Jason
chasing a bee
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<p>Sims/Spore designer <a href="http://www.spore.com/" title="Spore">Will Wright</a> and ambient musician <a href="http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/" title="Eno">Brian Eno</a> collaborated last night in San Francisco on an event called "Playing With Time". As reported at <a href="http://www.longnow.org/" title="Long Now">The Long Now</a>, they started out the evening discussing generative creation and other fancy topics.</p><blockquote> Wright observed that science is all about compressing reality to minimal rule sets, but generative creation goes the opposite direction. You look for a combination of the fewest rules that can generate a whole complex world which will always surprise you, yet within a framework that stays recognizable. "It's not engineering and design," he said, "so much as it is gardening. You plant seeds. Richard Dawkins says that a willow seed has only about 800K of data in it."
Eno noted that ambient music, unlike "narrative" music with a beginning, middle, and end, presents a steady state. "It's more like watching a river." Wright said he often uses Eno's music to work to because it gets him in a productive trancelike state. Eno remarked that it's important to keep reducing what the music attempts, and one way he does that is compose everything at double the speed it will be released. Slowing it down reduces its busyness. Wright: "How about an album of the fast versions?" Eno: "'Amphetamine Ambient.'" </blockquote><p>They then moved on to a demo of Spore with Eno providing the musical backdrop.</p><blockquote><p> With Eno noodling some live background music, Will Wright gave a demo of his game-in-progress, "Spore." It compresses 3.5 billion years of evolution into a few hours or days of game play, where the levels are Cell, Creature, Tribe, City, Civilization, Space." The game has potent editing tools, so that 30 mouse clicks can build a unique beautiful creature that would take weeks of normal computer generation, complete with breathing, eye blinks, and shrieks. The computer generates a related set of other creatures to meet--- some to eat, some to avoid. Socialization begins, mating, then babies (using a "neonatal algorithm"), and on to tribes and cities with amazing buildings and vehicles the user designs. "You encounter civilizations built by other players, but the players don't have to be there for the civilizations to be alive and responsive." </p></blockquote><p>Read: <a href="http://discuss.longnow.org/viewtopic.php?t=122" title="Playing With Time">Playing With Time</a></p><p>Download: Audio Version as <a href="http://seminars.moose.cc/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno.ogg" title="OGG">OGG</a> or <a href="http://seminars.moose.cc/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno.mp3" title="MP3">MP3</a></p><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/">Gamasutra</a></p>
<p>Sims/Spore designer <a href="http://www.spore.com/" title="Spore">Will Wright</a> and ambient musician <a href="http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/" title="Eno">Brian Eno</a> collaborated last night in San Francisco on an event called "Playing With Time". As reported at <a href="http://www.longnow.org/" title="Long Now">The Long Now</a>, they started out the evening discussing generative creation and other fancy topics.</p><blockquote> Wright observed that science is all about compressing reality to minimal rule sets, but generative creation goes the opposite direction. You look for a combination of the fewest rules that can generate a whole complex world which will always surprise you, yet within a framework that stays recognizable. "It's not engineering and design," he said, "so much as it is gardening. You plant seeds. Richard Dawkins says that a willow seed has only about 800K of data in it."
Eno noted that ambient music, unlike "narrative" music with a beginning, middle, and end, presents a steady state. "It's more like watching a river." Wright said he often uses Eno's music to work to because it gets him in a productive trancelike state. Eno remarked that it's important to keep reducing what the music attempts, and one way he does that is compose everything at double the speed it will be released. Slowing it down reduces its busyness. Wright: "How about an album of the fast versions?" Eno: "'Amphetamine Ambient.'" </blockquote><p>They then moved on to a demo of Spore with Eno providing the musical backdrop.</p><blockquote><p> With Eno noodling some live background music, Will Wright gave a demo of his game-in-progress, "Spore." It compresses 3.5 billion years of evolution into a few hours or days of game play, where the levels are Cell, Creature, Tribe, City, Civilization, Space." The game has potent editing tools, so that 30 mouse clicks can build a unique beautiful creature that would take weeks of normal computer generation, complete with breathing, eye blinks, and shrieks. The computer generates a related set of other creatures to meet--- some to eat, some to avoid. Socialization begins, mating, then babies (using a "neonatal algorithm"), and on to tribes and cities with amazing buildings and vehicles the user designs. "You encounter civilizations built by other players, but the players don't have to be there for the civilizations to be alive and responsive." </p></blockquote><p>Read: <a href="http://discuss.longnow.org/viewtopic.php?t=122" title="Playing With Time">Playing With Time</a></p><p>Download: Audio Version as <a href="http://seminars.moose.cc/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno.ogg" title="OGG">OGG</a> or <a href="http://seminars.moose.cc/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno/salt-0200606-wright-and-eno.mp3" title="MP3">MP3</a></p><p>Spotted @ <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/">Gamasutra</a></p>
