Story Idea Creation & Concept Design
Writers regularly grapple with the task of finding an idea that they can transform into a compelling narrative. This is not as simple as it may seem, as the process requires a certain level of creativity, skill, and patience. In many cases, the initial idea is not enough. It needsContinue Reading
Portfolio – Peter von Stackelberg
This collection is a small sampling of still images and animated video clips I’ve created over the past year using a variety of computer graphics tools. The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems and game engines is making a whole new set of tools available for visual storytelling.Continue Reading
Google’s Earth Studio Makes Cityscapes Easy
Google’s Earth Studio gives concept artists and authors of transmedia stories, graphic novels, and illustrated books another tool for developing cityscapes. While the graphics are not photorealistic, the 3D graphics rendered in Earth Studio can be the starting point for image compositing. There are issues with the visual quality ofContinue Reading
Worldbuilding & Transmedia Stories – Genre
When creating storyworlds, one of the early steps in the process should be selecting the storyworld’s genre. Genre will play an important role in designing settings, characters, significant objects, themes, plot points, and all of the other aspects of the storyworld and the stories that emerge from it. Genre alsoContinue Reading
A Writer’s Guide to Creating Sci Fi Technology – Part 4
Sci fi authors often find it challenging to get a handle on future technologies and portray them in a plausible manner. This is particularly true for technologies in the near future (i.e. 20 to 25 years out) because readers can be quick to see fantastic technologies as not being realisticContinue Reading
A Writer’s Guide to Creating Sci Fi Technology – Part 3
When creating sci fi technologies, understanding the concept of competitive advantage is important. One of the big irritants for me are sci fi and fantasy visuals that include technology that looks “cool” but is totally useless or worse, a hinderance to the user. Competition is essentially a contest between two orContinue Reading
Advances in Computer Graphics Open New Ways to Tell Stories
There are a few glitches in the rendering of these images, but overall the quality of the images is quite good. The flicker-free quality of the animations is particularly significant.Continue Reading
Amazing New Tools for Visual Storytelling Keep On Coming
I continue to be amazed at the technology that is being developed for visual storytelling. The latest surprise is EbSynth. It makes the job of converting video into painting-like animations. The best part…it’s free! I’ll post some video examples that I did in an afternoon while learning the software. ThisContinue Reading
A Writer’s Guide to Creating Sci Fi Technology – Part 2
Science and technology are a defining element of science fiction. Getting them right is critical to the credibility of the story and having readers or viewers willingly suspend their disbelief. As I noted in the first part of this series of posts, the Creator of a storyworld is free to makeContinue Reading