Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
News
November 2009 - Adobe Game Winners
A team of Digital Media students won first prize in this year's Non-Browser-Based Design category for their project Fourmation at Adobe's Design Achievement Awards. The Fourmation team was comprised of recent alums Jared Weinstock, Nick Deimler, Chau Nguyen, Tom Bergamini, Todd Carpenter and Kyle McArdle who were competing against 3300 student entries from 37 different countries. Fourmation is a 3D action-packed multiplayer Flash game that uses Wii technology to bring virtual reality to the home computer. If you're interested in testing your skills, download the game here. Congratulations to Jared, Nick, Chau, Todd, Kyle and Tom, and their faculty advisor Jervis Thompson.
September
Dave Mauriello, Digital Media Professor, was featured in Millimeter Magazine about his work in animation.
June 2009 - Digital Media Senior Show
The Digital Media Program is leading the way in new media design and production. The Program’s senior show featured students’ innovations in digital installations, web design and development, computer games and 3D animation. Visitors demoed interactive exhibits, listened to presentations and spoke with the seniors who produced the work.
May 2009
Blaise Tobia was represented at Open Book on May 16th, an event that brings together over two dozen artists presenting new artists’ books and publications.
Alumnus Bobby Miller is a graduate film student at Columbia University and was nominated for a Webby Award for his online show ‘The Best Short Films in The World’ in the category ‘Best Variety Show.’ He also received honors for ‘Best Variety Show Host.’
April 2009
Blaise Tobia has a large selection from his art series ‘Plan and Fancy’ on display in the Philadelphia International Airport Exhibitions Program through January ’10, and two of his works were in the Abington Art Center’s 70th Anniversary exhibition from April 10th-July 26th. Also, one work from Blaise’s series was in the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art’s Annual Juried Exhibition.
Professor Christopher Redmann was named one of ten ‘Leaders in Learning’ in Variety’s 2009 Education Impact Report.
Paul Diefenbach was interviewed on CBS3 about a video game focusing on layoffs. Click here to watch the video.
December 2008
Blaise Tobia received a review of his work in Philadelphia Weekly. Blaise’s book, Castle of Eufemio, was reviewed in an issue of exposure, the biannual journal of the Society for Photographic Education.
November 2008
Jervis Thompson attended Adobe’s first ‘Director & Shockwave Education Assembly’ in Puerto Rico from November 21st-23rd. Jervis created an Adobe Director tutorial which he debuted at the assembly.
October 2008
Professors Paul Deifenbach and Christopher Redmann, graduate student Daniel Letarte and colleagues in the College of Engineering’s Mechanical Engineering department’s paper ‘Extending Animator Tool Sets for Humanoid Robotics’ was accepted by the 5th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI) in Korea.
Blaise Tobia was featured in a solo show, Blaise Tobia, Open Studio at Silicon Gallery from November 7th through the 29th.
The RePlay Lab was highlighted in an article in the Jewish Exponent.
National Science Foundation funds 3D Colonial Philadelphia
September 2008: Digital Media Professor Glen Muschio is part of a team of Drexel College of Engineering faculty who received a National Science Foundation grant of over $700,000 for work on 3D Colonial Philadelphia. The grant funds research to develop an algorithm to automate virtual reconstruction of manufactured ceramic shards recovered from archaeological sites. The team is working in collaboration with the National Park Service, which is supplying a sample of ceramic shards recovered from archeological sites in Philadelphia. If successful, the research will prove invaluable to archeologists working throughout the world.
3D Colonial Philadelphia is an ongoing Digital Media research project with a goal of creating a database repository of virtual artifacts and digital assets from colonial life which scholars, researchers, educators and the general public can use.
SIGGRAPH 2008
August 2008: Digital Media faculty and students were once again part of SIGGRAPH, the premiere international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2008 was held in Los Angeles and attracted an audience of more than thirty thousand.
Conference Highlights:
Assistant Professor Paul Diefenbach, presented Building Planet Diggum: A Case Study of Multi-Discipline, Multi-Touch Gaming Collaboration. Planet Diggum is a multi-touch, multi-user game where players interact with the system through finger and hand-stroke gestures.
Associate Professor Theo Artz displayed his 'slow-art' piece, VR Comper ver. 5E. 'Slow-art' emphasizes a deceleration and attentive consumption of art.
Digital Media graduate student Will Muto and co-author Paul Diefenbach presented Applications of Multi-Touch Gaming Technology to Middle-School Education. Working with the Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering Departments, Will created a platform where gaming technology and internet-enabled multi-touch displays can create effective learning tools for middle school children.
Digital Media MS graduate Lauren Mandilian ('07) and co-author Paul Diefenbach presented Lauren's Master's thesis, Information Overload: A Collaborative Multimedia Performance. Incorporating animation, projections, real time video and motion capture, Lauren originally worked with the College of Engineering's Electrical & Computer Engineering Departments as well as Westphal's Performing Arts Department.
Lazy Brains earns critical acclaim:
June 2008: Jordan Santell, Aaron Bohenick, Jim Borden, Zachary Brooks and Ken Oum developed 'Lazybrains,' which was featured on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. In this video game, the player assumes the role of Morby, a boy who has been transported to a dangerous fantasy world as punishment for being lazy. To escape, Morby battles various creatures and solve puzzles. While some involve using an old-fashioned computer keyboard, others require the player to only concentrate. The game was developed with the School of Biomedical Engineering and The College of Engineering's Computer Science Department and employs a device that is strapped to the player's forehead to monitor brain activity - literally, the amount of oxygen coursing through the prefrontal cortex - by shining near-infrared light through the skull and measuring changes in the light's intensity, the scenarios in the game change.
Watch two CBS3 broadcasts highlighting Lazy Brains, Inversion and Planet Diggum games. Click here for the Lazy Brains video and here for the Inversion and Planet Diggum video.
The Los Angeles Times blog, Wired blog and www.PHYSORG.com noted 'Lazybrains' Click here to read the L.A. Times, here to read Wired and here to read PHYSORG.com.
April 2008: Blaise Tobia was highlighted in The New York Times' review of 'Couples,' an exhibit which included the work of Blaise and his wife, Virginia, at the Islip Art Museum. Click here to read the review.
Paul Diefenbach presented Teaching Soft-skills: Digital Game Development in a Multi-Discipline Environment at the Eurographics 2008 conference in Crete, Greece on April 16th.
Turn one into a Million:
January 2008: Our Digital Media Program has just acquired an important piece of new technology. Technicians from Vicon installed a 12 camera motion capture system. Motion capture is a digital technique used to record human and animal movement and is revolutionizing how movies and computer games create action sequences and crowd simulations (thus turning a crowd of one into a million).
Digital Media Program Sponsors International Conference
November 2007: For three days in November of 2007, animators, filmmakers, game designers, and web developers descended on Philadelphia to share insights and experiences at the 2007 International Digital Media & Arts Association (IDMAa) Conference. Beyond Boundaries: Pedagody & Change in the Academic Environment provided a forum for industry professionals and academics to ask and answer important questions about the digital media era in which we live.
The conference featured keynote speakers (including Peter Rivera of AOL), break-out sessions and an exhibition at the Painted Bride Art Center in Old City. The exhibit digital:space:object, featured the multi-media work of faculty Ted Artz and Blaise Tobia, as well as former Art & Art History faculty member Lee Arnold.
Digital Media's Colonial Philadelphia Project is Big News
September 2007: Digital Media students, along with Professor Glen Muschio, were featured prominently in the September 6, 2007 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer for their work on a project that is bridging Philadelphia's present with its past. Colonial Philadelphia is a 3D replication of sites in the city with major historical significance, including the Dexter House, which was demolished in the 19th century, Franklin Court and the home of Ben Franklin. The long-term goal of the project is to replicate the entire city of Philadelphia as it was in colonial times, allowing people to take a virtual tour back in time.
DIGM Students Receive an award
02-28-2006
Dan Mall and Jon Aldinger have won an award for Web standards compliance for their work on a heavy metal magazine site decibelmagazine.com. The site is also up for a People's Choice Award for the South by Southwest Festival. Voting takes place online at SXSW and visitors to the site can vote once a day until March 3rd. Visit the site and cast your vote
Class of 2005 debut Senior Projects on iMac G5's and Mac's OS X Tiger
05-19-2005
On May 19th, in partial fulfillment of degree requirements, 39 Digital Media seniors hosted the Class of 2005 Digital Media Senior Show. This year’s class is the largest graduating class in the Digital Media Program’s 7 year history. Seniors worked in teams for 16 weeks to produce 8 projects featuring 3D modeling, animation, 3D gaming, web design, and other forms of interactive media.
This year, Apple Computers donated 8 G5 iMacs loaded with the new Mac OS X Tiger to run and display the 8 projects. Tiger ran flawlessly, and guests were a buzz with the new OS and elegance of the iMac G5’s. Mac OS X Tiger.
As visitors interacted with the exhibits, munching on juicy tropical fruit and sipping Jamaican fruit drinks, seniors chatted with family and friends and gave advice to members of the junior class on strategies for successfully completing a senior project. Later that evening, each of the 8 senior groups gave a 15 minute presentation demonstrating their works and explaining the production process.
Following the presentations the seniors gathered to pose for a class picture.
2 DIGM students assist on EnTCo's Award winning WILD EARTH an interactive photo safari simulator ride
12-31-2004
Entertainment Technology Corporation (EnTCo), has received two awards, Best New Product and Best Exhibit, at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) Convention recently held in Orlando, Florida. The IAAPA Convention is the world's largest convention of its kind for Amusement Parks, Family Entertainment Centers, Zoos/Aquariums, and Museums with roughly 1,200 exhibitors this year.
The Best New Product Award was granted to EnTCo for Wild Earth(TM), the interactive Photo Safari simulator ride. All entries were judged on the benefit of the product to the prospective buyer, the originality or uniqueness of the product, and the quality of the product's design and construction. In Wild Earth(TM), guests discover the thrill and excitement of an African Photo Safari experience and marvel at the array of wildlife and rich landscapes of the Serengeti. The riders are in full control, navigating the vehicle through the stunning landscapes of Africa on a quest for that "perfect picture." Wild Earth(TM) features unparalleled graphics quality, non- violent educational content, groundbreaking interactivity and a tremendous revenue generator for operators.
Rob Lloyd, Creative Director of EnTCo, said, "A lot of talented people in the EnTCo team worked very hard to create the Wild Earth(TM) attraction and it's gratifying to have that effort recognized by an organization of IAAPA's stature. We enjoy creating experiences like Wild Earth(TM) and it pays off when the energy EnTCo puts into development transfers to the excitement of the guests who 'volunteer' to take a ride on the wild side."
Digital media students Serge Aluker and Eric M. Levy both helped on this project. Serge says, “I worked on core game development and some ideas for the installation design. I also worked on navigability (terrains and paths and such) - for the final version. They used my terrain map almost directly.” Eric also stated, “I did marketing support type stuff for Wild Earth and the 3d models of the Wild Earth machine. I also created some advertising information and a video about it.”
EnTCo also won the Best Exhibit Award. There were only four such awards granted this year, out of roughly 1,200 exhibitors. The booths were judged on originality, uniqueness, promotion of product, quality of design, and professional appearance of staff.
For more information about Wild Earth(TM) please go to http://www.therideworks.com.
Dr. Paul Diefenbach Joins the Digital Media faculty
12-03-2004
This fall Dr. Paul Diefenbach joined the Digital Media faculty as the new gaming professor. Paul's background includes a Ph.D. and M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania , and a B.S. degree in Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Paul is the founder of OpenWorlds Inc. and was instrumental in the creation of web 3D graphics standards with clients like Sharp Electronics, Mitsubishi, Sony, and NASA. Paul comes from a family of teachers and says that he began teaching to make a difference. He feels that academics play a huge part in the gaming industry and he wants to be able to bridge the gap that exists between the gaming world and the 3D world. He hopes to help students create realistic gaming characters with a high level of sophistication. Paul is excited to teach at Drexel because he believes the gaming classes will be the perfect link to bring together storyboards, animation, modeling, lighting, and effects all in one class. Currently, Paul’s pioneering thesis work at Penn has played an influential role in the development of gaming engines for Playstation, XBox, and Gamecube, and serves as the technical basis for many of today's advanced graphics card features. He is also working on creating Avatars (sophisticated characters that can interact with the user) that maybe incorporated in the Whitall House, a 3D interactive media project in development by the Digital Media Program.