MY POST 9/11 story of career anxiety, family angst and sexual confusion can be found in the December 2001 issue of Shades of Contradiction.

You can get the story in PDF form here.

GAME PROGRAMMING GEMS

I SPEAK twice a year at the Sonoma State University Computer Science Colloquium, on issues ranging from software engineering to the future of artificial intelligence.   In this video, I make the case that the good, old-fashioned approach to artificial intelligence, once thought to have been a dead end, is due for a resurgence now that we have powerful, networked computers.

YOU CAN find a copy of my paper on Interactive Entertainment and Social Responsibility, presented at the 2013 Spring Colloquium, here.

SONOMA STATE COMPUTER SCIENCE COLLOQUIUM

Contact: JPShankel@gmail.com

THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND OPTIONS

IN 2009, I had the honor to host a class on writing and story structure for computer games at the Idea Festival in Louisville, Kentucky for the Kentucky Film Lab.

THE TITLE of my class was “The Hero With A Thousand Options.”  You can download a copy of the presentation slides here.

IN  THIS LECTURE, which I have also given and the University of San Francisco and Cogswell Polytechnic, I describe, using examples from games such as Fable, Fallout and Beyond Good and Evil, how the element of interaction and player choice affect the traditional archetypal structure of a story, as described by scholars like Joseph Campbell.

I ALSO EXPLORE the unique challenges confronting a writer of computer game stories in presenting a logical and coherent narrative in a medium which puts the audience in the driver’s seat.

THE KENTUCKY FILM LAB was a fantastic place to speak.  The talent and enthusiasm of the students and teachers alike was both impressive and infectious.

HERE I AM, pictured on the right (in the center, with the ‘Arrrrrgh’ shirt) with my co-presenters (starting on the left), filmmaker Domenica Scorsese, screenwriter and educator Michael Feit Dougan, actress Veronica Bero and Kentucky Film Lab founding director, Arthur Rouse.

I CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES to the first three volumes of the Game Programming Gems series.  Topics I covered included fractal terrain generation, fast heightfield normal computation, quaternion interpolation and matrix-quaternion conversions.

WANNA LEARN MORE? Buy the book!

That’s Your Theory?

SO YOU THINK you have a bold, exciting new theory do you?  Well, why don’t we just see what the Robot Bartender has to say about THAT!  This series of Xtranormal animations examines theories and the holders of them.

CHECK OUT my movie reviews and science articles on IO9. 

VISIT MY FILM ANALYSIS page for videos and essays covering...The World Cinematic!  Have an intern get me a Campari and a latte.

AUGMENTED WORLD EXPO - 2013