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Ryan Benno
@BryanRenno
, 14 tweets, 5 min read Read on Twitter
I got asked the other day what books would I recommend to environment artists. So here is a list of books I highly recommend with links on Amazon:
The Poetics of Space is one of those great foundational books when it comes to building inhabitable spaces.

The Poetics of Space amazon.com/dp/0807064734/…
So much of what we do is really based in the tradition of set design so being familiar with Scenography is something I find really vital to utilize in your toolbox of ideas.

Make sure to pick up What is Scenography? By Pamela Howard.
amazon.com/dp/B002KAAK1C/…
A little bit of a theme here will be books focused on how naturally occurring shapes and iconography influence manmade design. Fractal Architecture is a great deep dive into how fractal geometry in nature is used as inspiration for construction.
amazon.com/dp/0826352014/…
Again, looking at how the interplay between nature and people The Art of Setting Stones uses Japanese gardens as an example of how these two factors work to build meaningful compositions that reflect the human experience.
amazon.com/dp/1880656701/…
The Object Lesson series of books is great at highlighting the beauty of mundane or ordinary things. Shopping Mall is my favorite in the series (because I'm suburban trash) but you cant go wrong with any of them.

Shopping Mall (Object Lessons) amazon.com/dp/1501314823/…
The next two books by Christopher Alexander changed my perspective on building lived in places. I cannot recommend these enough. In A Pattern Language he makes a convincing case for how buildings and towns are not by architects but by nature & the people

amazon.com/dp/0195019199/…
The Nature of Order was another seismic shift in my perspective. It focuses on asking what makes a place feel alive and examines shapes that point towards the presence of life in nature and manmade structures.
amazon.com/dp/0972652914/…
This last one is about the creative process. Accepting ideas as the flow out, meditating on them, and trying to use them. Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch is fantastic. His odd sales pitch of Transcendental Meditation might turn some off. amazon.com/dp/1585425400/…
Let me add one more. A lot of these can be quite academic and since were in the business of entertaining, here is one about showmanship. Designing Disney by John Hench highlights the importance of spectacle and is very approachable.
amazon.com/dp/B01K0UIDTY/…
If you're looking for creative exercises to do, theres plenty of great improv books but I'll stick with a companion piece to Designing Disney. The Imagineering Workout has great, practical ideas to use in your daily life to help push your creative ideas.
amazon.com/dp/0786855541/…
A lot of these can be a bit academic, and for me, I'm totally okay with that. But I get that not everyone's cup of tea, so if you're looking for something a bit more accessible but just as valuable on info, I'd recommend the Disney books
If you're cool with academic books and you're looking to pick up any from this list, I'd recommend the two Christopher Alexander books as what to go with.
One final book because most of these are about form and craftsmanship. Sculpting in Time by the great Andrey Tarkovsky is a great way to reinforce the idea that the function of art, to inspire and reinvorgate the human spirit, is the most important goal. amazon.com/dp/0292776241/…
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Ryan Benno 👀🔜 GDC
@BryanRenno
I've been all over how inspiring theme park design (especially Disney) is to environment game artists for awhile but I dont think I've laid the case out for why. I want to try doing some tonight.

Let's explore why environments are so important to both games and parks: Context
In both instances, context for what you're doing (what activity you're participating in) is a huge part of getting audiences to buy into the experience. It's more than just a game where your using a turned based combat system. It's more than just a roller coaster. There's story.
To get your audience enthusiastic about the experience, you have to immerse them in the world. Make them live in it, moment to moment, and get them excited to be there. The setting, the environment, is the key to this. Its first and foremost about providing a lived experience
Read 14 tweets
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Ryan Benno
@BryanRenno
Diegetic storytelling can mean a lot of things but let's talk about how shapes, color and lines can be used to help the design. This is something both designers and environment artists should know
Its important to understand what the visuals are communicating to the players. It's something you can harness, or if you're not careful, message without meaning or intent. Depending on the intent, you can make it subtle (or not so subtle in this case)
For more subtle effects, the most effective way I've found is to focus lines & color in a way that leads the player's eyes, hopefully without them totally aware. This example (minus the giant box of text) is a wonderful example. The walls drive this but the floor tiles also helps
Read 11 tweets
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Ryan Benno
@BryanRenno
Since Twilight Zone is coming back (and with good reasons to get excited for it) I want to gush a bit on how the history of Rod Serling and how his work leading up to & through The Twilight Zone's run highlights the importance of portraying equality and progressivism in media.
For me personally, I look up to him as a creative who was both aspiring for s better world but also incredibly honest about himself and his own weaknesses. The Twilight Zone reflects so much of this. But that makes sense since he wrote 92 of the 156 episodes of the show.
Before getting into writing professionally, it's important to highlight two aspects of his life: his upbringing and his time in WWII. Through his early life growing up in FDR America, Rod developed his views into one where empathy and compassion was the cornerstone of his beliefs
Read 19 tweets

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WaterBluSky
@MsMariaT
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This will not be easy to explain away. A sex trafficker has presidential access. Does she have biz deals in China (a pipeline)? Does she have biz w/Trump family (Ivanka and her “spas” trademarks)?
I’m reading that she sold the spa(s) away to another woman in 2013, yet on social media posts prior to the sale, it was evident that women were being trafficked out of the location that the bust occurred, during the time she was owner.
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Quallis
@You_Need_A_Lift
After repeated requests, I've caved in and agreed to produce a list of works, neither normative nor aspiring to exhausitivity; but rather, that of my personal favorites, to whom I owe the most.
Works will be separated into Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and then by century.
The world's first poet is also its greatest.
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are poems, first and foremost composed of the finest poetry one can imagine.

I've posted an introduction to Homer's style before, warosu.org/lit/thread/S10…, but I'll add a few remarks here.
Homer writes in the context of ~750 BC aristocracy, which forms a Mediterranean-wide network of Greek alliances, brought together by a common lifestyle, a shared religion based in Delphi, and a real or imagined common ancestry; the memory of Mycenaean greatness is still fresh.
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Clara Jeffery
@ClaraJeffery
Remember Scott Walker? His attack on teachers and public sector unions, the capital protests, his narrow recall victory, his Presidential run? He's in the fight for his political life and I don't see people talking about it much #here: motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
If Walker goes down—to a school superintendent no less—it would be one of the most symbolic upsets. Maybe more than even Cruz loosing to Beto. motherjones.com/politics/2018/…
Also a new governor would be able to help roll back the kinds of voting rights attacks that cost the Dems the state in 2016: motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
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Darren Mooney
@Darren_Mooney
With the upcoming Neil-Gaiman-orchestrated "Dreaming" line at DC comics, I thought it might be time to revisit Neil Gaiman's wonderful "Sandman."

(Sandman: Overture #1.)
It's funny, I was just thinking today about the late sixties paranoia about cultural psychosis and insanity.

Modern pop culture is similarly fixated on the idea of insanity rippling through the popular unconscious.

"Legion", "Westworld", etc.

(Sandman: Overture #2.)
It's almost surprising that it took as long as it did for Gaiman to write for "Doctor Who."

Gaiman's abstract/symbolic cosmos is very much in keeping with Russell T. Davies' approach to concepts like "the Time War."

(Sandman: Overture #2.)
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Just Clair
@clair4k
Jeffrey Bezos' propoganda machine gearing up at the expense of #Amazon warehouse workers.

#BoycottAmazon #BoycottWaPo

Here's something you won't see published in @washingtonpost:

thesun.co.uk/news/5004230/a…
Here's something else you won't see because democracy dies in #Amazon warehouses.

thestreet.com/story/14312539…
Will you find crackerjack reporting on this in @washingtonpost?

recode.net/2017/11/9/1662…
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Souvik Mukherjee
@svmke1
1/ Manu (The progenitor of Humankind)
All different races of Mankind are derived from Manu and Shradha. The current Manu is Vaivasvata Manu.
2/ The word Manu literary means man but it is a title given to the progenitor of mankind. According to Hindu Puranas there are many kalpas (One day of Lord Brahma the creator) and each Kalpa has 14 manvantara and each manvatara has one manu. So basically each Kalpa has 14 Manus.
3/ The current manu of the present manvantara is Shraddhadeva or Vaivasvata Manu of this current Kalpa. He is the son of Vivasvat (Probably Surya) and is therefore also known as Manu-vaivasvata.
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