In Proteus, players travel through a world to soothing music as they uncover pockets of wildlife and other things of interest along the way. There are no particular goals or rules to speak of – elements most students of game design learn are essential parts of a game.
Developer Ed Key, alongside musician David Kanaga, thinks of it more as an “anti-game.”
Follow the discussion in Indie Game the WebLog. What do you think? Is Proteus a Game or something else?
On March 19, 1887 Cogswell College made its appearance in a solemn ceremony presided over by Henry Cogswell and his wife, Carolyn. The goal – then as now – was to prepare young men and women for the professional, technical industries of the day. Things have changed a bit since 1887.
In the early days, men majored in mechanical arts, draughtsman, steam engineering and surveying while women majored in commercial trades (meaning secretarial) or domestic sciences. By the early 1950’s the focus shifted to engineering and included majors in electrical, mechanical, structural and civil engineering.
Today – as one of the first institutions to offer degrees in the newly emerging digital media industry in 1990, Cogswell continues its project-based learning model and produces highly-skilled graduates in animation, game design, sound design, audio engineering, digital arts engineers and software engineers.
In 2012 Cogswell launched its first Masters degree program in Entrepreneurship. Where better to mentor the next generations of digital media and creative innovators than Silicon Valley!
Congratulations Cogswell College on reaching 126 years!
It’s so cool to see artwork created by our alumni get published. In a recent Flicks and Bits review about the “Dark Knight Rises,” they featured a piece by Andy Timm depicting a wrestling match between Bane battling Venom.
Congrats Andy!
Jose Saavedra
Cogswell student, Jose Saavedra Lara who was a 2012 Adobe Youth Voices winner, has been selected as one of the judges in the upcoming Adobe Youth Voices 2013 competition in the Music Video category.
Jose, along with fellow Cogswell students P.J. Poloai and Diamante Horton, directed and produced Keep Pushing, a video that received the Gold Award in the Music Video category in the 2012 competition. Their moving narrative, Angel in my Sky, received a Gold Award in the Narrative Category of the competition. 20 20 Vision, an inspiring call-to-action music video, received the MTV Act Award. The trio met at the Redwood City Boys & Girls Club while in middle school. The Club houses a state-of-the-art production studio and provides guidance from Adobe industry professionals who donate their time to teach audio engineering, video editing and production. Jose, P.J. and Diamante turned to Cogswell College to continue their education and earn their bachelor degrees. Jose’s goal after graduation is to become a music producer for the best in the business.
Michael Martin
Michael Martin, Dean of the College at Cogswell College, has been asked to serve as one of the judges in the Poster Campaign category. Michael also currently serves on the San Jose Arts Commission and sits on the nationally recognized Public Art Committee and the Mineta Airport Art Program Oversight Committee.
IGN’s Youtube web series, The Next Game Boss, has a Cogswell College alumnus connection. Seth Robles who graduated from Cogswell in 2005 is the Lead Artist on the Death Boulder Bones game that is one of the final three games in contention for the $10,000 prize.
Death Boulder Bones, a product of Grandendroit, is an innovative new auto-runner game. The twist is that the game player controls the environment instead of the character. Using their mouse or touch screen, players draw walls, jumps and even control time itself in order to lead the near-sighted adventurer, Dr. Indianapolis Bones, to the exit. Along the way, gamers challenge themselves to collect the many artifacts and secrets hidden throughout each level.
“Early player response has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Robles, “and the game is expected to shake up the runner genre.”
Grandendroit began in 2009 when coder Eli Delventhal and artist Seth Robles met during the first Global Game Jam at Cogswell College. Frustrated with the difficulty of realizing their creativity at their day jobs with the gaming establishment, Grandendroit became a place for their own ideas to take flight. In 2011, they began work on an innovate auto-runner game, Death Boulder Bones.
As for the results . . . you’ll just have to watch! Check out their website to see the episode where the final two competitors are selected. Will Death Boulder Bones be one of them?
They currently have a Kickstarter Campaign underway to raise funding for further development ahead of the games official release this summer.
Let us know what you think about their game!
It’s hard to image a film without the wonder that special effects brings to the movie-going experience. Their hard work and talent makes those things that couldn’t possibly happen – believable.
Several Cogswell College alumni had the opportunity to be part of the cadre of artists who worked on the Oscar-winning “Life of Pi” and offer a fascinating peek into the life of the artists who bring these stories to life.
Most of these artists were also graduates of Cogswell’s unique Project X class. One of the secrets of Project X is that it does not run like a regular class but rather a full-blown film production company. Hours are long, aesthetics are very demanding and the artists are treated like professionals and not students. This total immersion creates an environment conducive to quality, camaraderie and the highest production value.
Our Alumni talk about their work on “Life of Pi”:
Ryan Rogers
Title: Technical Animation Lead
Brief Description: As a tech anim lead I was in charge of half of the tech animators that we had in LA as we had two teams. Technical animation is a department that is tasked with bringing to life all of the secondary motion of a scene. Our main tasks for “Life of Pi” were skin simulations, fur simulations and simulating the tarp that was covering the boat (which actually turned into our hardest character).
Most notable work: Tech is also in charge of any interaction between live action people and the CG characters. One of my most notable memories from working on the show were the scenes where Pi put Richard Parker’s head on his lap. We had to do a quite a bit of work on the shot to feel like the two characters were really sharing the same space, and that Pi’s hand was really contacting the tiger and running his hand through the tigers fur. The dummy that they used on the set for the actor to act with, was just that… a dummy, it wasn’t an actual tigers head. A few of the shots, Pi is running his hand from the side of the tigers face, up to the top of his head. These were very difficult to sell, as the tigers head and the dummy didn’t line up perfectly. We had to do a lot of things to cheat the tracked hand to push down into the tiger’s fur so that we could get some sort of interaction through our simulations. It took a lot of time and ingenuity, but it was all worth it in the end. When you watch those scenes in the movie, it’s very convincing that Pi is running his hand through the fur of a real 500lb dying Bengal tiger .
Chris Evart
Job Title: Technical Animation TD
As a TD, I was responsible for the animation of muscle contraction and jiggle for skin simulation (sim), character interaction with skin and cloth and post animation geometry cleanup. Basically, the workflow was sim the muscles, sim the skin over the muscles, sim the fur over the skin and then do the interactions with the boat/set/plate actor.
I was responsible for many of the shots on Life of Pi because I worked on the show during the main production period and did a bunch of shots then, but I also was the only Tech TD (besides the supervisors) who came back and finished up the show after it came back from hiatus.
Some of the most memorable shots for me were:
An extremely long shot when the tiger first emerges from the tarp and kills the hyena. Pi rolls around on the tarp and there was a ton of tarp/tiger interaction. Simulating the tarp to get good interaction was a challenge but I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s the reveal shot of the tiger and it’s about 1600 frames I believe.
I did a close up interaction shot of Pi crying and petting the tigers head and then another interaction between Pi’s hand and the tiger’s head skin/fur as well as all the normal tech stuff. (skin sims and such.)
One of my shots was where the hyena starts attacking the dying zebra and bites his leg. The zebra kicks the hyena so I got to do fun kick recoil and interaction work. It also had OJ in the shot yelling.
Another favorite was the shot where the tiger comes out from under the tarp and turns around and roars right at the camera.
For each of these shots, I just described the shot specific stuff I did but I also did all the general tech on each of the shots.
Chris Sutherland
Job Title: Compositor (the process of combining multiple footage layers or “elements” to make them appear as if they were shot with the same camera, at the same time)
Before I started compositing on the film, I was asked to help with the Stereo QC stage of production–the first step in getting every shot ready for vfx magic. I trained and helped lead artists in LA for a while, which enabled our team to refine and streamline the process. After a couple of months, I had the opportunity to fly to our Hyderabad office in India for two weeks of training a small team of artists there. Wow… what an experience! Not only did I get to see an entirely different culture, but I also made some very good friends almost instantly. It’s a trip I will never forget… There is so much I could tell but I think it would end up being a book! Shortly after that trip, I started on the compositing stage of things…
First of all, it was amazing to work under Bill Westenhofer. The man is a master at his craft as visual effects supervisor. At least 95% of the time, he knew exactly what he wanted and gave very clear notes for artists to address. It’s hard to put into words how important that is for us! Not only that, but he was easy-going, and relatively chill for the most part. After working with him on this show, it’s no surprise that he’s been nominated for three Oscars and won two!
Second, it was even better to work directly under the guidance of my sequence supervisor Chris Kenny. It seemed no matter what issue I came across, he knew a way to address it. Every opportunity he got, he was teaching me something new. I learned a lot working with him and for that I’m also very grateful. He was also able to keep a light-hearted and fun atmosphere for the team, even when things got stressful and a bit crazy.
In terms of my own personal shot work, I felt very fortunate to have a variety of shots, and four in particular that I thought were really ‘cool’. One was when the whale jumps out of the water and knocks Pi off of his raft. My shot was of Pi underwater with all the jellies and bioluminescence. Another was in the flying fish sequence, when the camera whip pans from left, where all the fish are coming from, to right, where Pi and Richard Parker are in the boat trying to avoid and/or catch them. The last shot I worked on for the show was in the meerkat island sequence. It’s the first shot of the night scene, when Pi awakes, surrounded by meerkats in the tree. But finally, maybe the coolest shot I composited–that I had the least to composite on, funny enough–was where Richard Parker’s head takes up the entire screen for a few seconds, and you can just stare into his eyes. Beautiful imagery created by amazingly talented artists.
Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of working on this film was seeing it finished in theaters. It was a wonderful feeling to have my expectations blown away–as a film, as a story, and on top of that, a visual masterpiece. Even though I’d worked on the film and seen final shots in dailies, I was still astonished by the final product. I don’t know that I’ve seen another movie where the visual effects had so much to do with telling the story.
Working on Life of Pi honestly felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am immensely grateful for the experience.
Ben Taylor
Job Title: Systems Operations Administrator
The work I did on the film covers a wide range of technical aspects on all the shots.
Some of my responsibilities included: Managing studio resources, converting/finalizing all the shots, fixing renders and various pipeline issues, and increasing efficiencies between technology and production.
It’s always fun to do work that you enjoy, although Life of Pi came at a very challenging time for our studio.
How Grimm Can a Game Be? That depends upon your definition. If you imagine a game filled with dark-themed fairy tales and a large dose of black humor, then the new Grimm Bros offering might be just what you are looking for. Think Evil Dead meets Monty Python and you’re in the right neighborhood.
Grimm Bros is a new start-up studio founded by Cogswell College alumni, Ash Monif, and his partner Randis Albion, both veteran game developers. Their focus is to produce a franchise of Triple-A quality games for PCs and tablets using a cloud-based technology – meaning you can play anywhere, anytime on almost any device.
“I have always been a fan of complex subject matter,” said Monif. “I grew up reading the classics Grimm, Chaucer, Tolkien – and I feel that today’s games gloss over a lot of the richness that can be found within these great works. Our goal is to build a community of core and mid-core gamers who are seeking out a redefined RPG experience.”
Monif and Albion have worked together for many years and in 2013 decided to combine their talents to found Grimm Bros. The company has started production on its first title and will announce details at the upcoming 2013 Game Developer Conference in March!
Ash Monif is CEO and in charge of business development and production. His game credits include: Fort Courage (Android), TinkerBox (iOS), Fieldrunners (Mobile/Online), Mercenaries 2 (Console), James Bond, FRWL (Console), Sims 2 (PC), Lord of the Rings – TTA (Console) and James Bond – EON (Console)
Randis Albion is COO and in charge of art direction. His game credits include: Puzzlevania (iOS), ThinkerBox (iOS), League of Legends (PC), MMO Cooee (PC), AquaNox Angels Tears (PS2), AquaNox II (PC), and AquaNox (PC)
Sergei Gourski, another Cogswell College alumni and co-founder of the award-winning Subatomic Studios and creator of the hit sensation Fieldrunners had the following to say about Grimm Bros, “We worked with Ash and Randis on multiple projects. Both are outstanding and extremely talented individuals. Grimm Bros looks like a great team with lot of potential for success!”
Check out their official Facebook page for updates and game release dates.
Cogswell College student, Aaron Miner, recently received the 2013 Smokler Scholarship award to attend the San Francisco Writers Conference from February 14-17. Following are his reflections on the first session he attended:
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The sun warmed the bright, long room as I seated myself for my first panel at the San Francisco Writing Conference. The conference comprises four days of presentations, workshops, keynotes, consultations and exhibitions for authors, agents, and publishers. I arrived early for this first panel—the one slated to begin at nine in the morning. Its title was: “How to Turn Your Book Into a Movie.”
I introduced myself to the several women who also sat in the front row. Among them was a nonfiction author from out of state, who was writing a memoir about her grandmother. She reacted with curiosity when I mentioned my studies at Cogswell. She expressed an especial concern about how studios might alter the scripts they purchased against their author’s intentions.
As the matter was one I had given much thought, I happily shared what I knew. What I saw as the film industry’s tendency to shoehorn stories into ill-fitting, but marketable, packages was what led me to entrepreneurship in the first place. As a child, my love of books and movies developed into a passion for writing, and later I also developed an interest in animated filmmaking.
Founding my own studio was the plan from the start. I have a strong independent streak, and I balked at the notion of altering my story to make it more saleable to an executive. With my own studio, even if the market demanded a compromise between art and business, I could at least decide the best compromise for myself. When I transferred out of De Anza College’s animation program, I chose Cogswell College over San Jose State because Cogswell taught entrepreneurship alongside digital media.
Though my interests in fiction, filmmaking and entrepreneurship complement one another, I have always struggled with their seemingly disparate natures. At times, they seem like two vocations too many for a single lifespan. The question of how to integrate them into a whole, and avoid burnout, tortured me for a long time.
Soon, our panelist arrived: a producer and manager who works out of Hollywood. Her trade involves adapting novels into television shows and pitching them to the networks. “Everyone is looking for a built-in audience,” she said towards the middle of her talk. There is a market for adaptations, as well as the ubiquitous sequels and prequels, because their renown guarantees a turnout. The expense involved in filmmaking also requires that this be a mass audience. Such expenses have all but eliminated the independent film studios. Our speaker regretted this fact, because she believes that some less popular perspectives deserve a hearing.
The epiphany washed over me like a wave. It was an obvious epiphany, but an epiphany nonetheless. We live at a time where telling a story across multiple media is a matter of course. Novelists want films to promote their novels, and film studios want novels to promote their films. The economics of the old industry demands high budgets and cultivates a tyranny of the mainstream. However, producers, creators and audiences alike find themselves disgruntled by this fact. Furthermore, as the panelist herself mentioned, the development of new distribution methods via the Internet clears the way for a myriad of voices to find their niche. Being an author, filmmaker and entrepreneur in this day and age suddenly seemed appropriate.
As our technology advances, and our culture evolves with it, I expect the boundaries between professions will undergo immense shifts. The media industries in particular will feel the effects. In recounting her tales of shopping series based on her clients’ books, our panelist described a convoluted industry, stuffed with middlemen. Now that any filmmaker can distribute their work with a click and a tweet, we may have no more need of these intermediaries. I look forward to seeing the kind of world that emerges when the dust settles, and the transformation is complete.
The panel ended at fifteen minutes to three. I introduced myself to our speaker afterwards and shook her hand before hurrying off to the next event downstairs. The San Francisco Writer’s Conference was just beginning.
Aaron M. Miner is a writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur attending Cogswell College. In 2012, he founded Studio Kenaz–an independent animation company–and produced a video for Murs and Josh Blaylock, which was featured at that year’s San Diego Comic Con. He is presently revising his first novel, and maintains a blog at Runicfire.net.
Most of us cringe when our co-workers, especially those we must work closely with, start sniping at each other thus creating an uncomfortable workplace environment at a minimum and worst case scenario, disrupt the work flow. The average worker has not been trained in conflict management and has no idea how to improve the situation.
This helpful article by Lisa Wood, President of ManagingAmericans.com, both defines and then offers insight into how to deal with the four main sources of conflict in the workplace – conflict avoidance, conflict of opinion, conflict of interest and conflict of intent.
How do you deal with conflict in your team projects?
Can you imagine that a large percentage of our recorded history – music, historical speeches, radio broadcasts and field recordings – may soon be lost forever due to the lack of preservation opportunities?
According to the report, the whereabouts of a wire recording made by the crew members of the Enola Gay from inside the plane as the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima are unknown. Many key recordings made by George Gershwin no longer survive. Recordings by Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and other top recording artists have been lost.
Another factor contributing to the demise of these valuable recordings are the US Copyright laws. This fascinating article walks you through the dilemma and what can be done to save this piece of our history.
