Craft and creativity

Scoring DOOM: Mick Gordon on his amazing 2016 game soundtrack

Video

DOOM: Behind the Music

GDC: In this 2017 session, Doom composer Mick Gordon provides a detailed look into the compositional process, production techniques and creative philosophies behind the hell-raising soundtrack to the 4th installment of the seminal first-person shooter franchise, Doom.

This is one of the best talks I’ve seen on the GDC YouTube channel! In addition to the new Doom game, Mick Gordon has composed music for the new Wolfenstein games and Prey. In his talk Gordon covers a lot of ground, including how he approached the brief, making satisfying bass come across on unsatisfactory equipment, hiding subliminal messages and courage vs. confidence.

See also

  • A history of Doom — If you had a PC — you had to have Doom.
  • The art of Firewatch — A recreation of Jane Ng’s talk from Game Developers Conference 2015.
  • Black MIDI — Have you ever been listening to a normal song and thought, “I really wish this normal song had 280 million notes and took up 1.1 terabytes of data and was literally unplayable on any computer?”

Also: Two recent Vox explainers on Shepard tones and gated reverb →

Light-based media

The Death & Rebirth of Final Fantasy XIV

Video

The Death & Rebirth of FINAL FANTASY XIV Part #1 – “One Point O”

Noclip: In the first video in our three-part series, we tell the story of how the 1.0 version of FINAL FANTASY 14 came to be. How FINAL FANTASY 11 inspired its design, the ways in which the game fell short and how Square-Enix and the development team reacted to its failure.

See also: Other posts tagged ‘games’.

Watch parts II & III →

Light-based media

How Andrew Saladino makes his video essays

Video

Push Process

The Royal Ocean Film Society: I’ve been asked a lot what the process of making these essays is like, but rather than just droll on about recording voiceover, late night editing sessions, and falling into despair upon seeing the first cut, I want to take these few minutes to talk about how that working process has evolved creatively over the past year, and about where I’m trying to take these essays in the future.

See also

Light-based media

How to make a blockbuster movie trailer

Video

How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer

Auralnauts: We provide you with the winning formula that turns any trailer into the blockbuster smash hit of the season it was meant to be.

See also

Hitler rehearsing, 1925

Mashable: Hitler asked his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann to take photos of him rehearsing speeches. Hitler would try out various gestures and expressions, then review the pictures to see if his postures looked stunning or stupid.

Though Hitler ordered Hoffmann to destroy the pictures for being “beneath one’s dignity,” the photographer kept them in his studio. He later published the photos in his memoir, Hitler Was My Friend.

See also: Hitler was high during most of World War II

Humans and other animals

Hitler rehearsing

“One of Hitler’s best talents was oration. He first developed his acumen for public speaking in beer halls, where his rants would start out cool and precise, then escalate into hypnotic histrionics as his audience became more engaged (and drunk).”

Gallery

Zero Phone

ZeroPhone

Hackaday blog: There are several open source phones out there these days, but all of them have a downside. Hard to obtain parts, hard to solder, or difficult programming systems abound. [Arsenijs] is looking to change all that with ZeroPhone. ZeroPhone is based upon the popular Raspberry Pi Zero. The $5 price tag of the CPU module means that you can build this entire phone for around $50 USD.

Features:

  • Raspberry Pi Zero in a PCB sandwich
  • No proprietary connectors, hard-to-get parts or chips that are tricky to solder
  • All the specifications for making this phone yourself will be available
  • Python as the main language for developing apps (aiming to add other languages later)
  • UI toolkit making development quicker and easier
  • Numeric keypad, 1.3" 128×64 monochrome OLED screen (with screen header supporting other types of screens)
  • 2G modem for phone functions, can be replaced with a 3G modem
  • WiFi (using an ESP8266), HDMI and audio outputs, a free USB host port
  • GPIO expansion headers for customization
  • RGB LED and vibromotor – for notifications
  • Tons of Pi Zero-related hacks that were discovered along the way, that I'll share with you as the project goes =)

See also: Other posts tagged ‘Raspberry Pi’ & Phones for the people

Also, build a Raspberry Pi VPN Router w/ PIA →

Craft and creativity

ZeroPhone: a $50 Raspberry Pi smartphone

A Pi Zero-based open-source mobile phone that you can assemble for $50 in parts.

Gallery

Inkwell, by Hoefler & Co.

Inkwell, by Hoefler & Co.

A tiny universe of fonts that combines the informality of handwriting, the expressiveness of lettering, and the versatility of type.

This typeface family is gorgeous. I am itching to use it for some publication!

Typefaces, by design, are unyielding in their style: a good typeface commits to a single visual idea, and explores it with thoroughness and consistency to produce a dependable tool for designers. Contrast this with handwriting, which serves only to record the thoughts of an author, but has the freedom to move from style to style as the message dictates. A writer might scribble a paragraph in cursive handwriting, but punctuate key points with capitals, or backtrack to over-ink some crucial point with darker and more deliberate strokes. It’s a flexibility that makes handwritten communications compelling, and makes the medium of writing infinitely expressive. By comparison, typography can feel almost stifling.

More about Inkwell →

Craft and creativity

Inkwell: a typeface for expressive writing

A tiny universe of fonts that combines the informality of handwriting, the expressiveness of lettering, and the versatility of type.

Gallery