Alan Zucconi

👾 AI and Games Conference 2024

Hi everyone! 👋

On Friday 8th November, we are hosting the first AI and Games Conference in London! This is the first event dedicated to Game AI in Europe since 2017, built with the goal to allow for networking, knowledge exchange and supporting the Game AI community! 🎮

The event is in partnership with Tommy Thompson, who runs the popular YouTube channel AI and Games, with over 21...

⬇️ Minecraft Plugin Development ● IntelliJ Project

Hi everyone! 👏

This is the full IntelliJ IDEA project for the Telecompass Minecraft plugin. This is part of the Minecraft Plugin Development tutorial, which you can read here. It explains how to create special compasses which can teleport players to their linked lodestones.

If you do not know how to import, build, te...

📝 Minecraft Plugin Development ● Complete Tutorial

Hi everyone! 👋

Back in 2021 I wrote a series about creating Minecraft data packs to add functionalities such as guns and fireballs. Three years later, I am writing about Minecraft again to cover a much more advanced topic: plugin development.

This is a complete guide that explains how to get started, code, build, test, build and deploy a Java-based plugin using the Bukkit API for Spigot/Paper servers. If none of that makes sense to you, do not worry: everything is explained in ...

🎥 A Cruel Engine's Thesis

A short present to celebrate April Fool's Day. 🐰

(It's also on Twitter if you feel like sharing it!)

📅 What's coming in 2024...

Hi everyone! 👋

2023 is almost over, and I think is a good time to let you know what to expect from 2024, and to recap the content I created this year!

🤖 Game AI Course

If you've been following me for a few years, I hope you've noticed a gradual shift in my content. When I started this journey, back in 2015, I posted short articles twice a week. Now, I post long and deep tutorials once every few months. I finally had a chance to work on my biggest project to this date...

🎥 Games, Sex & Romance ● Conference

Hi everyone! 👋

These are the busiest weeks for all the Lecturers like me who work at a College! But I take this opportunity to share some of the work that I've been doing at Goldsmiths, University of London. Last week I organised a small conference as part of the Games Library Night, a yearly event that gives voices to underrepresented folks from the game industry.

This year the theme was Games, Sex & Romance. But mostly we talked about sex...

📝 Creating 4D Objects ● Unity4D (Part 4)

Hi everyone! 👋

This is the fourth, and final part of the new tutorial dedicated to extending Unity into the fourth dimension.

In this instalment, we will see different techniques to create various 4D objects, such as tesseracts, hyperspheres and 600-cells (the 4D equivalent of an icosahedron).

All articles in this series are publicly available, and can be read here:

• P...
  2023-10-11 13:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

🎥 The Fourth Dimension ● Documentary

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm reaching out to let you know that my latest documentary about the Fourth Dimension will finally premiere TODAY at 6pm BST / 1pm EST! The video covers the history of the fourth dimension through Art, Movies and Games. It also explains some of the Maths behind hypergeometries, and it ultimately turned into a love letter to a game that is very dear to many: "FEZ".

For the occasion, I...

📝 Rendering 4D Objects ● Unity4D (Part 3)

Hi everyone! 👋

This is the third part of the new tutorial dedicated to extending Unity into the fourth dimension.

In this instalment, we will tackle the most important issue: rendering 4D objects!

The first three articles are now public, and the rest of the series is available on Early Access to all $5+ patrons:

• Part 1: 2023-09-13 13:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post

👁️ The Fourth Dimension ● Video Preview

Hi everyone! 👋

During the past few months, I had the chance to work on a new documentary. It will focus on the Fourth Dimension: from its representation through art, movies and video games up to the more Mathematical details.

The documentary will be released in September. In the meantime, this is the intro—for your eyes only! 👀

The documentary will be about 33 minutes long, and somehow ended up being a love letter to FEZ. 

The credit section will also incl...

📝 Extending Unity 3D to 4D ● Unity4D (Part 2)

Hi everyone! 👋

This is the second part of the new tutorial dedicated to extending Unity into the fourth dimension.

In this instalment, we will start writing the code necessary to represent and manipulate 4D objects.

The first two articles are now public, and the rest of the series is available on Early Access to all $5+ patrons:

• Part 1: 2023-08-16 13:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

📹 A Guide to ChatGPT ● PREMIERE 6PM BST 🔴

Hi everyone! 👋

Besides being a Lecturer and creating online content, I often work as a Science Communicator. I would like to share with you this talk I gave a few weeks, which briefly explains how ChatGPT works and focuses on guidelines that can maximise your performance and reduce the risks associated with this technology.

The talk was part of "Evidence Week in Parliament", an annual event organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) and Sense about S...

📝 Understanding the Fourth Dimension ● Unity4D (Part 1)

Hi everyone! 👋

This is the first part of a new tutorial dedicated to extending Unity into the fourth dimension.

In this instalment we will start exploring hyperspace, from its representation in movies and games, to the best tricks to imagine and visualise what a 4D object would look like.

The first article is now public, and the rest of the series is available on Early Access to ...

📝 Unity4D ● Tutorial Series

Hi everyone! 👋

It is with great pleasure that I can finally announce a new tutorial series! As you probably know by now, I like to write content that is a bit unexpected... and what is more unexpected than a complete tutorial to turn Unity 3D into Unity 4D? 😎

This series is dedicated to extending Unity into the fourth dimension. This means that you will learn how to represent, visualise, manipulate and create hyper-dimensional objects like tesseracts and hyperspheres.

...

📝 Slippy Maps ● Tutorial

Hi everyone! 👏

If you follow my work, you know that in the past I have talked extensively about video games and maps. This month I want to show you how you can create your very own interactive web-based map with Unity and LeafletJS. 🗺️

If you have a game and would like to create a zoomable slippy map for its world, that's the tutorial for you! Also, you can use this technique alongside shaders to generate explorable maps of complex phenomena. Below, for instance, you can s...

⬇️ Slippy Maps ● Unity Package

Hi everyone! 👏

This package is part of the tutorial about slippy maps in Unity and LeafletJS! 🗺️

You can find the full tutorial here!

If you end up using this in a game, I would be more than happy to see it!

🔧 The package was exported using 2020.3.14f1 for the Built-in Ren...

📝 Seam Carving ● Tutorial

Hi everyone! 👋

A few weeks ago I posted a long article talking about the rise of generative AI, and what it meant for the many people involved in creative jobs (like artists and game developers).

To balance things out, I wanted to talk about some more "classical AI" techniques which are still very relevant today. This new tutorial, in fact, focuses on Seam Carving  (also known as ...

⬇️ Seam Carving ● Unity Package

Hi everyone! 👏

This package is part of the tutorial about seam carving (also known as liquid rescaling) in Unity.

You can find the full tutorial here.

If you end up using this in a game, I would be more than happy to see it!

🔧 The package was exported using 2020....

👁️ Seam Carving ● Article Preview

Hi everyone! 👋

A few weeks ago I posted a long article talking about the rise of generative AI, and what it meant for the many people involved in creative jobs (like artists and game developers).

To balance things out, I wanted to talk about some more "classical AI" techniques which are still very relevant today. This new tutorial, in fact, focuses on Seam Carving  (also known as Liquid Rescaling). This is a technique that allows to crop or rescale an image, preserving the...

👁️ The Rise of AI Art ● Article Preview

Hi everyone! 👋

Since January I've been busy working on a new article about the controversial topic of AI Art! On my blog I talked at length about deep dreams, deep fakes and AI in general, and with so many artists following me I felt this was a topic many of you would be interested to read about.

Incidentally, this is also my longest post ever, with a whopping 24 pages! 😅 I tried to cover the recent history of AI Art, the techniques used, and its many issues. The largest par...

🌍 Global Game Jam 2023 @ Goldsmiths

Hi everyone! 👋

Long time no see! 😅 If you have been following me from some time, you know that  winter is the busiest time for me, so is usually when I am a bit quieter on Patreon!

But rest assured, I have been working on quite a lot of cool project! Just to name one, I am currently organising the largest site in London for the Global Game Jam 2023! In case you are not familiar, the GGJ is a weekend where people from all over the world are making games! 🎮

2023-02-01 11:01:48 +0000 UTC View Post

📝 Thin-Film Interference ● Tutorial Series

Hi everyone! 👋

The ones of you who have been following my blog for some time, might remember my longest series ever about iridescent shaders in Unity.

The series focused on diffraction grating, which is one of the main optical phenomena responsible for iridescent reflections. The last two posts, however, have been under development for the longest time ever. 😅

I finally ...

📝 Modelling Kalman Filters ● Kalman Filters (3&4/5)

Hi everyone! 👋

The content spree continues! 🤪 This week I am publishing TWO (2!!!) more articles! 

• Part 3: Modelling Kalman Filters
• Part 4: The Extended Kalman Filter

They continue the journey into the secrets of Kalman Filter...

📝 From Theory to Implementation ● Kalman Filters (1&2/5)

Hi everyone! 👋

This week I am publishing not one, but TWO (2!!!) articles! 🤪

• Part 1: Kalman Filters: From Theory to Implementation
• Part 2: The Mathematics of Kalman Filter

These two posts introduce the super interesting topic of Kal...

👁️ Kalman Filter: From Theory to Implementation ● Series Preview

Hi everyone! 👋

For the ones of you who have been following this blog since its very beginning, you may remember that one of my first tutorials was "A Gentle Introduction to Kalman Filters". After so many years, I decided it was time to re-visit the subject, with a PROPER series divided into 5 parts.

The first four are already available for preview/early access to any $5+ patrons:

• Part 1: Kalman ...
  2022-07-24 19:30:53 +0000 UTC View Post

📝 The World Generation of Minecraft ● Article

Hi everyone! 👋

Last month the documentary about the world generation of Minecraft finally premiered on YouTube! 🥳 I would like to thank you all for such a warm reception, as it ended up being the best performing video on my channel so far! 😊

As I always do, I am also publishing a written version of the documentary. This article includes the full transcript, along with some extra ...