Here’s my second iteration on a project using Unity mesh deformation on a Microsoft Surface for moldable virtual clay. Now, you can spin the ball with your hand as well as molding with fingers.

It’s difficult to get the program to recognize a multitouch gesture at the exclusion of a gesture with fewer touches; I have it delay a bit to see whether the other fingers will show up before it responds. As you can see in the video, too quick of a response time leads to some extra dents in the clay.

A virtual clay application which I created for Microsoft Surface using Unity. It makes use Logan Olson’s scripts which retrieve and format the Surface touch data for Unity.

Resetting the clay ball requires teamwork with another user. :)

Made at USC’s Interactive Media Division.

Virtual Clay
2010
Tools Used: Unity, Microsoft Surface

Game description and images courtesy of www.spectregame.com.

Spectre is a recombinant narrative platformer, a game that tells the story of an individual’s life. The landscape before you is not a physical world, but 73 years’ worth of Joseph’s memory: moments of joy and fear, light and darkness. As you navigate through his specific recollections, similarly themed events will glow bright. If you succeed in these moments of play and follow a glowing path, you will find a theme uniting his experience, and uncover a little more of his fading memory. If not, your nightly story will end in confusion.

With over a hundred memories linked to fifty-two different ending themes, there are many possible narratives to discover in Spectre. Each session of play represents one fifteen-minute summary of Joseph Wheeler’s past, one piece of a life-long puzzle. Different stories will highlight different facets of his experience and personality, leaving the player with a compelling, if never entirely complete, impression of the man, his place in the world, and what he sees when he stares upwards into the endlessly falling snow.

Encountering the memories of childhood

As the sound designer for Spectre, I created all sound and music for the game, with the notable exception of the theme song/overworld music, which was composed by Jamie Antonisse. I worked closely with Jamie and the artists to develop the unique atmosphere of each minigame vignette. I also directed, recorded, and mixed the voiceover for the game. Spectre was my first sound design project, and I relied on skills I’d acquired as a filmmaker and game designer creating audio for my own projects.

Lost in a book

Spectre
www.spectregame.com
2009
Flash Game
My Title: Sound Designer
Tools Used: Garageband, Pro Tools, Flash, Quicktime Pro
Team: Vaguely Spectacular
Download for PC and Mac

W, A, S, D to move. Q and E to fly up and down. Up and Down arrow keys to deform the landscape near you.

Try making some white peaks and some green grass!

Download for Windows
Download for Mac

-Bill

I like to think that my work as audio designer helped to tip us into the “honorable” distinction. ;)

Spectre project page

www.spectregame.com

-Bill

Digital Puppet & Glove Controller
2008
Tools Used: Arduino, Processing, 3 bend sensors, paper, tape, velcro.