Make It So: Procedural Jogging

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The exercise treadmills at my apartment complex are pretty neat – beyond a variety of options (including a game of Solitaire), they have an option to show a video that simulates walking at a location. Basically it gives you something to look at beside your heart rate, has interesting historical notes, and provides an interesting experience. Running indoors can be a might boring, and it’s an appreciated addition I take advantage of because, hey, when am I going to get to jog through scenic parts of Germany.

But it’s the same few tracks. So one day while using the treadmills I began thinking about how it could be more interesting. This conflated with my love of procedurally generated environments, including “walking simulator” Proteus and the amazing environments of the upcoming “No Man’s Sky.”

Then I asked why can’t someone create a Procedural Environment generator for these Treadmills?

Imagine this. You can select from some common setups, or tweak them from the start, and then have the display screen walk you through a generated environment. Maybe you want a desert or a forest, a sci-fi landscape or a fantasy land – set it up and explore as you exercise.

There you go. Every Treadmill trip is a new experience. One day you may walk across a ruin-filled desert, the other up a green mountain path. Maybe you’ll take a run through the Dwarf Kingdom or across an unknown world. Every time it’s different even if you choose the same basic settings.  It’d add a lot to the experience.

Now imagine taking this farther.

Perhaps you could have generated narratives, notes, or events. A bit of history-that-never was pops up here and there. A little note about the properties of an imaginary plant appears. A starship streaks across the sky and crashes nearby. The trip can feel like you’re in a real, living place.

On top of this, perhaps add a bit of gamification. Every now and then you may find an option to climb a stairway or open a door or turn left or right. The trip becomes even more engaging as you have power to affect what you see next – and you never know when the next option will pop up.

Finally, perhaps you can save your experience to share with others, even if it’s just writing down a code. Other people can see the same sites you did – and if there’s options, you can re-explore an old new world differently.

Go on people, Make It So.

  • Steve

Update – Way With Worlds

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OK, so where am I with Way With Worlds?  Here, let’s break it into bullet points to make it easier.

  • I am/will be putting in the prereader feedback soon.  That’s a bit behind, but that’s the way it goes.  I hope to do this by EOM.
  • Then the book ships to my editor, which is easy because that’s called “asking my roommate to do it.”  My roommate is a professional tech writer and document manager, so it’s going to be some serious quality work.
  • I hope for the editing to take two months with a month for followup.  It may go quicker.
  • The cover artist has been engaged and I’ve seen a draft for Book 1 already.  I like this enough it may be poster-worthy.
  • I want to drop book #1 in June and Book #2 in August.  That’s the plan, barring any interruptions
  • There will be followup work.

At this rate I don’t know what else to say except to occasionally post updates.

– Steve

Update: The Power Of Creative Paths

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So I’ve not talked about this much here, but now it deserves it’s own post – because my first Seventh Sanctum inspired book is coming up – and it’s not Way With Worlds (which is going to editor in a bit, more later).

It’s called “The Power Of Creative Paths,” and it’s a book on how people come up with Big Ideas – specifically, the five different ways that they do it.  This is the one I’ve called “The Creativity Book” because . . . OK to be fair I didn’t have a good name yet.

Working on Generators, talking to people, I tried to formulate a way to understand how people created – and came up with a theory that there’s five basic creative types – Creative Paths as I call them.  Like any path, people “travel” it to get somewhere and find something – a Big Idea.  The thing is we’re often on different paths than others and don’t know it – or don’t realize they’re stuck on one path and would do well to try others or they aren’t working well with others.  Sometimes both.

So the book focuses on knowing which Path you’re usually on, practicing getting onto others, and figuring out how to work best with people based on your current or preferred path.  Of course it contains plenty of exercises and hands-on stuff to do, so you can really get to trying out the different Paths!

Right now it’s off at the editors, so stay tuned!

  • Steve