Olmec Heads

So I have been interested in the giant Olmec heads found in Mexico and Central America ever since I saw and exhibit at the Smithsonian years ago. I found out that Micah Wright also likes them and he has an excellent little site dedicated to them. I did not know that there are only 17 known Olmec heads. Someday when I am retired, I wouldnt mind searching for more. There must be more of them just waiting for someone to rediscover them.

Micah is a bit of a renaissance man that has written for many different mediums including video games. I have never met him but he sounds like a really interesting person that I wouldnt mind talking to over a few cervezas!

Unreal Powered Goodness

I've worked with a lot of tech in my time Unreal, Radiant, Hammer, Red Storm's homegrown stuff, Bungie's tech to name a few. One of my favorites, was the tech that I learned on Unreal. The creative freedom that it gave me as a designer was incredibly empowering. Using its visual scripting language to craft game play scenarios and cinematic moments thrilled me to no end. Seeing the latest shots from GDC has me drooling over the capabilities of this latest round of tech. The cinematic quality of lighting and realistic depth of field blow me away. Take a look at it right here from a thread on Neogaf!

Valle de la Luna

Todays place that I would love to go visit is.....The Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon)in Chile. Some areas of the valley bear a striking resemblance to the surface of our own moon. Its lack of vegetation and pale colored rocks make it an almost alien landscape on our own planet. As someone who designs video games, places like this make my imagination run wild and help fire the creative thoughts. What would this landscape look like on a moon of Jupiter? What kinds of horrible space critters would be lurking underneath the seemingly harmless wasteland? Exciting stuff!

Striking Green Building Proposed for Boston

Im really curious to see how this would look in the winter. It raises some interesting questions about who would be responsible for he maintenance of the green patches on the roof. Is it the residents? Would you feel shame if you had the only brown square because you over watered? Read about it here at Inhabitat

OpenBuildings

Here's a cool site that allows people to submit beauty shots of modern buildings from all over the world. I plan on checking it out the next time I am doing some futuristic stuff! Its called OpenBuildingsOpenBuildings and it has great photography to boot!

Urban Decay

I love pictures of old buildings. They have so much intricate detail that you often dont see replicated in the glass and steel skinned buildings of today. When I see a delightful old building sitting proudly restored my heart lifts a little - call me crazy but this has been the effect that buildings have had on me. Surprisingly then when I see an old decrepit building whose former glory is behind it I also am inspired. There is something about a weathered rotted out hulk of a building that speaks to me. I can remember back to when I encountered my first really grand ruins in the UK. The ones that I remember the most Fountains Abbey,Melrose Abbey and Rievaulx Abbey. As I got into photography in college, I found myself taking more pictures of buildings than people - much to the chagrin of women that I dated. Whenever I find a really cool photo essay on a ruin I naturally have to check it out. Today is one of those days...From the Blog The Kingston Lounge comes these amazing shots of a long abandoned institution on North Brother Island in the East River of NYC. Here is a shot of the former nurses quarters...

Featured in the Austin American Statesman, this pool is insane. A fish tank for humans, it overlooks the lake. The video game side of me wonders "Wow what would that look like if I hit the side of that thing with a plasma cannon. What if the house from the finally of Lethal Weapon 1 had that pool!!"

Houses on Rails

This fantastic design proposal suggests building modular houses on old railway lines. The components then can be moved around from place to place along the tracks. This is another one of those interesting proposals that I would love to see incorporated into a game!

Here is the site!

Chernobyl 25 Years Later

From TotallyCoolPix

Interesting photo essay on the area around Chernobyl. Prypiat is the name of the town and the setting for the COD: Modern Warfare mission "Ghillies in the Mist." Not far from here is the location for the COD: Black Ops MP map that I designed called "Grid." In fact for a while we were considering having the Chernobyl reactor as a landmark in the off map area called the sky box.

Cool Floating City Concept proposed for Haiti

This would make a great video game environment. It would need to be partially destroyed by zombie invasion however.

Kijk Kubus, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Fantastic Cubist Houses...I really need to get to the Netherlands one of these days!

Kijk Kubus, Rotterdam, Netherlands

They have their own site too... I need to live in a house that warrants its own site ;)
Introkubuseng