Joe Rutledge’s Weblog

FINAL BLOG April 26, 2008

I have been saving this blog topic for a special occasion, and this is the perfect time to use it. When most people think of art, they think of oil paintings, sculptures, or portraits of famous people. Many people would also immediately think of music, which is like art for our ears. Still others might call a chef’s dish a culinary masterpiece and the combinations of flavors and aromas as a work of art for our taste buds and noses. However, I bet not many people would ever consider video games as possible art form. I am going to argue that video games have transcended their original kiddie nature, and transformed into something that can captivate our senses and our imagination. In the end, that is what art is all about.

Game developers have had their own progression of artistic design over time, just like any other art form. Not only have they had to improve graphics, but they have had to improve interactiveness in the form of controllers, as well as creating innovations in the story lines. These new techniques and technologies have the potential to transport people into a totally different world. I will concentrate this blog entry on the development of graphics, as it is the most closely related to the topic of art as it was presented in class.

Game developers have always been limited by technology when it comes to visuals. Unlike artists from the past even if they know how to present a three dimensional image on paper, it is another story entirely when it comes to making that image appear on screen with movements coordinated to a players commands. I will now present what I consider to be a time line of
gaming in relation to the graphics becoming more and more realistic.

We will start at the beginning with the game that started it all, which was Pong. I would relate Pong to the ancient stick figure drawings found on cave walls. Below, I have posted a comparison between Pong, a cave painting, and another game that was developed shortly after pong. You can tell what everything is if you look hard enough, but it isn’t easy and it isn’t pretty. In the picture on the right, a man is about to use a rope hanging from a tree to jump over a pit.

As new gaming systems have been released, developers have been able to upgrade their visuals. Again, just like the traditional artists, they had to learn to depict their characters and environments that would greater please their audience. On the left I show a picture of everyone’s favorite plumber, Mario, from the original Nintendo gaming system. On the right, I show a piece of art from the middle ages. Both are certainly better than their predecessors, but they are still relying on the likes of occlusion to depict depth

And then there was a revolution, know as the Renaissance, and art took on a whole new perspective. The artwork during this time period took advantage of new techniques that allowed artists to show depth with amazing clarity. The next generation of gaming consoles allowed developers to do the same thing. On the left I show a game from the Dreamcast system, which came after the Nintendo console and was made by Sega. On the right I show a classic painting from the Renaissance that everyone should recognize. Notice the amazing ability to perceive depth in these two dimensional images.

Finally, I will fast forward to today’s consoles and today’s artists. I think that it would be unfair to compare today’s games with their painting counterparts. Games and art have come a long way, but with the computers we have now, it is quite amazing how realistic we can make a two dimensional screen look. Below I have posted two pictures from a game that is coming out very soon, and could be one of the most beautiful games ever.

Color Analogies April 20, 2008

There is a section in our textbook that says it would be impossible to explain colors to someone who was truly color blind.  I would have to disagree.  There are a number of ways that I can think of that use our different modalities to relate color perception to things that even someone who does not see color could understand.

First, lets consider touch.  I could relate colors like red and blue to feeling a burning fire or a freezing glass of water.  I could then continue to use the spectrum of heat to correlate to different intensities of light.  Green might resemble room temperature, or yellow could be set the warmth of the sun on a spring day.  You could also say that colors, like temperatures, can be mixed to get something in between.  Hot and cold mix in order to make a room temperature color.

Sound could also be used to relate color to a blind person.  Just imagine that different tones represent different colors.  Depending on the frequency and the length of the wavelength of the sound, the tone will change.  In this same set of mind, colors change depending on the frequency of light reflecting from an object.

Smell and taste could again be used to demonstrate to a blind person how color might be perceived.  You could say that just like the basic tastes (such as bitter, sweet, salty, etc.) there are basic colors of light (red, yellow, blue).  You can mix the tastes or colors so they work well together, or alter the perception of one another.  We even know that some tastes can cancel others out in a similar way that blue and yellow create white.

So, although people who are color blind might not actually be able to see objects in color, at least they can have an idea of what the experience might be like.

Secret Decoder Ring April 12, 2008

Secret decoder rings were used to find hidden messages in TV programs or on cereal boxes. Interestingly, none of them were actually rings that go on your finger, but instead resembled little badges. Many came as prizes in children’s cereals or other products like Ovaltine or Cracker-Jacks. But what does this have to do with vision? Well, think about synethetes. When they see or hear or taste something, it elicits another sense, which in turn allows them to perceive something that the rest of us don’t

It is as if the synethetes have a secret decoder ring embedded in their brain.  Consider the woman who saw orange when she felt pain.  Her decoder ring allowed her to identify which tooth needed the root canal, while most people wouldn’t have been able to single out a sore tooth.

Others can use this ability in other ways.  Lets say every vowel shows up as yellow for a certain synethete.  Given a group of random letters, he or she might be able to identify where the vowels are before a normal person.  It would be like having a magic highlighter.

Unfortunately, unlike a decoder ring or 3D glasses, synethetes can’t just stop using their special abilities.  And although most would say that it makes their world more enjoyable, I am not sure I could handle it.  I guess our senses are able to pick up on a lot more sensitive things than we are really able to perceive, like the sore tooth.  The synethetes might be able to use their senses better in some ways by picking up on things that normal people can’t, but I would guess that they also get distracted very easily by things that would normally not cause a distraction.  Therefore, I would say that although there are benefits of being a synethete, but I am satisfied with sticking to the decoder rings which I can use only when I want to.

No Child Left Behind April 6, 2008

When I found an article that said that 20% of school-aged children have undiagnosed vision problems.  This is after they had passed taken a vision test at school, which is obviously insufficient in detecting vision deficits.  Apparently schools only check for the distance aspect of vision, and a child can have 20/20 vision but still have a problem.  For example, maybe their eyes are not in sync with each other, or maybe they have trouble switching from near focus to far focus. This can lead to disaster when it comes to their learning abilities.

Kids that have problems often fall behind their peers in reading ability.  I had a friend who need eye correction surgery when he was very young.  Although he recovered very quickly, he still had to repeat a grade because before the surgery he had fallen way behind.  It is hardly fair that someone who is just as smart as everyone else had to put up with teachers and school-mates thinking that he wasn’t learning because he was stupid.

Imagine what it would be like not being able to take notes from the board because your eyes can’t adjust from the wall to your notebook fast enough, or having the words blur together on your textbook, or even getting a headache every time you try to read a short story.  Many times kids will feel defeated and just give up altogether, and can you blame them?  With all the techniques for correcting vision, there is no need for so many kids to suffer like this.  I think that it should be the school’s responsibility to detect vision problems more accurately and even the playing field when it comes to academics between the vision impaired and everyone else.

Multitasking March 30, 2008

There are many times when I have seen something, but not noticed it.  For example, when you daydream, the same amount of light information is reaching your eyes, but you don’t actually see it because your mind is elsewhere.  Have you ever looked at your watch and then realize 2 seconds later that you still don’t know what time it is?  I find myself doing that a lot, especially if my attention is really focused on something else.

These examples are annoying, but in most cases they are harmless. Consider, however, if you are driving a car, or operating some other type of machinery and your attention becomes diverted.  All of a sudden your ability to see and notice changes becomes compromised.  As technology improves and the pace of our society increases, these situations become more common.

One occasion in which I still have nightmares about, is the perfect example of how dangerous this situation can be.  I was driving through a four way intersection, when I was T-boned by a Jeep Grand Cherokee on my passenger side door.  My car was spun so fast that it flipped and then continued to slide another 20 feet upside down.  The driver was about my age, 17 at the time, and had been talking on the phone.  He said that he had seen the red light, but for some reason had gone to make his left turn anyway.  Although his eyes had picked up on the red light, its meaning had failed to translate because the other parts of his brain were occupied with his conversation on the phone.  Luckily for us both, we had our seat belts on and came away with little more than some scrapes and bruises.  Unfortunately, my car was totaled, and he only obtained a small dent on the bumper of his car.

We must realize that our senses and brains have limits.  We can only attend to a certain amount of information at one time.  It has been repeatedly demonstrated that multitasking will actually hinder performance by increasing the time it takes to do a set of tasks.  Hopefully this will serve as a warning to prioritize what you are paying attention to, because we can only heed so much at any one time.

Cortical Magnification March 23, 2008

Cortical magnification describes the amount of neurons we posses for processing information relative to the space in our visual field.  Our fovea, which is capable of picking up the most information and detail from our environment, contains the center region of our vision, which also happens to have the most neurons working per unit area.  Cortical magnification is the most important factor leading to our high visual acuity.

Consider a group of soldiers patrolling a territory.  Of course you would want as many men as possible to be on the look out to improve your chances of seeing the enemy.  The more densely packed your men are, the more likely it is that nothing will slip past your defenses.  However, if you only have one hundred men and more and one hundred acres of land, you have a decision to make.  Do you spread them out evenly, or do you put more men at key locations that are more open to a sneak attack and less men in places where the enemy would have trouble attacking.  It would be most wise to go with the second choice.

It is the same situation with our vision.  If we had the same number of neurons working for every part of our visual field, our heads would be bigger than the rest of our body.  Also, if we spread the workload out evenly across our entire environment, we would be sacrificing our visual acuity.  Therefore it is extremely important that the center is the only place with such a high ratio of neurons per area.  It provides us with high acuity, even if it is only for a limited space, while maintaining a reasonable size of cortical mass.

As a counter example, we can think about what it might be like to be a fly.  The fly’s compound eye is composed of many simple eyes.  It is therefore evenly spreading out its neurons over its entire visual field.   I doubt a fly’s vision, even when you account for the size difference, would even come close to competing with our own when it comes to visual acuity.  While this might work for a fly, that needs to see threatening predators that could approach at any angle, it would not be suitable for humans, who once relied on their vision for hunting and finding prey that could have been far away.  Overall, our sense of vision is well adapted for our way of life.

Master or Slave? March 15, 2008

Roger Carpenter could have meant several things when he spoke of our eyes as being both the master and slave of vision.  I believe in  order to find the true meaning of the statement, you must first understand a few things.  First, there is a big difference between sight and vision.  Some people might not realize that sight is only the mechanism by which light enters the eye and stimulates the photoreceptors.  Vision encompasses the complete system in which sight is combined with our brains, and the patterns of light falling on our retinas are given meaning.  Second, much of what we perceive through sight is actually based on memories or expectations based on previous experiences.

Knowing that sight is only the beginning of vision, it must not be underestimated.  Without sight, our visual cortex would be lost.  In this way, our eyes, which allow us to receive light from our environment, are the masters of vision.  The brain can only interpret as much information as the eyes send to it.  If the eyes see a distortion of light in the world, then our brains will perceive it in the distorted form, instead of in its true form.  Consider a spoon or straw sitting in a glass of water.  It might look bent, but it is only because the light is being bent when it hits the water.

The eyes are also the slave of vision.  Light falling on the eyes would prove useless if our brains could not translate the information into something that made sense.  Optical illusions often take advantage of our visual cortex’s use of expectations of typical shapes and objects to manipulate our vision.  The eyes could send all the correct light information, but we could be fooled because we are expecting one thing more than another.  It is therefore clear that our eyes must rely on the cortex to produce vision.

When it comes to sight, eyes are the master of our vision.  However, when it comes to giving meaning to the things that we see, it is the brain that is the master and the eyes become the slaves of our vision.  It is the union of brain and eyes that produce visions, and they are useless on their own.

It’s Magic March 8, 2008

Magicians make their living by taking advantage of us. They know the boundaries and weaknesses of our senses and with a few tricks and scientific knowhow they are able to perform acts that wow and amaze us. Most tricks are merely optical illusions that have been glossed up for their audience. Blades that seem to cut people in half, floating objects, or making things appear and disappear are typical tricks of the trade, and each has its own secret that fools the audience into thinking that it is real.

A lot of what magicians do is based on the several key facts. Many times, people need to see to believe. If they don’t see something, then how else will they know it’s there? Case in point: a secret door to allow someone to escape a box, or a glass rod used to levitate someone. Both things are out of our vision and therefore we don’t know they exist.

Another important flaw of our vision is that we can only focus on so much at one time. If a magician is able to distract us for a second, we might fail to notice what is going on in the peripheries of our vision, allowing someone or something to go unnoticed. A flash of a light or even a fancy wave of a wand to keep our eyes busy is all they need to work their “magic.”

Magicians do something else that allows them to mislead us. They always tell their audience what is going to happen and what to expect. When we expect something to happen, we are more likely to see it that way. A lot of our vision is based on filling in gaps, and this higher level vision happens in our brains. It is this part of vision that can be manipulated by our expectations and previous experiences.

Magicians are nothing more than manipulators of our senses, but they are good at what they do. They know the science behind our vision and can use their knowledge to pull off their tricks and make the impossible look possible.

What about dogs? February 16, 2008

In class, we talked about how much better a dog’s sense of smell is than our own, but I haven’t heard anything yet about their keen sense of hearing. Anyone who has ever owned a dog knows exactly how amazing a dog’s hearing is, and even those who wouldn’t call themselves “dog people” can’t deny a canine’s ability to hear. A dog’s hearing may have been the driving factor that led to their domestication, as we relied on them to alarm us of approaching danger.

Proof of a dog’s exceptional hearing is not hard to find. Dog’s can hear sounds of less volume or intensity and sounds with higher frequencies. Just think of a dog whistle, which is a high frequency device that will drive dogs crazy, but isn’t even registered by our own ears. It’s not just the inner ear of a dog that is designed for different sound acquisition, but their unique outer ears as well. Dogs have that cute way of perking their ears when they are listening, but it isn’t just to look adorable, it is their way of amplifying the incoming sounds. They have eight distinct muscles that are used for manipulating their ears in order to funnel in the sounds. Watching your dog’s ears is a good way of knowing someone is driving up the driveway, or about to knock on the door. They always seem to be a few steps ahead of us when it comes to hearing.

I can’t help but mention one example of my own dog’s amazing hearing capacity. At home, my mom would always give a little taste of whipped cream (rediwhip-the stuff in a can) to our dog. Soon enough, no matter where in the house our dog was, she would come running into the kitchen if you sprayed even the smallest amount of whipped cream on anything. She knew that the sound of the air coming out of that little can meant she could get a tasty treat.  It is a sound that can barely be heard from the next room by our own ears, but my dog could hear it from upstairs and on the other side of the house.

On a final note, although it might seem tempting to want to upgrade our hearing to the exquisite hearing sense of a dog, it might not be such a great idea.  Today’s world is a very noise polluted one.  Cars, sirens, planes, kitchen appliances, concerts, and sporting events are all capable of hearting our ears as it is.  Just imagine every one of those sounds being intensified.  It would lead to a lot of pain and problems.  I think that we should admire other animal’s hearing, but be satisfied with our own.

Taste vs. Health February 9, 2008

It is easy for me to avoid smoking. As a kid I was always turned off by cigarettes, mostly because the smoke made it hard to breath. I would go to great extents, sometimes waiting an hour to be seated at a restaurant just so I could have a seat in the nonsmoking section, when I could have no wait for a table in the smoking section. The warning signs to avoid smoking are very easy to see, and therefore it seems obvious to avoid them.

On the other hand, food might be causing more damage than smoke. What have our taste buds driven us to as a society? Refined carbohydrates, like white sugar and flour, cause an untold number of problems and diseases. Artificial sweeteners, our attempt at reducing the effects of sugar while keeping the taste, are still under inspection because of a fear that they cause tumors in mice in studies of long term use. Saturated fat has long feared due to heart disease. Trans fats, another delicious addition to our modern diet, has already been banned in several places due to its link to cancer.

Lets start with sugar. Perhaps the most pleasant treat for our taste buds. As obesity and diabetes are running rampant in the U.S., people are realizing that processed foods are most likely the culprit. Refined carbohydrates, such as those found in white bread or other bakery delicacies, and high fructose corn syrup, which is found in high concentration in soda, both cause a brief surge in our blood glucose levels. This in turn leads to a spike in insulin, which is followed by any excess carbs being stored as fat. Even though we now know the harmful effects of these foods, we can not seem to get enough of them. That is one point for taste and zero points for our health.

Next, we have artificial sweeteners. Great, maybe if we retain the taste of sugar without all those calories we can end the obesity pandemic. It sounds good, but you may want to know how artificial sweeteners work. Splenda, for an example, is not registered by the body as food, because of certain chemical bonds, and it is therefore excreted as waste instead of stored as fat. But if it is not food, then why should we eat it? Thats what I want to know. Studies have shown a reduction in the size of the thalamus and increase in the size of the liver and kidneys of rodents who were given splenda. The FDA did not rule against it, because it was not a study done on humans. I don’t know about everyone else, but I would rather not be a ginnie pig for the producers of artificial sweeteners. Yet, I could be alone, because many people seem to drink diet soda like it is water. I guess this one could be a tie, and for better or worse it will be settled in overtime.

Because I am afraid of rambling on, I will skip over saturated fats because I would hope that by now most people know that it is bad for them. I should mention that it is still a major problem, and I think it’s because people don’t realize the amount of saturated fat that they consume. Blame this on fast food restaurants, because they use hamburger and other meat with fat to protein ratios of almost 50-50. You can buy hamburger at the store that is 95% lean, which means it is only 5% fat. Score one more for taste.

Trans fat is an interesting case. Trans fats allow foods to be preserved longer, and have a taste that is almost undeniable. They can be found in a lot of fast food chains cooking oils or in baked goods that are prepacked at the grocery store. Recently studies have shown that trans fats lead to heart disease and cancer. They have already been banned in certain areas and the trend is spreading. I think that this could be one point for our health, because we are starting to get rid of the problem, even though some food chains complain that their food wont be the same without it.

Final score: 2-1 taste over health, with one outcome still to be determined.