fourworlds

Moving ideas from an initial concept to a shared vision is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of both my vocational and avocational work. Over the last few years, I’ve transitioned from words to visuals earlier and earlier in the process. Since my drawing skill is not much beyond stick-figure level, I use a combination of drag and drop visualization applications to not only communicate ideas, but also to express and refine insights that are actually gained through the work of visualization.

These are some of the tools I’ve been using recently to created animated sketchpad-level visualization. All have relatively low learning curves and all allow one to rapidly move from inner thought to shareable artifact:

• FrameForge: Developed as a filmmaker visualization tool, I’ve been using Framforge for everything from motion comic creation to image creation for presentations.
• Second Life: Although it’s mostly used as a virtual world, Second Life is also a great platform for machinima and still image creation.
• BoinxTV. This live video production software allows for the rapid drag and drop creation of very sophisticated video effects and compositing.
• Motion. Although it sometimes runs slowly on my couple generation old MacBook Pro, I still end up turning to Apple’s Motion software to put together short videos.
• Animoto. This web-based application automatically creates really slick music-synced motion graphics from images and short videos you upload.
• iPhone. With dozens of great mutli-media programs on my iPhone, it has become my Swiss Army Knife for both anytime capture, creation and sharing.

Here’s a little video sketch that was slammed together in a couple of hours yesterday morning using BoinxTV and Motion, with materials previously created with FrameForce, Second Life and the iPhone. The use of “Avatars Everywhere” as the theme and slogan didn’t emerge until about halfway through the production.