This is the utility space of Tania, Micah and Steve working our hands and minds in Shamanic Powers… the first output from the Virtual Incubator Project. You’re welcome to have a look around! Oh, and by the way… Tania paints, Micah composes music and Steve engineers software, should you be hiring!
tania or steve do you know the name of the mayan trumpet instrument? according to this article they are called “Hom-Tahs”.. http://www.geocities.com/rvelaz.geo/bonampak/hom.htm
if i can hear a recording of one i should be able to get a sound close to it…which would be great, then i can layer it up with everything else.
also here is a recording i have done of the ocarina..the file is of me playing, just testing out the sound…if you like this then i will work out a nice theme and record with some percussion and some loops on its own.
it sounds very haunting with the reverb, would be perfect using that for moments in the temple and/or jungle? or maybe add it to the market soundscape…
http://lmsfarm.co.nz/vib/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/ocarina_reverb_loop1_soundtest.mp3
also i found this site which has some great reference material
http://www.authenticmaya.com/maya_art.htm
also this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_Maya_music
a 1min loop for the market soundscape, chattering is in spanish, although this can be changed, as can the music, yet to find any samples of more traditional mayan music, found a few that are good, next meeting maybe we can disucuss this, found a few samples but not sure which will be more genuine…
mp3 loop is below.
speak soon
-micah
http://lmsfarm.co.nz/vib/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/market_soundscape_vers2_short.mp3
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step! Here’s a very basic prototype 0.001 the trumpet player and the percussionist announce the start of the storytelling. There’s no optimisation yet, so on a slow connection it’s going to take a while for the market backdrop to load. There’s no progress bar yet either, so just go and make a cup of tea while it happens.
You can see it here: http://www.lmsfarm.co.nz/vip/0.001.html
Congratulations Tania, I think we’re beginning to see just how good it’s going to look.
Act I > Scene 1 > Market > Day
Quetzal Sky and his girlfriend are strolling through the market. The musicians play, the dogs bark, the traders hawk their wares. A sinister man observes Quetzal Sky. The storyteller tells the story of the lost son of the old king. A tattoo on Quetzal’s chest throbs, a musical motif we are to hear again floats through the musicians’ song. The storyteller sees the tattoo and is for a moment speechless, he turns his staring eyes back to his audience and resumes his story. Quetzal Sky and his girl sqaut down and listen. Quetzal Sky’s eyes never rest. The story ends, the audience disperse, and the storyteller bids Quetzal Sky to talk to his grandmother, the old shaman Moonlight Bird. Back at Moonlight Bird’s stall she tells them of her Big Dream in which the old king has called for anyone who knew the whereabouts of his lost son. She tells Quetzal Sky he must find some way to the top level of the pyramid where the king resides, and that she will bring about a solar eclipse for him to enter past the guards. Now he must hurry and get the things he needs for his adventure…
Note for Micah: Quetzal Sky’s power animal is the jaguar, he can summon it an any time he is in mortal danger; Moonlight Bird’s power animal is the eagle and she can fly through the corridors of the pyramid or high in the sky above the jungle. The imminent appearance of each power animal is heralded by its musical motif.
Note for Tania: We need to develop the girlfriend (but seriously) how about a western researcher, bridging the cultural and historical gap?
It’s all about modeling the SP, the Student Player. That’s the raison d’être for Virtual Incubator. But what exactly is being modeled? And who is it being modeled for?
I think it goes like this…
People who would be entitled to get a report would be:
People who might want a report could include:
There are ethical issues to be worked through here. Maybe a release form to be completed by the SP on registering?
Here it is expanded a bit:
How they are scored is in the blender at the moment, but first thoughts are this:
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
Where:
-3 strongly negative
-2 negative
-1 slightly negative
0 was not observed
1 slightly positive
2 positive
3 strongly positive
So, for examples:
Bartle’s killer is identified by friendship -3;
An SP who has become somewhat isolated is interacting -1;
An SP who waits for others to act may be initiative -2;
A score of 0 against empathy does not mean no empathy.
http://www.fotomaya.com/music/maplas_sojuel.mp3
tania do you know if this is accurate to what would be mayan music? if so i can try do something similar…
http://lmsfarm.co.nz/vib/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mood1_junglerain.mp3
http://lmsfarm.co.nz/vib/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mood1.mp3
here’s an example of a loop that could be used, will post some more shortly 
Hey Tania, let’s start on the storyline… let’s go along line for line a bit like in theatre sports, and see what we get. I’ll kick it off…
EXT DAY :: MARKET
Storyteller
(Sees boy running among the stalls)
Hey you!
(To the crowd)
Do you know who he is? He is [name] the lost son of RipperWhizzBang (Tania can you think of a great name here which is imaginary but sounds just like the real thing?) the King of PlaceWithAPointyThing (ditto) of the amazing Shamanic Powers who is totally devastated that he has no son and heir to inherit all his special knowledge and limitless wealth?
I’ve been doing this work in the area of network theory, especially small worlds theory (Buchanan, 2002). Then I was applying small worlds theory to Snakes and Ladders, the popular children’s board game. So think of the pyramid like 3D snakes and ladders, and that’s how I’m thinking about the software. The implementation, at least for the prototype we’re building in 2008 is definitely in Flash. If you’re familiar with the MVC pattern (Jeffries, 2007) you’ll know exactly what I mean if I say Flash provides the Views, Flash and PHP together are the Controllers, and a MySQL database stores the model. The student-player is modeled (Cockburn, 1999) as a finite state machine (FSM), moving from node to node by the edges (connections) described by the storyline. According to your discipline, each node can be seen as a scene in the play (dramaturge), a set (art director and sound designer), an activity using one or more resources (educationalist), or as a node (software engineer). Each way of getting to the next node has a cost, and may be called a transition, a connection, or an edge.
I’ll extend this article as my thinking about Virtual Incubator’s software architecture and implementation matures.
Buchanan, M. (2002) Nexus: small Worlds and the groundbreaking science of networks. New York: Norton.
Cockburn, A (1999) Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development. [Online] Available from: link (Accessed: 17 October 2007).
Jeffries, R. and others (2007) Model View Controller [Online] Available from: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ModelViewController (Accessed: 26th January 2008).
Art… Tania write a brief article like the one on software telling us where you’re coming from. Log on and edit this post. Update 15th Feb 08 I have now set up an art gallery (haven’t dressed it to match yet, but will). Have started uploading some of your images, will do more at the weekend if wet.
Sounds Design/Music/Sound FX..
Ideas so far :
End format : MP3 loops that can be easily imported into flash & manipulated using fade and pan in flash to blend together the various loops and allow the sounds to change as the user moves around. (making use of actionscipt commands that can manipulate the sound file as the character moves etc).
Loops will vary in size from maybe 10sec to 45sec long?
this should give enough time to have files fading in and out and create soundscapes that change over time etc and are seamless, and also using loops will help with file size as talked about in one of the earlier meetings)
Loop Catgeories :
Will add more to this soon
Level 1: Interior pyramid. Act of be acted upon.
It’s a pretty scary place inside this pyramid… plenty of aggressive NPCs on this level. NPC (Non Player Character) is otherwise called an AI (Bungee the Halo team talk about “AIs”) or Mobiles (Richard Bartle talks about “Mobiles” in Designing Virtual Worlds). In our jargon NPC = AI = Mobile.
The purpose of Level 1 is proactivity:
This is achieved by:
SP[14] must act… or be acted upon. Any ideas? Again, use the comments to put forward suggestions.
Level 0: Exterior Day. Market. Orientation.
The student-player (SP hereafter) [14] (age in square brackets)… SP[14] moves around amongst the stalls and sellers… finds a storyteller who gives the SP the narrative so far… and a list of items needed on his quest to attain greatness.
To save boring gender stuff (putting him/her, his/hers) I will refer throughout to him, by which I also mean her.
Tania we discussed this some weeks ago and had decided to go with a gender-neutral student-player. I have in mind Keisha Castle-Hughes as PAI in Whale Rider, a tomboy-ish figure, David taking on Goliath. That’s in this SP[14] mode which extends to Level 2. Taking on a little more shoulders by Level 3 SP[16].
The purpose of Level 0 is orientation:
This is achieved by:
Let’s discuss the things he needs… use the comments to do this… I’ll kick it off… a thing like a compass which helps the SP find his way through the game (remember the compass which points to the thing you most desire in Pirates of the Caribbean? Which disturbingly for Elizabeth one time points to Jack)…
Level 10: Exterior night. Sacrificial platform. Fly.
Level 9: Interior pyramid. Find your voice, reach out to others.
Level 8: Interior pyramid. Reflect on your journey.
Level 7: Interior pyramid. Strengthen body, mind and soul.
Level 6: Interior pyramid. Share knowledge with friends.
Level 5: Interior pyramid. Listen before you speak.
Level 4: Interior pyramid. Negotiate with the gatekeepers.
Level 3: Interior pyramid. Be thorough in your preparation.
Level 2: Interior pyramid. Look where you are going.
Level 1: Interior pyramid. Act or be acted upon.
Level 0: Exterior Day. Market place. Orientation.
Moses was found in a basket? What’s this guy/gal called? Anyway he/she is found in a basket when the men are sweeping up after the market. A tattoo on her arm suggests she’s of Royal Blood, but it’s not clear what comes next until our protagonist (each individual player, without knowledge of the others until Level 6 ) decides to go on a quest to claim her rightful position. Only a whole lot of stuff happens along the way…
Thanks for the meeting. Tania wins the prize for the distance most traveled. For me the stone walls going rubbery and turning into a teleport and transitioning into the vision quest was cool, I can really see that. I can also see the vision quest being an important educational component too… I don’t think there’ll be any problem putting up a case for this. The rain (or waterfall) was just so superb, and I felt transported to the jungle… all those ideas worked for me and I note Micah’s request that soon we list the scenes. I think we should all contribute to the narrative and the gameplay, and I’ve made a category called narrative to that end. Over this weekend I will list all the educational content, so we can build that seamlessly into the narrative. Once that’s done we’ll be able to identify any missing characters, and define the scenes, and define the soundscapes.