Update

Well our group completed the report and the presentation. Both of which I think went quite well.  What arose from the presentation was to think of a good way to do user testing and to gauge the scariness  of the story. We had discussed about how scary we could make the story, while we can sort of speculate how scary it would be for a child its a bit hard to tell. So were going to need to work that out fully.

Report

Intended audience and experience:

The intended audience for our project is kids aged 8 – 10 year olds. This age group allows us to add content that may be a little more scary, exciting and thought provoking than an age group that is below 8 years old. Kids are also interesting to work with as they have short attention spans and different ways of thinking. There is also a children’s exhibit in the Ipswich art gallery which is another reason for focusing on children. User testing will be crucial to make sure the children are interested.

The experience we want the children to have is a fun interactive experience where the user fields apart of the virtual environment. The user should get a feeling that they are in control of what is happening, as well as get the feeling they are in the environment.

We intend this experience to happen using a combination of sight, sound and feel. Sight will be used to have visuals to focus upon and then control. Sound is going to be used creatively to make the environment seem more realistic. And feeling will be used to add to the given scene by having a fan blow near a cliff for example. Also by theming the space will the user be able to feel part of the adventure.

Project Constraints:

The project will have several constraints associated with it. Time is one constraint which will influence what can and can’t be done. Bad time management on a project can lead to it being unable to be completed. Space in another issue as the Ipswich art gallery space is limited this means that if our project is to big then the project will not be able to go into the gallery or the project would have to be modifed. Technology is another constraint, technology will limit us if there is not enough equipment between all the groups and also limititations and problems with equipment need to be addresses.

Background Material

 Background material:

There are various works based on virtual environments. There are different types of virtual environments such as virtual reality, games and interactive art installations to name a few. One interactive art work called handsight is relevant to our project as it involves manipulating a virtual environment with the use of an eye placed within a glass bowl. When the eye is moved around the bowl the user can view around the virtual world projected on the wall. As our project involves traveling thought the story via movement or a devise the Handsight project is a very relevant project. Our ideas build on the Handsight project by having the user manipulate the space with there own movement whether it be by waving your arms or by moving through the space rather then having a single rotatory movement to view the virtual environment. Because of this the user gets a greater feeling of involvement especially when that movement makes an impact on where the character goes and what the character does.

Other works have also been developed that use motion tracking devises are Untitled 5 by Cimille Utterback. This project detects physical movement and creates a changing wall projection from this. This is related to our project we also want a project to react to what a user does. But differs because of the experience we want the users to have. Our project desired to make a complete environment with the use of audio and a themed environment.

Links: Untitled 5. http://www.camilleutterback.com/

Here is another link that I am still looking through that has some information about motion tracking. And 3D interface design. Search for motion tracking I think.

 http://eprints.cs.vt.edu/archive/00000548/01/3dui_presence.pdf

 Little Red Riding Hood: Story and meaning.

Week 4: Group Meeting Progress

Kids attention span.

Movement.

Theming environment from the outside could be really interesting could have different areas they have to move to at certain points in the story. Could instead of having the moving of the arms of an item the user could walk on sensors on the group that are disguised as paths that lead to different themed areas like the forest or grandmas house. The different places you walk changes the position of the character on the projection. This is complete with cool sound, fans and stuff to add dimension.  Problems: Need a big area mainly.

Character introduction, maybe as they are introduced like in need for speed most wanted with a cool animation.

Mood: Creepy, Cross genre characters.  Such as introducing Aladin orShrek into the little red riding hood story. Moral at the end.

Want the mood to be as immersing as games are.

Focus fun.

Need to do usability testing with kids to make sure they understand whats going on the whole time.l

Hands on screen to show where the user is.

How to use introduction sequence.
Story should be scary but no to scary.

Virtual Environments

a computer-generated, three-dimensional representation of a setting in which the user of the technology perceives themselves to be and within which interaction takes place; also called [virtual landscape], [virtual space], [virtual world]. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/virtual%20environment

Doesn’t have to be 3D as in a 3D animation or a 3D world can be such as a sound room.

Found at interesting article relating to virtual environment.

06.02.2007: Dienstag, 14:15 in D-220

“Creating Dynamic, Interactive Virtual Environments in support of Interactive Storytelling”
Kristopher J. Blom, Universität Hamburg

The compelling nature of the immersive displays of Virtual Reality are enough to bring an initial interest and excitement over the presented environments. Virtual environments from the early development of the field were simple and static. However, today’s participants/visitors, used to the lively, provoking environments of modern computer games, become disinterested quickly in such static environments. This is due to the lack of support for building such dynamic environments and the lack of financial resources to code dynamics by hand as happens for games.

This talk presents research on developing a method for the development of dynamic, interactive virtual environments. The goal of this research is a system that supports the creation of environments, which move beyond the static environments of current Virtual Reality. However, the addition of simple animations is not enough. The dynamic components need to provide methods for interacting with them. Perhaps the ultimate dynamic interactive environments are those of the emerging Interactive Storytelling area. Interactive Storytelling requires environments of high interest and stories are necessarily dynamic. For this reason, the ultimate goal of this research is the support of Interactive Storytelling.

The research results of the work to date will be presented. The previous developments for creating dynamic, interactive virtual environments will be described. The current status of the research will be briefly presented. Finally, the progress of the different research and projects on this topic at the university will be outlined.

 http://imve.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/talks.htm#BlomTalk

The most common virtual environment would more than likely be computer games but this is not extending the interaction. Another option in a virtual environment is possibly eliminating a sense. Such as removing any image projection, or removing sound or just changing a common thing within virtual environment.

Telling a story without the use of images would be interesting. Such as using sounds within a dark room with different lighting as well as audio reacting to where they are moving. Surround sound and light would make this a very interesting project.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths:

• Ok at doing some code editing if i have some examples to work from (this is not to say i am great at doing this)
• I have done some database work
• Looked into quite a few different technologies that uq has to offer. Eg the Smart Board, Mimeo etc.
• Write ups
• compilation work

Weaknesses:

• creating digital drawings
• sketching
• graphic design

Week 3: Group Work

Presentation Ideas.

• 3 Ideas we got in the folder.
• Other works in the field. Relevant works.
• Lots of sketching, Interface, Interactions etc.
• Started with eyetoy. Software based web cam with a different name. Software allows the movement tracking
• Individual Strength and weaknesses
• RFID shoes
• Pointer Device
• Motion Tracking
• Pressure Pads
• Virtual Suit
• EZIO Board Stuff.

More choose your own idea work:

• Mini Map. Queded photo’s that take a picture.
• Red hood for little red riding hood. Picks up the red.
• Good sound work. Wolf behind you. Fan or something. Manipulate suit. Room lights dim when they walk into the forest etc. Surround sound.
• Slides or director program to show the navigation we want. Screen shots.
• Mini game embeeded or separate.
• More story ideas.
• Drag and Drop avatar or something. Drag drop heads and clothes.
• Complete Sound Scape. Stepping of into something else.
• Equator Project. Equator.ac.uk

Some things to consider:

Going back an exploring more options based around virtual environments. Do some research onto what has already been done. Lots of sketches. Possibly create some new ideas for complete projects.

Some questions to answer.

Why do we want to do what we are doing. Justification in a sense?

Who is the Target Audience?

What experience do we want for the user?

What is Virtual Environments?

Week 3: Programs

Max/MSP and Jitter: Max/MSP is a graphical environment for music, audio, and multimedia. This means you can create your own software using a GUI and connected with patch cords. Jitter is a extension of the Max/MSP programming environment. This is good as it supports real time manipulation of video amongst other things.

This sounds promising as we want to be able to interact with a video or animation in real time.

Website: http://www.cycling74.com/products/jitter

vvvv: Is a tool for real time video synthesis, it is designed to handle large media works that have physical interfaces, real time motion graphics and audio and video. Uses visual programming language which is nice. It works in real time.

This sounds like it has some possibilities the website is http://vvvv.org/tiki-index.php

Week 3: Newsgroup and ideas

 

After Andrew sent an email to the newsgroup relating to the eyetoy and motion capture we got some very useful responses. For example we now know that the interface manipulating is done with the use of software. Some possible programs to help with this are. idea

Max/MSP and Jitter
Eyesweb
VVVV
Processing

Team Thunderface the team from studio 4 did some motion tracking within flash. A group member from team Thunderface Anthony also said that you can use a webcam to manipulate objects within flash.

A C library called OpenCV can also do camera based work however this would be very difficult.

Other ideas discussed are also having an in game avatar that moves around depending on your movement in real time. This avatar would be created by the user eg choose hair colour, male or female some clothes etc. This would have to be done with some sort of suit or gloves or something along those lines.

More Ideas

Today Hugh and I explored some other ideas for the story book. One idea was having it like a 4d movie in terms of having wind blowing when the character is near a cliff water sprayed on the user when they are near a river. Or a small branch hitting them in the forest or something. Obviously we don’t want to hurt people but this will just give the user a feeling of being in the story.

Possible story lines for a new story could include

• A fantasy such as a Elf and Orc adventure where the elf has to survive in a forest infested with Orcs. You play a captain who has to lead a squad and make decisions to get them out of the forest of destroy the enemies.
• A star wars adventure where you play a Jedi who has to avoid or defeat droids maybe even another jedi.
• Might want to consider a more general story that might appeal to girls and boys equally.

So for a Jedi adventure you could have a lightsaber with sensors in it to choose directions or triggering events with the use of maybe infrared.  The controller could have other buttons on it for the use of an inventory.

Another way of moving could be with say a set of boots and on the floor there are sensors hidden such as possibly infrared again so when they walk over this part it triggers something. While this is good I think it might need a little more to it to keep the children constantly interested. Whereas with the idea above if they are swinging it around it should keep them entertained. A combination of both could also work here.