dotBrighton

As it’s Easter, here are some bite-sized treats for you! The night will feature, in no particular order:

Owen Bennett: How to Use Natural Language Generation to Make Your Computer Tell You Stories

The mysterious and illogical beast that is the English language is not easily caged in silicon, but for the last few months I’ve been trying to do just that. With the quest of getting my computer to write sensible sentences, I began a journey through the land of Java, bringing back a Rosetta Stone called “SimpleNLG” with which I could translate computerese to legible, if somewhat sub-Shakespearean, prose.

I’ll be showing how to use SimpleNLG’s natural language generator (which I ported to ActionScript) and then, time willing, we’ll take a look at how to make your computer tell you stories.

Twitter: @jokigenki

What is it like to work in a Newsroom as a one-man multimedia band? I’ll show some recent examples of data visualisation (or bouncy graphs in my language) that I have launched for cnn.com, dive into some of the code (JavaScript/jQuery/CSS/HTML) and try to explain the thought process behind them.

Matt is the Multimedia Designer for CNN International, working directly with the Editorial team to help make their stories visually more interesting, from illustrations and infographics to data visualisation and interactive experiences (with a sprinkling of video, 3D and photography thrown in).

Twitter: @eskimomatt

Paul Hayes: The Making of Plug-in Media’s OK Go Interactive Music Video

Thrown out of time after an ill-fated lab experiment in 1904, Paul has had trouble adjusting to this future world. However after discovering the wonders of computational engines, he’s finally managed to find some solace at the very epicenter of these turbulent times.

Paul will be discussing the fabrication of an interactive piece of Children’s entertainment called “Ok GO Colors”, produced for the televisual puppetry company Sesame Workshop by Plug-in Media.  It’s a bit like a zoetrope, but delivered over electrical cable connected to the googleplex.

He will also be discussing the woeful lack of on-street shoe shines, given the abundance of poverty-stricken urchins.

Twitter: @paul_hayes

Tickets available from: http://dotbrighton11apr2012.eventbrite.co.uk/

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Part 1 – The Essence Of An Awesome Game

Having scored a cult hit with Coconut Dodge and soon to do it again with Velocity, James will share a formula he believes is at the heart of all awesome games. Using Coconut Dodge and Velocity as examples, he will reveal what makes them tick, and how their essence can be understood and applied to make more awesome games. Is this talk free?! Yes.

Part 2 – Getting Support For Your Game

As a complete unknown to the games industry, and with a game that wasn’t particularly groundbreaking or noteworthy, FuturLab managed to get support for Coconut Dodge from a global publisher and a leading platform holder; editorial coverage from some of the world’s most influential gaming sites and built a loyal fan base along the way.

With Velocity, FuturLab secured private investor funding, a PlayStation Plus deal and further games-press support before launch.

James will share exactly how this was done supported by anecdotal evidence, and will provide tips on how other indie teams can do the same!

At the end of this marathon games session, anyone with a burning passion to create their own indie success story will have a significant head start!

Biography

James Marsden has been following a path of most resistance since graduating from a Fine Art degree in 2001. Starting FuturLab in 2003 as a vehicle to realise ideas, James has jumped across a series of ladders from high street ecommerce websites, through e-learning and Flash games, via an international marketing campaign for Sony Computer Entertainment, and is now happy directing and publishing indie games for PlayStation and iOS. Along the way he’s had a hand in every aspect of digital media production including motion graphics, programming, sound design and music. He co-wrote and co-produced the soundtrack for Velocity with award winning Killzone composer Joris de Man, and is also writing a science fiction novel - which he believes will make him rich…

Twitter: @FuturLab

Tickets available from: http://dotbrighton14mar2012.eventbrite.co.uk/

Adobe Gaming Technology and The Future of Flash

In this session, Gaming Evangelist Lee Brimelow will reveal the latest technologies being worked on by Adobe for game developers. He will show how these technologies allow developers to create casual 2D games in addition to AAA 3D games. Current best practices will also be discussed. Lee will then spend some time laying out the roadmap for the Flash Player, and discuss the direction in which the player will evolve, including the general focus of the player and the ActionScript language and AVM (ActionScript Virtual Machine). Finally Lee will end by answering any questions you have about the recent announcements concerning Flash.

Biography

Lee Brimelow is a developer evangelist at Adobe who is currently focusing on Flash gaming. He has worked in the past for companies like AOL, Netscape, frog design, and eBay. Lee runs the highly popular video tutorial site at gotoandlearn.com and writes a blog dedicated to Flash attheflashblog.com.

Twitter: @leebrimelow

Adobe have very kindly donated a copy of Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection for us to raffle on the night!  You must be present in person to be in with a chance of winning.  One ticket per attendee.

Please note that we are meeting on a Friday evening this time!

Tickets available from http://dotbrighton24feb2012.eventbrite.co.uk/

This workshop will introduce and get people up and running with SuperCollider: the cutting-edge, cross platform and open source audio programming language. Its use as a live coding system will be explored after a short introduction to how musicians, scientists and artists use this environment in their work. We will explore the power of SuperCollider as a realtime live coding system.

SuperCollider is split into a language and an audio engine. Any programming language can be a client for the SC audio server. This 3 hour hands-on workshop will get participants started with audio synthesis in SuperCollider, use of patterns and the just-in-time live coding system. Three clients will be introduced for the SC-server: Lua, Scheme and ixi lang.

You will need to bring a laptop with SuperCollider installed and most importantly, some headphones! Space is limited to just 25 places this time to ensure that everyone gets the maximum benefit out of the session. As ever, add yourself to the waiting list if you don’t manage to get a ticket.

Biography
Thor Magnusson is a musician/writer/programmer working in the fields of music and generative art. Thor is mainly interested in improvisation, live performances, installations and audio software production. He is a co-founder and member of the ixi audio collective. With ixi he has written various musical software and given workshops and talks in key institutions across Europe on the design and creation of digital musical instruments and sound installations. He lectures at the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Art.

Thor has presented and performed in various festivals and conferences, such as Sonar festival, Ertz festival, Transmediale, ICMC (International Computer Music Conference), NIME Conference (New Interfaces for Musical Expression), Impact Festival, Soundwaves festival, Cybersonic festival, Ultrasound festival, and Pixelache.

For further info on ixi, please visit: www.ixi-audio.net

Twitter: @thormagnusson

When programmer art sucks and real artists do everything with ten million polys, how can a lone coder get anything done! In this talk, Tom will show how procedural and generative methods can help drive content production and game design in engines like Unity. Tom will show a number of his own projects and prototypes where modular and generative design have helped overcome the problems of content production. He will also probably go hideously off topic and end up talking about Dark Souls, Honey and Deleuze.

Biography
Tom Betts, aka Nullpointer, is an artist, academic, coder and gamer.  He’s been a lecturer, designer, published musician, professional artist, warlock… but right now he is working on his PhD about the sublime in digital games and he’s also head coder at Big Robot making a game for Channel 4. He’s exhibited digital artworks and performed at international venues such as Sonar, ZKM, Lovebytes, FACT and has done professional design/coding for Tate, the V&A and the Southbank Centre. He likes coding Indie projects, drinking coffee, watching films where nothing much happens and is trying to grow a beard.

Twitter: @tomnullpointer

CreativeJS: Visual Fun in JavaScript (Seb Lee-Delisle)
As browsers evolve, the range of visual effects and interactions available is now incredibly sophisticated. Seb will take you through the easiest ways to create animations and particle effects, and demonstrate some of the best projects to emerge from the new creative JavaScripters.

The Making of the ‘Noise Trade’ Music Video (Persistent Peril)
Ginny Jones (garth+ginny) and Sam Bourner from Persistent Peril will chat through their music video ‘Noise Trade’ for noisenik band ‘Three Trapped Tigers’ (pictured). She will show how the video was developed from conception to completion using Cinema 4D, Flash and After Effects.

Following on from this we will be screening a selection of your favourite music videos. Please email your suggestions to managers@dotbrighton.org. They should demonstrate creativity rather than simply reflecting the music you like.

Beer will be provided courtesy of creativejs.com. We’ll also have lots of prizes to give away, including your chance to win a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5* worth over £1,800!

Biographies
Seb Lee-Delisle is an internationally known creative coder specialising in large scale installations. Whether it’s digital interactive fireworks displays or glow-stick voting systems, his work uses technology to bring people together in fun and exciting ways. He also programs creative visual effects for websites, games and apps in many programming languages and platforms.

He loves sharing the creativity of code with artists and programmers alike using physics, motion detection, 3D and particle systems. His work has pushed the boundaries of what is possible both on and off the web, and won two BAFTAs with Plug-in Media, the agency he co-founded in 2004.

A highly sought-after speaker, his recent Creative JavaScript / HTML5 workshop series sold out within hours. He co-hosts the Creative Coding Podcast with Iain Lobb.

Twitter: @seb_ly @creativjs

Persistent Peril is a new design and animation studio based in Brighton. Company Directors Garth+Ginny have over 12 years experience between them, and specialise in character driven animation for corporate, online and broadcast platforms.
We like to handle projects from conception though to delivery. This enables us to deliver high quality work, which will make you smile. We also offer storyboards, animatics, flash animation, 2D animation, pixel animation, illustration and character design for any existing production.

Clients to date include Blackberry, Microsoft, Orange, E4, Flash On the Beach and Blood & Biscuits.

Twitter: @PersistentPeril

Tickets will be available from noon on Tuesday, 6 December. Follow @dotBrighton on Twitter for updates.

* Your choice of either Web, Design or Production Premium. Everyone who has attended one of our talks in the last six months will be entered into the prize raffle. You will get one ticket for each session you were present at; those who did a talk will get an additional five tickets. The only rule is that you must be there in person at the time of the draw to win. The Managers’ decision is final.

Unity3D: Getting Started and Moving Forward (Will Goldstone)

I’ll begin by presenting an overview for those new to Unity3D. Then, for more experienced users, follow up by demonstrating the new features that are coming in Unity 3.5:

New Particle system
Nav Mesh AI solution
Multi-object editing
Q&A

Unity3D: Why I’m Not Even Slightly Worried About This Whole Flash Thing (Iestyn Lloyd)

I’ll start by talking about my decision to switch to Unity3D after 10 years of Flash development. Then I’ll show some of the cool Unity3D projects I’ve been working on recently. I’ll explain why I chose Unity for these projects and describe my experiences, both good and bad.

The first project is The Thrill Electric, written by Leah Moore (comic fans will know this is Alan Moore’s daughter), an enhanced, 3D comic developed by Littleloud for Hat Trick and Channel 4. It was built for the Web and iOS and pushed Unity’s capabilities to the max.

I’ve also been making some experimental Unity3D apps for iOS using AR and the gyroscope with Adam Sharp, a talented 3D artist.

Finally I’ll talk about converting a Flash game to iOS and Android using Unity3D.

Biographies
Will Goldstone works for Unity Technologies and is author of the newly updated Unity Game Development Essentials. Having discovered Unity in its first version, he has been working to promote its ‘game development for everyone’ ethic ever since. Will has trained various age ranges in an array of topics from graphic design to film, game development and web design. Now focusing on training, marketing and community support with Unity Technologies, his free time is spent on Battlefield 3, writing loud music and playing frisbee on the beach. He is based in London.
Twitter: @willgoldstone

Iestyn Lloyd is Technical Director at Littleloud and founder of Lloyd Digital. He has worked in digital since 1996, specialising in delivering interactive content across multiple platforms for high-profile clients such as Channel 4, BBC, Paramount, Universal, Marvel and MTV. Many of the projects he has worked on have won awards, including a BAFTA for Bow Street Runner.
Twitter: @yezzer

Tickets will be available from noon on Thursday, 17 November. Follow @dotBrighton on Twitter for updates.

So you want to develop for mobile. Maybe you want to chase those long foretold millions that await you in the App Store, maybe you want to avoid the self-defenestration that will occur if you are asked to make another banner or WordPress template. Maybe you are just looking for a new challenge.

Whatever the reason this session will cover what you need to know when transitioning to developing for mobile devices so you can hit the ground running with few to no broken bones. We will cover multi-touch, gestures, design conventions, prototyping, tips on making your app likeable and/or lickable and much more. We will also go over how to avoid common pitfalls and get going with your own project with a light sprinkling of case studies.

Biography
Paulo Fierro is a Norwegian-born developer with a passion for User Experience and over a decade’s experience of playing with the Flash Platform. Over the years he has created compelling experiences, strategic proof of concepts and other things we can’t talk about for clients such as Nickelodeon, the New York Giants, Research In Motion, Time Inc., and QNX Software Systems.

In recent years he has switched his focus over to mobile. Working together with some great designers he has developed award winning iOS apps such as the first official Flash on the Beach app and reached the #2 spot on the App Store in two markets (UK and Norway). A year and a half ago he left the big city lights of Oslo for Brighton, where he and his partner Niqui Merret established Jade Hopper, a micro-agency focused on mobile development.

Tickets will be available from noon on Thursday, 3 November. Follow @dotBrighton on Twitter for updates.

Like a phoenix rising from a pile of brand website corpses, Flash 11 could potentially hail a renaissance for Adobe in the way people think about and use the Flash Player.
The main component of the release is the much talked about Stage 3D (formerly known as ‘Molehill’) APIs that allow Flash direct access to the GPU grunt once the preserve of desktop-only development. It is from here we see the seeds of change being sown – most applicably in the field of browser-based gaming.

But this is far from the end of the story. With the possibility of fast-paced graphics now thrown wide open, what new horizons are we looking at for Flash? And where do we turn for the tools, techniques and frameworks that will grant us the ability to harness this power?

At the London-based startup Mindshapes, Rob Bateman and his team have been finding out the hard way… with surprising results.

ABOUT ROB
Rob Bateman is an internationally renowned web developer and community leader who specializes in content for the Flash Platform, and has always held a particular fascination with 3D on the web. In 2007 he co-founded the Away3D engine with Alexander Zadorozhny, and has been leading development for the last three years. He lives and works in London UK where his production and consultancy company Away Media provides expert services in the field of browser-based 3D content.

He is also the co-author of the recent Away3D handbook: The Essential Guide to 3D in Flash, published by Friends of Ed. Thanks to our friends at Apress we will have some copies of Rob’s book to give away!

Tickets will be available from noon on Wednesday, 19 October. Follow @dotBrighton on Twitter for updates.