Blog Entry #1

In first meeting our team fleshed out the basic concept for our world, both functionally and aesthetically. The functional concept of our world will mimic the geo-caching game which has evolved to be a prime case of real world and internet experience synthesis. In our virtual world users will be able to locating and collect geocached items. As the world grows users will be able to place items for each other. This structure will provide a structure for interaction and hopefully fill some of the social empty space that exists in Second Life. The aesthetic for our world will have a Picasso theme, hence the name of the group.

In terms of process, in our first meeting we brainstormed about the look and purpose of our world and divided up the tasks. For our next meeting, we will dig in to nitty gritty of constructing the world and iron the concepts, both in terms of purpose and feel.

Blog Entry #2

From the evolution of the initial concept we divided the group into different areas of focus. Seth and Dhruv worked on the programming and technical execution, while Steve, Patrick and Yamin built the 3D models. They used items and images from various Picasso items as inspiration. All the objects in the world, the houses, trees, and even the moon are inspired by Picasso's work. Salvia put her efforts in to the texturing of the models, in an effort to capture the Picasso aesthetic. Ryan developed the concept of scavanger hunt and how it would apply to our world, eventually developing the an audio clue system inspired by the childrens book The 11th Hour. As all the different pieces of the puzzle started falling in to place we encountered some technical challenges with our 3D models and importing them into the world. We ran in to problems with 3DS and .max files as they did not import properly with their textures. We decided to use .obj files. Once we overcame this hurdle the creation and importing of 3D models into the world was much smoother. Additionally,the original conception of the world was envisioned with a multi-player component but the code base did not evolve adequetly to execute this vision. As such, we've had to adapt the activities and 'game play' for an engaging single player experience in both the aesthetic and the world activities.

Blog Entry #3

After running through the hurdles of 3D importing and other technical confusions Picasso's Pi truly began to take virtual shape late one November night. The final results is far from perfect but we are satisfied with the overall accomplishment. Our world is truly Picasso inspired. Every building, every leaf, even the moon is inspired by that great painter. Picasso would probably make fun of us for trying to capture his work in such a medium, he was a nasty old man, but we are nonetheless proud of evolving such great works to the virtual, interactive realm.

The vision of our virtual geo-caching will only be fully realized once the world is networked. But in the meantime the scavenger hunt provides a fun activity for both exploring the world and exploring the art. Our goal was never to create a game but rather a world with a purpose; we feel we have done that.

The overall process had it's ups and downs. The change in seasons and weather definitely seemed to impact team energy; and we were really warn out from the previous projects. Nevertheless, after only clocking only one truly late night, we have pulled it off. The imbalance of artists and programmers was definitely felt at crunch time as the burden of getting everything to actually work fell on Seth's shoulders.

'A World That Makes No Sense: Behind the Scenes of Picasso's Pi' was a true work of love and experimention for Nadel. It was his first attempt at telling a coherent story in a medium other than words and he had tons of fun doing it.

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