Yearly Archives: 2009

Call for Blimp Designs

the mindlab

Tim has recently agreed to be in a film where he pilots a blimp. Resultantly, I’m looking for some miniature blimp designs. I’ll probably green screen the blimp, so it would be good if there was a way it could be suspended in front of the green screen. If anyone has any good designs, please post them below or email them to me.

Tim's Blimp

Magic Eye Films

Dragon's Den, the mindlab

Just a random idea I had at some point. Don’t know enough about the technology to know how one would go about it, but . . .

So “Magic Eye” pictures (a.k.a. autostereograms) are those 3D images that you have to stare at a book to get. A few folks can see the images really quickly, some can only see them after staring awhile, and apparently there are quite a few who are never able to see the things.

It’s kind of an interesting effect though if you can get it to work: Hiding information in the background noise in such a way that when you are able to interpret it you can trick each eye into interpreting it differently.

I think one of the things that makes it tough to pick out the 3D image is that there are no obvious visual cues. It seems to me that in a lot of cases with normal vision the human brain is picking out the edges of things, or contrasts and gradations of solid colors that define shape. But those things are absent in autostereograms, so it’s tougher to pick them out.

It occurred to me though that what would happen if you ran together a string of similar autosterograms to produce an animation? The consistency of the 3D image against a changing background might make it easier to spot the image than with a non-animated version.

Voila! I’ve just invented 3D animation without special glasses!

Well, not quite. Apparently someone else already thought of it.

I don’t know if the image portrayed on wikipedia is exactly the best example though. ‘Twer it me, I probably would’ve made the background as a more randomized image (like basic static), rather than a sweeping colored pattern which seems to distract from the 3D image.

Aside from the wikipedia article though I’m having trouble tracking down other good examples of animated autostereograms. Seems to me there should be some small creative sector devoted to them though: Cartoons maybe. Or segments of horror film where a random background (foliage or TV static for instance), kind of becomes 3D and leaps out at the viewer. Or possibly some sort of video game.

I also wonder if there might be ways to color the 3D objects, or have the background pattern be somehow meaningful in the context of the 3D scene it’s self, rather than just the standard splatter painting effect.

Tim & Coffee

the mindlab

Back in 1994, energy drinks, like Red Bull or Monster-blue-windshield-wiper-fluid-whatever, did not exist. Really, the only things that did, were vile vials of 50% ginseng root/50% dirt water and the occasional energy elixir shot, like Bacchus D, that could be purchased in China Town. As a result, my group of friends and I would frequently take it upon ourselves to concoct our own energy drinks, like quadruple-brewed coffee, boiled sassafras root, clove water — basically anything in the herb cabinet. According to Tim, during one of these evenings, he had too much coffee and vowed to never drink coffee again. I always thought Tim was making his bad coffee-trip up just to be different. Recently however, I found evidence that proves my me wrong. These are pictures from one such evening and feature my friend Lee, myself, and finally Tim, in a heated moment of drinking something, perhaps even coffee, on his mythologized run-in with it.

Drink 1

Continue reading Tim & Coffee →

Black Tiger

the mindlab
Have you seen this man?


This ball-and-chain wielding, knife-spraying thug in a horned helmet is the protagonist of the Black Tiger arcade game.

This game stuck in my imagination for years, along with Gauntlet (and some unidentified game mentioned later) in defining what a sword and sorcery videogame should include. It has always been an icon of nostalgia for me. I think the only thing necessary to make this picture complete would be Benjamin Bird (the local arcade god) carrying a tube full of quarters on a lanyard.

My hat is off the guys at Everyvideogame.com who helped track down the title based on my sketchy description. Imagine my surprise and delight to find it available free online!

Playing it again (now with unlimited quarters to fuel my sorry gaming skills) Black Tiger still lives up to my expectations. Gameplay is a treat, the graphics are nice (though some of the upper levels seem to have glitches), the backdrops are evocative, there hidden treasures to plunder, and sweet looking weapon upgrades to purchase.

But I think most of all I love the monsters. There are a pretty wide selection, but a couple I’ve always loved include:

Betentacled, poisonous, chomping mandrakes that spiral up out of the ground at you.

And hulking, flame-spewing, cycloptic mummies.

At this point there’s only one other beloved arcade game of yore I’ve never been able to track down. Anyone able to find a game fitting this description would certainly earn my gratitude:

IIRC the character was a little guy with a sword. I think each level would begin with the hero falling down a shaft into a dungeon. At different points in the dungeon you could climb up using ropes.

There are only three things I can remember about the monsters:

  • One type of the standard wandering monsters resembled a disembodied eyeball, cut of steak, or paramecium which would bounce down the corridor toward you.
  • I think there were several bosses that were dragons.
  • Some of the bosses (or maybe not bosses, just opponents to be overcome?) consisted of swarms of something. Like I seem to recall one where you entered a room you couldn’t climb out of and there was a magician who would send a swarm of flying brooms or pixies or magic wands or something to attack you. But maybe I’m not remembering this accurately.