serial consign

Pictured above is a screen capture of Intersections 2, a flash sketch by interactive designer Jonnie Hallman. Launching this mini-application yields a simple workspace that contains three adjustable circles. Each of these circles has a pair of white sliders (vertices) that allow you to pivot and scale the entity. You can also create new points with which to generate vectors that run across the canvas. This all sounds simple enough, but what is so engaging about this application is the manner in which the interface tracks the interaction between geometric entities. Each intersection is represented by a yellow marker that highlights the point in question - if you pivot a circle "through" another, the point(s) of contact will slide along to trace the movement. Modulating the arrangement of these shapes feels like calibrating an abstract instrument of some sort. This experienced is no doubt enhanced by the sharp visual language of the piece.

Jonnie Hallman has a variety of experiments, including more "intersection" pieces in his archives. Hallman also authored the recent DestroyFlickr application, which is a widely noted alternative interface for the photo-management service.

I've been anticipating the release of Spore for a long time, partly from the nostalgia of having "grown up" with (in?) SimCity and Will Wright's later work, but mainly because I think the game will be a very convincing thought-experiment in scale, emergence and interface in gaming. I'd like to highlight some comments made by Will Wright in a recent video interview, as I consider this commentary great advice for any designer. When asked about the "intelligence" embedded in the recently released Spore Creature Creator, Wright had the following to say:

Most people when they use 3D editors, they approach it you know, just very mechanically. Here's a tool, here's the ability of the tool, but if you think about a tool as entertainment you go about it in a totally different way than [when considering] a tool as a tool. So that's why we wanted every tool in Spore to be as entertaining as a toy, so they want to be toys first and foremost and by being a great toy, it automatically becomes a great tool.. and then you get a lot of people using it, making lots and lots of stuff.

This notion of "playability" is evident when manipulating the interface of the Creature Creator as the application offers users the ability to engage in sophisticated parametric modeling without it even feeling like work. The above image illustrates an editing function which allows the user to alter the length of their creature via pull-taps located on either end. In activating this operation you are presented with an x-ray view of the underlying skeletal structure of your beast. It is important to note that this information is not so much graphical, rather an actual physiology that determines how the character will walk, run, fight, etc. The Creator Creator is full of interesting 3D modeling widgets for placing, moving and aligning body parts and all of these operations are extremely intuitive. I haven't felt so immediately comfortable operating a 3D application since the first time I used Sketchup and while users are not modeling from scratch in Spore, the diversity of the "anatomy library" coupled with the flexibility of the interface for placing and manipulating these organic building blocks offers an incredible amount of control.

If you're interested in learning more about the Spore Interface I highly recommend spending some time with the demo version of the Creature Creator (available for both Mac and PC at the official site for the game) and if you are feeling a little more hands-off in your curiosity, WIRED posted an overview of the software earlier this month.

Thanks to Jim Rossignol for tipping me off about the Wright video interview via this Rock, Paper, Shotgun post.