Furia was my first attempt at narrative using computers. It's a short 30-second metaphor depicting the emotion of anger. The anger-sphere starts out calm and blue, but gradually waves of anger flow over it and tempt and drive it into a more furious state; by the end, it is entirely crimson. The sound effects were also created "from scratch" using my voice and Cool Edit '96. I used to have the AVI movie available for download, but due to server space restrictions I had to remove it. However, you can still view the POV source code.

Another early attempt of mine at expression using computers was called Hundreds of Stars, and it can be found here. It is a combination of one of my poems superimposed over an image of a Julia set that was generated with my fractal program, AFP (you can find out more about that in the code section). It's simple, but I thought it was appropriate.

Spliney Pimp Man

This is my creation, the Spliney Pimp Man. He was to be used in a narrative, written by myself and George Faerber, that can only really be described as an audio-visual blend of Bach's Tocatta, Goethe's Faust, Dostoevsky's The Underground Man, and Lynyrd Skynrd's Sweet Home Alabama. I generally thought it was a pretty nice piece, but unfortunately it never really got past the script stage... I did experiment some with keyframe animation and syncing the Spliney Pimp to music.

In all seriousness, however, Spliney Pimp man did not start out as a silly project. In fact, for the first three quarters of the original narrative, he is entirely gray-colored and has no hat. He is intended to be the subject of much remorse, first playing the role of Faust, entrapping himself in his own creation; and then playing the role of The Underground Man, injuring his own body in an inert, inefficate world to prove to himself that he is alive. In the end, he comes to terms with himself and finally achieves contentedness in life as the jocund Spliney Pimp Man.

Ascenscion: The Interactive Metaphor

This was our first attempt at creating a fully interactive story. The idea was developed chiefly by myself, and I rendered the first half of the experience in 3D Studio MAX; the rest of it was rendered in KPT Bryce by George Faerber and Audrey Swanstrom. Ascenscion was intended to be more of an interactive metaphor, or an interactive expression, rather than a game, despite the fact that its interface is very similar to Myst style games.

In Ascenscion, you are confronted by a monolithic sort of "airway station" in front of you, with huge buildings towering above you on all sides. The impression is meant to be somewhat Kafka-esque, with the buildings being many times your size, seeming quite beautiful yet imposing, forbidding, and unfriendly. The interface provides all that it needs to provide; you have full range of motion within the world of the story, and there is nothing to interact with. What's really beautiful seems to be above you, in the air; it seems free and unimposing up there in the cerulean sky, which is where your eyes are focused at the beginning of the story. You can explore the bottom of this world, but its beauty is like a statue--serene, yet lifeless. Eventually the way out is through the canvas of an empty painting. The painting leads to a new world, and ultimately it leads underground, and up to the other side of the world (somewhat of an allusion to Dante's Divina Commedia), where paradise is located. The camera fades to white, and suddenly you find yourself floating above the world in which you found yourself at the beginning; you have attained enlightenment, so to speak.

Well, that's the very brief version of the metaphor. The story was also woven together by a poem I wrote, the first verse of which is displayed at the beginning of the story, the second verse is engraved into a wall of the Kafka-esque world, the third verse is shown after you leave paradise (before you are floating above the Kafka-esque world), and the last line of the poem is shown after the final floating above scene.

Unfortunately, this metaphor was not able to be composed in a finalized form in Macromedia Director due to several complications; we now have all the media to do this (i.e., all the screenshots and movies), but none of us currently have the time. Following are some screenshots and movies from various parts of my section of the metaphor; all of the work was done "from scratch" in 3D Studio MAX.