Saturday, May 31, 2008

Paris to Montreal

For the past two weeks I have been on the road in Europe traveling to Paris twice, Eindhoven and Amsterdam. This has all been a part of my stratigic work consulting for Philips amBX. In Paris I was setting up an amBX room and demo "Pods" at Ubidays - Ubisoft's European Press event at the Louvre for the announcement of 2008's new titles including FarCry2, End War, Prince of Persia, Hawks, Shawn White Snowboarding, Soul Calibre, Brother in Arms and new titles for casual game play.


The amBX focus was on FarCry 2 with an amBX enabled demonstration theater with live gameplay of the latest pre-release build of Far Cry 2. The Theater included a 4 meter wide rear projection screen with an 18k lumen Christy projector. The amBX included 22 RGB LEB fixtures and 2 vented Fan ports for wind effects. Press and deligte response to the entire event and the FaryCry2 theater was huge.


A very exciting week at the Louvre. Gamers, Games, Art and Parties.

I have now landed in Montreal for a week of demonstrations and another theater setup. Life on the road is going well.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Amsterdam


This week I have been traveling for work through Europe with a day stop over in Paris in preparation for an event at the Louvre (next week) and some time in Amsterdam and Eindhoven to see the dutch side of business. Which brings me to the point of a immersive theater discussion on travel and new places.... this is really the immersive theater, taking in a new environment and appreciating a new culture. I have also found that my lack of language skills has given although sometimes difficult a sense of peace and space. Amsterdam and the Dutch I find to be incredibly amusing and an interesting juxtaposition to my American sensibilities, which still make my hair rise to some subjects as liberal as I thought I was. It is an un-easy sensation to be in somewhere with such broad views. I think I like it... but it may need more exploration.

Digital Lighting University


This past week I attended the PID and HES Digital Lighting University event in London. The event, whose purpose is the introduction and training of digital lighting products was attended by about 60 lighting profesionals, venue owners, manufactures, and video designers from all over the world. On display were 12 Dynamic Head Digital Lighting Projectors (HES - DL.2 and DL.3) as well as ColorWeb and Stealth Pixel mapping LED displays - as seen below in the background of the Led Zeppelin Reunion. Also on display were control desks from HES and Media Servers from Axeon and Catalyst.


The Speakers for the presentation Included several of europe and worlds leading digital lighting designers discussing issues of content and production for the creation, use and technical delivery of large format dynamic digital lighting technologies. The contacts were outstanding the products proved very interesting to have hands on experience with. I have been a big believer int he power of the DL.1 DL.2 and DL.3 for several years and the latest generation is just getting better and better with each release..