Going the Distance
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Garnet Hertz’s OutRun video-gaming vehicle has made quite the journey – from a lab in the Calit2 Building to the pages of this month’s Popular Science magazine.
Calit2 academic associate Hertz, an artist in residence and research scientist in the Department of Informatics at UCI, built the OutRunproject in the Calit2 Sensor Technology Lab when he was a postdoctoral scholar. The project was funded by the Calit2-affiliated Center for Computer Games and Virtual Worlds.
OutRun is a mixed-reality game platform that combines a classic arcade driving game with a real-world electric vehicle, resulting in a video game system that can actually be driven outside an arcade. Custom software built into the windshield of the system transforms the physical environment outside the car into an 8-bit video game that guides the driver.
Before its high-profile national press debut, OutRun had already travelled as far as Denmark, where it was displayed at the NEXT Festival in the city of Aarhus. It was also widely exhibited throughout California – at UCI’s Beall Center for Art + Technology, the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, the Zero One Art Festival in San Jose, and the IndieCade game festival in Culver City.
Hertz is pleased with the project’s trajectory. “It's nice when projects start taking on a life of their own – in this case, it's reached a wide audience through a mainstream publication. It was also important to go beyond having something with popular appeal; popularity allows a project to disseminate, but the complexity is a way for it to be memorable and have impact,” he said.
“And thanks to Calit2 for supporting me in this project. The vehicle couldn't have been produced without the space provided by the institute.”
-- Anna Lynn Spitzer