tagged: sblx

i had spent a lot of time in front of a computer. the stakes had been high. i had steeled myself not just for the countdown to going live, but for fire-fighting after. but there i was, looking at our ‘interactive’ working perfectly, automated into the wider ‘show’, and the thought hit me: i could go. i could spend a morning not in front of a computer. i could spend a morning not in a chair. and a friend replied “of course – you want to go hug a tree? lets hike in the redwoods”.

diary | 07 feb 2026 | tagged: adventures · sblx

there is some satisfaction in working hard on something and see it out in the world, especially at the scale of a building. but ultimately, that’s a private satisfaction; perhaps it was for nothing.

well, when you hear the plaza in front of you erupt into cheers due to peoples investment in the thing you made? you know you’ve done something meaningful. doubly so when half the crowd boo! in terms of interaction, it was simple. but oh boy did we serve people’s fandom.

it’s a hit!

diary | 05 feb 2026 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

no longer testing in the dead of night. we are live. here in the photo – rendering machine rendering, hot backup rendering, control machine connected and keeping everything in sync. beyond the photo – our connection to the internet is good, our servers are handling the load.

it works!

diary | 05 feb 2026 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

night one: line check, done. night two: output check… done, and it looks great, runs great. whoop! such a relief, so happy.

diary | 03 feb 2026 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

arrived on-site, and voilà: what had been on a screen in front of me is now there, monumental. and looking really good! vibrant colours, precise mapping. best of all: the line check worked first time. which is want you want always, but it’s a whole-body want when you’ve been on an 11 hour flight, it’s now the night, and that night is eight hours behind where you woke up.

complete with a san francisco trolley, for the postcard.

diary | 02 feb 2026 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

we’re rendering 3840x7406 and slicing that onto two 3840x2160 outputs. i’ve already got one of those as my main monitor, as it was the nearest i could get to a ‘retina’ monitor – pixel-doubled at a size where the pixels are small enough to disappear. at desk viewing distances, 24” is already borderline too large, but it works, and there wasn’t anything smaller.

so i went to buy another. no-one makes ones like this any more! 4k is seemingly only for large tvs, or larger gaming monitors. the market for professional productivity didn’t work out!? onto the second-hand market, and a drive across the country.

that done, good to finally see our output directly: every pixel, every frame, any glitch.

diary | 15 jan 2026 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

wireframes only get you so far. real data has a habit of breaking what looked good drawn, and that’s before considering the dynamics will be half the appeal here. so a prototype: set in a webpage, the building to be projection-mapped is carved into regions through which we can cascade audience contributions. at which point you can play with behaviour, throughput, and more.

diary | 27 nov 2025 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences

after a lot of prospective work, a real client brief with a real event at the end of it. tiny team, we wear all the hats, enjoyed working up wireframes.

what event, you ask? oh, only the super bowl.

diary | 20 nov 2025 | tagged: volta · sblx · engaging audiences