FWIW, the notion of 'game engine as platform' for UI is certainly worth exploring. And a lot of good UI concepts can be taken from games.
I like the idea of users having an 'inventory' of objects that determine the context for context-menus, for example. Sort of: if you see a door, the options you have to interact with it depend on whether you carry the key. But users should be able to 'pick up' any concept they encounter, not just items of a game world. They could pick up the door, for example, then open it later when they find the key. The inventory is simply full of object references. This is similar to the 'Hand vs. Pointer' concept. A hand can pick things up. We can modify our hand by picking up 'tools'. Rather than drag-and-drop, we can have grab-and-apply. We could cycle through a few hands for basic multi-tasking (as opposed to losing the mouse 'selection' every time we change tasks). I do not believe a rich, game-like 3D world is the right way to present a UI. 3D tends to be sparse of useful information, and tends to occlude, unless that information is a 3D model of an actual artifact or location. But it may be a useful concept for arranging artifacts, or browsing objects, with automatic layouts (from queries and searches) supporting dense information in a predictable way. I am very interested in zoomable UIs. Regards, Dave On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 1:17 AM, BGB <cr88...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 8/24/2011 1:00 AM, Julian Leviston wrote: > > Hi, > > On 24/08/2011, at 5:36 PM, BGB wrote: > > ok, yeah, this is a little awkward, as my way of seeing things I think > tends to be a little more "here and now", like the "pink plane" in the video > linked to with Alan talking about things (started trying to write a response > about this video before, but came to the opinion that my response was lame, > so didn't bother sending it, but it was still an interesting video). > > > The pink plane is a plane of understanding as far as I'm aware. As in, > pink thoughts are thoughts that are qualitatively different (ie in a > different dimension) from the every day run of the mill "ordinary" blue > plane thoughts. Perhaps I've misunderstood this idea. I don't specifically > know what you're talking about, but pink plane vs blue plane - I'm fairly > sure - is the same idea that I'm referencing (it is, after all, in the VPRI > logo). > > > well, I meant in the video, but in the video I think it was the pink plane > which was "run of the mill" / "here and now" and "blue plane" which was > novel/innovative. > > either way, which color is which is probably not a critical issue... > > > but, I think this was a reference to Apple, which AFAIK had done things > like this: > Blue=features which can be done now; > Pink=features which may take a little later (I think this imploded in their > ill-fated "Copeland" project); > Red="pie in the sky" ideas. > > > > If you were talking about gaming engines that managed to allow you to > build entirely new worlds in a fundamental way (ie platforms or worlds), > this would indubitably be the domain of this work, IMHO. > > > I sort of meant the original topic as in the context of "game engines as > platforms", but more in the sense that, to some extent, the Quake engine is > looking like it may just be such a "platform", considering the original game > was sold in 1996, and 15 years later, there is still a reasonably alive > community of people building new games on it. > > granted, yes, it hasn't really (yet?) reached the level of what such a > platform would ideally be (essentially, being free of borders or ownership, > and essentially ubiquitous and similar...). > > like, an open gaming platform free of vendor lock-in and licensing fees (so > it is more like an OS and less like an application), or similar... > > > > The pink plane isn't really about here and now aside from the fact that > the understanding has to occur here and now in order for the "future" to > manifest... like a flash of understanding - it never comes out of some > mechanistic or inevitably mechanical process. It usually comes from a > combining of things from other domains to allow a flash-understanding that > was not previously possible given the "meanderings" one had had before. > > > fair enough... > > > > For example, the idea of simply building a cruft-free "everything in its > place" base level operating system and object system using the "obvious" > choice of mathematics as the base language... the idea of - rather than > fight the programming language "wars" - embracing ALL languages as possible > and valid (because it's more real), and continuing along that path - and > seeing where it takes us... of experimenting with very powerful ideas... and > finding out just what is possible... how far these ideas can take us... THIS > is the domain of the FONC project, IMHO. > > > yes, ok, makes sense... > > > > so, one could instead deal with more conceptual/hypothetical matters > like, say, "what if I had a microchip in my hat that allowed be to watch > youtube videos while still looking like I was watching the teacher?..." > well, maybe, never-mind the ethical question of trying to look like one is > paying attention when really they are watching "teh ponies" or reading posts > on 4chan or similar, vs the more honest option of just pulling out a laptop > and headphones, or trying to pay attention. > > > Erm, no this is not "right", not as far as I'm aware. > FUNDAMENTALS/FOUNDATIONS is an important idea here. > > > I was trying here to come up with an example of being novel/original, but > sort of failed at it... > > I just sort of pulled a few random ideas from the air and tried to put them > together as an example of being novel (hence the disclaimer that it was for > illustration purposes only). > > as noted, creativity isn't really my strong area... > > > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > >
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