No, this isn't about a video game. This is about my search for lost media. A long time ago, 12 years ago to be precise, two videos were uploaded to YouTube. They were two parts of the same video about 'How to turn a Sphere inside out.' It's a very basic film, just over 20 mins, long when put together, and the quality was so bad you can tell it was ripped straight from VHS. I can't say why or how, but I discovered the video when I was about seven or eight. I loved that video. Something about the calm narrator or the primitive 3D animation or complex math. I thought it was really cool and I saw the whole thing numerous times. Sadly, I've never had to apply my knowledge I learned from that video into the real world but it's always been a fun factoid to remember and impress adults with.
I became determined to find out two things just recently: Who made it? and Where can I get a copy of the VHS? It seemed very daunting. There was no information anywhere on YouTube about where it came from. At the start of the video, it has a logo for a place called 'The Geometry Center'. I thought that would be a good place to start. Sure enough, their website from 1995 still existed and I snooped around. The were a department at the Universite of Minnesota and were specially created to do math and science animations with computers. Sure enough, they had a list of the films they made. In the time they existed, they created three films. One of which was called 'Outside In'. I was sure that one was about how to turn the sphere inside out. I found a list of people who worked at the center and on the film and tried to find working emails. I got very lucky. Professor McGehee was the name of the director of the center so I reached out to him. Sure enough he responded. Here is what he said: Nice piece of detective work! I may have an old tape somewhere in my archives, but it would be in my office, which I have only very limited access to right now. All our classes and seminars are remotely delivered from home, and I have to apply to the Dean for permission to enter the building. It is unfortunate for many reasons that Klaus Peters died early. AKPeters held the copyright, and I assume that Klaus had various copies. At one point he was planning to make a Web version available. I am very busy with other stuff right now, and I have no plans to visit my office. If you remain interested, try writing to me again in October. Things may have lightened up by then. Otherwise, it might have to wait until a vaccine is available. (Let's hope not!) For note, AKPeters was the publisher. I still needed some more info though and I thanked him for his kindness. The next person I reached out to was Dr. Levy. He was the director of the video and author of the book that went with it. He also responded very quickly and had more to say about how the video was created and what happened to the master copy. Here is his email: Thanks for your interest in Outside In. It's not totally lost; although the master has been misplaced, and the source files no longer run on any computer, this youtube will give you a good flavor, despite the less than ideal image quality. (I think it was ripped from VHS, but not by anyone associated with the project.) Now, for how it was made: it's all computer animation based on mathematical models; the geometry was programmed in C (if I'm not mistaken) and the rendering in a language called Renderman, running on SGI machines. It was a months-long project -- the better part of a year, I think -- involving several people: mathematicians, computer programmers and students. There was an accompanying booklet, written by me, with many illustrations. Some university libraries have it; it is called Making Waves (I'm the author). I'll see if I have any spare copies of it - I had half a dozen but gave them away. (I also have one copy of the VHS, but even if I were willing to part with it, noboby has VHS players anymore...) Best wishes, Dr. Levy With all of that information, I had only one thing left to do. Was it possible to locate a physical copy? And would it have the book with it? Surprisingly, the answer was yes! There isn't any listings online, I searched everywhere. Ebay, Amazon, ect. so I turned to the next best thing. Libraries. Specifically college libraries. A mathematics video is the sort of thing that would be there. I searched the online database of UNC since my father had a library card for the UNC. No dice. They had none. I went to Duke's catalog next. My mother is an employee of Duke so she can check out things too. Sure enough, Duke has available, a copy of the VHS with the book! And it's available for check out too! I haven't seen it yet but I was happy enough that I completed my mission. I found the tape from the YouTube video I randomly watched years ago.
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To say The Desolate Hope is a strange game is an understatement. It's free first off on Steam. Totally free, just a passion project and it's gotten little to no attention which is really sad to me because it's a really interesting game especially since it was made in 2012. The Desolate Hope is a game where you play as a repurposed piece of code from a simple game preinstalled on an unmanned space station's computer systems and you take control of a grumpy coffee pot robot who manages the station to enter simulations and root out viruses. The story is that humans put these robots on the station to simulate future human development. It was supposed to last 5 years but humanity abandoned them and they were left to rot. The game has a day and night cycle. During the day, you can enter the systems of the robots (they're called Darelicts) to root out the viruses, This is a standard platformer where you get to jump around platforms, go to shops and shoot bad guys. Once you find the darelict in the simulation, they tell you where the virus is. Once you find the virus, you enter an real time RPG battle which are really fun. During the night, you can explore outside the base to find items to gain the trust of the daralicts so they let you enter their simulations. The Desolate Hope is a very strange but stylish game and it's truly underrated.
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AuthorI am an artist as anyone else is an artist (if that makes sense). My style is abstract and I also draw cartoons. I am also a voice actor for a web-series. Archives
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