizarre Muzzle Microphone Keeps Your Mouth in the Metaverse

Rackit 2.0 Handsfree Harmonica Microphone 

The Verge article: Apple may have fixed the notch by putting it on an island

9 to 5 Mac article: How could iPhone 14 Pro’s ‘Dynamic Island’ work on iPad? 

MacBook Air M2

Games at Work e315: Reeses McBoatface

Polygon article: Congratulations to Monty Python Fans, there is finally an RPG for you

Bonus links

Rest of World article: They built a Minecraft crypto empire. Then it came all crashing down

Ars Technica article: Developer creates delightful programming font based on Minecraft

Gizmodo article: Playful Lego-Compatible Mechanical Keyboard Works With Your Own Bricks

Let’s Play Retro Games

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