#prototype phase

Humanoid robots are already quite unsettling, but what if they had skin that made them look even more like the species they’re designed to imitate?

Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new, rather unnerving technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments. This can now be bonded to the surface of robots, enabling them to exhibit more human-like facial expressions, including smiles and frowns.

This so-called “skin equivalent” adhesion method, still in its prototype phase, is sure to disturb. A GIF shared online alongside the study depicts a small, pink, 2D face with glassy eyes pulled into a smile, reminiscent of the eerie Claymation cartoons from the 1960s and ’70s.

Concept art?!  WHOA.

Currently, while we're setting up our prototype for Alien Academy, I (Elyse) have been working on trying to design interesting aliens to populate the school with.

For the first page, I wanted to try with some aliens inspired by shapes and balance.  The first guy, the fuzzy one, is more bottom heavy, and the other one is just... WELL I have no idea.  And then there's that creepy rug monster.

The second page was fun, because I wanted to experiment with humanoid, bipedal aliens with interesting shapes.  I'm really happy with the way the one on the top right turned out, but the other ones were working with combinations of characteristics of deep sea fish (jellyfish, axolotl, etc) and these flowing, beautiful forms.

Both pages are so different, but I really enjoyed doing both of them!  There's a third page and I'm still working on trying interesting and strange designs, so there'll be a lot more of these in the future.

So, I might be the worst at keeping blogs updated.  But hey, learning experience, right?!

Anyway, long time to see!  We're currently chugging away at Alien Academy, trying to get everything done in preparation for the end of Prototype phase.  There might be some minor panicking, might be some blood, sweat, and tears, but we're chugging along.

Currently, we're working on getting a basic UI set up on top of some basic AI programming as well.  As a sim/management game, Alien Academy relies on a lot of the game's AI to make magic happen.  While you get to interact with those AIs, there isn't much of the game without it.

He's our beautiful (???) school that Vanessa and I (Elyse) put together last weekend using Google sketchup.  Currently, the little capsules (who will soon have sprites!) wander around the space and look for one of the rooms to settle themselves in.  The little boxes around them are the UI that each individual student will have on click - we just have to get the onClick appearance set up.

Ignore the game view.  I might've messed up some stuff in my scene...