Mayan Long Count Calculator
2003
This piece was created in lieu of a thesis paper I was supposed to write for a Pre-Columbian Art class. I was interested in pursuing an educational piece that had entertainment value as well, and learning some new techniques in the process.
The piece involves a Gregorian to Mayan Long Count Date Converter written in Actionscript. The user can translate today’s date, or enter their own and convert that. The date wheels then rotate to the specific symbols for that day, display the meanings of the two related symbols and then print out the resulting date in Long Count format using the Mayan numerical system. The loader of this piece also contained a “Ball Game” reference where you could pick up a glyph and “bang” it through a stone hoop. Score!
The images of The Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque on the title screen were created through the modeling, texturing, and lighting of the same structure in Maya 5.0. I then brought the renders into Photoshop and scuffed them up a bit and added some extra textures. The stone hoop was also create in 3d.
The Glyphs were redrawn in Illustrator then were given a style using Photoshop (as were the wheels). The results were compiled in Flash and then animated and displayed using Actionscript.