So, last week, I had a meeting involving several people from Drexel’s Biomedical Engineering/Science faculty, including the director, as well as the director from Digital Media and others from the College of Media Arts and Design. They discussed a possible curriculum merge for the two disciplines for those interested in pursuing a joint focus.

At the suggestion of the Biomedical Science graduate advisor, I think they’re going to make a concentration of Digital Media as “Biomedical Science”, rather than a joint master’s, to lessen the red tape of Faculty Senate approval and what not (which can take a year plus). So while not as cool as having a Dual M.S. in Digital Media and Biomedical Science, I guess I can think of some cool way to name it. “Master’s of Science in Digital Media with Pseudo-Telekinetic Powers… In a game.”

Also, was suggested some classes that the DIGM’s would find beneficial, such as:

Medical Sciences
Neuro study
Cognitive Psychology
Biomechanics
BCI/Psychology
Brain Imaging
Education

My only problem with their suggestion is that they take the 12 directed electives in the DIGM master’s and turn that into Biomed classes, makes sense, but then they take the New Media Project (9 credits, a “practice” thesis project, if you will) and then the Thesis Development classes (9 credits as well) and turn those into Biomed Classes. I want to have the New Media Project for a chance to synthesize these two fields, as well as get credits for thesis development, as I do not want 3 grad classes on top of a thesis. This plan removes no DIGM classes I find no use for, and removes classes I want to take. So if they’re all about custom-tailoring, then we’ll need to tweak that a bit.

Now I need to sign up for the grad program and then try to get an assistanship somehow, because without that, I don’t know how I’ll be able to afford this. And have been going through a lot of stress, so need to decide if this is what I really want. Them being all about it was really intimidating and sort of an eye-opener of, “Shit, this could really happen.”

Just had a meeting with the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Adviser and it went pretty well. He suggested I may be better off just pursuing a Biomedical Science degree with some Digital Media classes to augment my studies, rather than a dual master’s in Biomed and Digital Media. He seemed excited about the possibility of someone with my background entering the program, potentially bringing in new ideas, and explained to me some possible avenues that this education would afford me, virtual reality and such.
For a stipend/tuition waiver, I’ll need to talk to someone else and since my GPA is good, but not awesome, I may have to kick myself in the ass for an assistanship and gave me a contact for that, as well as the Biomedical Science advisor.

No concrete updates at this point, but he did his job of advising me and made some suggestions at a possible route to take, as well as the next go-tos. Will let you know!

So for the past month of being part of the college graduate crowd, I’m kind of at a loss on what to do. Ever since I started at Drexel, I knew I wanted to be a part of the gaming industry. As what, I had no idea. After taking some classes, I realized I wanted to animate, and then at a later point, be a more technical artist perhaps. After trying for the last two years or so to be a part of the gaming industry through networking and attending events and such, I’m still having trouble getting in. But ever since Lazybrains caught all this publicity, there was some talk about maybe pursueing a master’s doing that at Drexel. So I’m torn.

The Industry

It’s been hard as balls for me to get into this. It’s really frusterating knowing that I’ve worked my ass off for four years, been doing everything that “I should be doing” and still can’t get in. Attending the IGDA meetings, meeting awesome people in the industry and people who are just interested in development, going to the GDC and all that. I make what I think is a badass portfolio, then see others way better. So maybe I just need to improve it and spend a few months on doing that.

Continuing Education

I’ve been looking at Master’s programs all over the country. Most are CS-oriented gaming degrees (Penn’s Computer Graphics and Gaming Technology, Digipen’s game-focused CS Master’s) but some are more art-technology and theory based (like Drexel’s Digital Media Master’s). Ever since the Lazybrains thing, there has been some talk about a dual-masters in Digital Media and Biomedical Engineering, which would be right up my alley, and I could continue to work towards a degree while making neurogaming prototypes. Awesome.

Problem with this is, it’s more money. I would need to get mad scholarships, stipends and maybe a job on the side. Not that I’m not willing to do that, but still. The stipend would have to sustain me living, plus the awesome debt I’ve racked up on my bachelor’s.

So WAT?

All this, on top of pressure from parents to settle and take a web design job. Frusterating as hell working your ass off for four years, doing everything you needed to do, everything you should’ve done, and then just told to settle for less than what you wanted. It feels too much like giving up. When I think about the dual-master’s in Biomed and DIGM, it seems like an awesome opportunity to become more of something. An entry level position at some game company is one thing, and even if I work my way up, is that what I want? Maybe I could start my own neurogaming studio of the future.

I hate settling for less than the best.

Anyone have any advice?

So, our senior project is still getting more publicity. It seems everytime we get another article about us somewhere, someone else reads it and wants to hop on the Lazybrain-train. Choo-choo!

For those that don’t know about what Lazybrains is, here’s a snippet from my portfolio:

For our Senior Project at Drexel University, myself and four others designed a game engine framework and a fantastical, game-like 3D environment and we explored the influence that new methods of interfacing may have on the user’s immersion in the interactive, virtual world, as well as new elements of game-play. To achieve this, we worked with the school of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, specifically Hasan Ayaz, to bridge the neuroimaging device, the fNIR, into our development environment, essentially giving us the ability to use a player’s cognitive activity as an additional gameplay mechanism.

The week before our senior show, we were interviewed by CBS3 and they told us to expect it in the next few days. Well, we get an email this week saying it’s going to air finally, so we all gathered up at Conor’s to watch Lazybrains’ television PREMIERE.

Although both Aaron and I were taken completely out of context, it was still awesome to watch and see our neurogaming prototype on the news and get so much attention. It definitely garnered more than we would have ever expected. After this airing on CBS3, we got another request for another news publication sometime in the next week or so.

Maybe I’ll be able to work on other new-interfaces like this in the future, who knows. There was some talks about offering us the opportunity to do a dual-masters in Digital Media and Biomedical Engineering (which I’d be all about), but in order to do this, they’d need to offer me mad scholarships as well as some kind of work study thing where I get paid on the side, too. So we’ve all been in talks with the directors of both fields about this and nothing really happened when push came to shove, but Ken’s still talking with them about it, so who knows?

Master of Science in both Biomedical Engineering and Digital Media sounds good, though.

Here are the other articles written about us:
Philadelphia Inquirer
Lebanon Daily News
CBS3

So, being only one week since I technically graduated, I’m still feeling restless without a job. Having been looking and preparing over the last year, doing everything I “should” be doing, like attending conferences and networking events, being in the labs constantly, get to know people in the industry, and such like that, it’s just frusterating to see classmates enjoying themselves, not worrying about a job (or content with freelance and abundant web developer positions, I envy you). Aaron just (probably) got a job in NY doing some 3D modeling and scanning, and he’s super psyched about it, ultra grats to him, he deserves it, as his job hunting efforts rival mine.

So, feeling devoid of motivation, I came across someone on one of the many CGAcademy boards that is new to modeling, but was looking to see if anyone was interested in rigging it it so they could start animating it. Turns out this guy is also a recent graduate and looking to work on some personal stuff, so we’re totally in the same boat it sounds like. I make a rig, he makes some animations, win-win!

He was looking for a cartoony rig with stretch and squash features and such to go with the cartoon-style of his model. Awesome! I’m all over this, I need more practice rigging and this would be a great portfolio piece, and I have never done a full cartoon rig. Let’s do it! He sent me the MooM 4.0 rig for inspiration and said he liked a lot of the features on it. After looking through it, it did have plenty of things I would want in a good cartoon rig:

• Independent toggleable/blend FK/IK controls for arms and legs
• A waist control, separate from the COG node (something I really need to finally do)
• A suitable facial rig (nothing too extrodinary, but works great)
• Foot and hand controls: Your basic heel and toe rolls for the feet and master curl, spread and twist for each finger, as well as individual knuckle curls, in addition to a master hand controller with master controls for all of these things for all fingers. All pretty much the norm, but it’s a good bunch.
• Stretchy arms and legs in both FK and IK modes.. and spine!

So all this is looking great for inspiration, but there was a few things I wanted to add, and after talking to the animator, he was all about it:

• IK/FK snap: I’ve made a MEL script before that autocreates an arm with IK/FK blend and snapping ability, so I can do this and the animator seemed really interested in it as well!
• The FK controllers didn’t move in accordance to the stretches, so I’m gonna try to add this if I have the time.
• The MooM rig had a disconnected hierarchy, also, something I’ve never done before, so going to give that a go. After talking to my Character Animation Professor-Grad Student-Mentor, Matt Smith, he gave me some tips so hopefully it’ll all be good.

Even if I make a rig for this bear almost identical to the MooM rig, I’ll still be proud of it: It’s a nice cartoon rig. If I can add those additional features, I’ll feel like a rigging badass. Will post updates as they come!