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DESC 9180 Designing Virtual Worlds

DESC 9180 Designing Virtual Worlds. Coordinator: Prof. Mary Lou Maher Kathryn Merrick Owen Macindoe Course website: http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~kkas0686/teaching.html. About the Lecturers…. Outline of Today’s Lecture. Administrative information Lecture plan

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DESC 9180 Designing Virtual Worlds

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  1. DESC 9180 Designing Virtual Worlds Coordinator: Prof. Mary Lou Maher Kathryn Merrick Owen Macindoe Course website: http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~kkas0686/teaching.html

  2. About the Lecturers…

  3. Outline of Today’s Lecture • Administrative information • Lecture plan • Introduction to designing virtual worlds: • What is this course about? • Basic concepts

  4. Administrative Information • Course website (slides, tutorials, readings): http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~kkas0686/teaching.html • Consultation times: • Tuesday 5:00 – 5:45pm • PhD and Visiting Scholars Office on Mezzanine Floor • E-mail: kathryn@arch.usyd.edu.au omacindoe@gmail.com

  5. Lectures & Studio, Room 313 • Lecture: 6-7pm, Tuesdays • Lecture • Discussion of assigned reading materials • Studio: 7-9pm Tuesdays • Tutorials • Individual exercises • Design project development

  6. General Information • Lectures notes: available on the webpage • Readings: available as PDFs or books from the Architecture library (reserve section) • Discussions sessions: will be related to readings announced the previous week

  7. Lecture Plan (Owen)

  8. Lecture Plan (Kathryn)

  9. Course Topics • What are virtual worlds? • What are the basic elements of virtual experience? • What are the basic design elements?

  10. Course Topics • Sense of place & presence • Virtual world styles and metaphors • Virtual world applications: • Scientific visualisation, game technology, CAD, entertainment, and more • Virtual worlds research: • HCI, agents, intelligent environments, sociology • Game design

  11. Graphical Virtual Worlds • Active Worlds: www.activeworlds.com • Second Life: www.secondlife.com • Moove Online, IMVU, vMTV, and numerous MMOGs.

  12. Game-Focused Worlds

  13. Socially-Focused Worlds

  14. Assessment Overview • Task 1: “Impossible places”(individual) • 15% Design and implementation • 10% Report • 5% Presentation • Task 2:“You versus the world” (group) • 25% Design and implementation • 10% Group report • 10% Group planning (individual mark) • 5% Presentation • Paper review (10%) • Tutorial participation (10%)

  15. Tutorial Participation • Attend tutorials! http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/documents/latesub-attendance.pdf • Ask questions! • Complete the tutorial exercises • Be active in critiques

  16. Design Project 1 (Individual) • Design and implement an “impossible social space” in Second Life • One or more areas for communicating with others, either casually or formally • Each student will need to purchase their own land, which will be reused for the group assignment

  17. Design Project 1 (Individual) • Informal critiques on August 21st, 7pm • Final design due on August 28th, 6pm with • Report discussing your design • Short presentation summarising design The assessment criteria include: • Establishment of a sense of the space’s function • Consideration of Second Life interaction norms • Effective use of building primitives • Presence of elements that accentuate the design’s “virtual” nature • Quality and consistency of the design

  18. Design Project 2 (Group) • “You versus the World!” Design and implement a game in Second Life in which the environment is the primary antagonist • The design brief is to create a dynamic game environment that presents challenges for players to overcome • The design must make use of the interactive elements in Second Life (scripting in LSL)

  19. Design Project 2 (Group) • Informal critiques on October 16th, 7pm • Final design is due on October 23rd, 6pm • Report discussing your group design • Group process mark • Presentation and demonstration The assessment criteria include: • Establishment of a sense place and consistency • Demonstrated use of simple scripted behaviours • Demonstrated use of agent technology • Demonstrated use of advanced building techniques • Exposition of a plot line

  20. Paper Reviews and Discussion • Choose a paper from the virtual worlds literature and present it in front of the class (September 2nd, 6pm) • You will have 8 minutes of presentation time and 2 minutes of question time • You will also be asking questions of two classmates • Your questions will count towards your tutorial participation mark

  21. University Policies • Late submission: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/CS/postgrad/late_submit.shtml • Plagiarism: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/CS/postgrad/plagiarism.shtml

  22. Questions?

  23. What is Cyberspace? • “A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” William Gibson, Neuromancer • “Cyberspace is the "place" where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. The place between the phones. The indefinite place out there, where the two of you, two human beings, actually meet and communicate.” Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown • The Internet is only one part Cyberspace in popular culture: Neo’s view of The Matrix

  24. Metaphors for the Internet • The metaphor we use for the Internet influences how we think about and relate to it (Stefik, 2006): • Information Superhighway (Traveller) • Digital Library (Keeper of Knowledge) • Electronic Mail (Messenger) • Electronic Marketplace (Trader) • Digital World (Adventurer)

  25. Definition: Virtual • “Being in essence or effect, but not in fact.” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 1989)

  26. Definitions: World • “An environment that its inhabitants regard as being self-contained.” (Richard Bartle, Designing Virtual Worlds)

  27. Virtual Reality & Virtual Worlds • Textual Worlds • Graphical Worlds • Fishtank VR • Projection VR • Head-based VR • Hand-held VR (Sherman, Understanding Virtual Reality)

  28. In Next Week’s Lecture… Introduction to virtual worlds: • Historical overview of virtual worlds • Key elements of virtual experience • Interface of virtual worlds • Design metaphors • Review of current virtual world examples

  29. In Today’s Tutorial… • Fill in the skill-set survey • If you have an ARCH account: • Set up a Second Life account • Login to Second Life • Visit the course website: • Read the Curtis paper on the course web site for discussion next week

  30. Bibliography • Bartle, R.A. (2003) Designing Virtual Worlds, New Riders, Indianapolis • Gibson, W. (1984) Neuromancer, Ace Books, New York • Sherman, W.R. and Craig, A.B. (2003) Understanding Virtual Reality, Morgan Kaufmann, Boston • Stefik, M. (1997) Internet Dreams: Archetypes, Myths, and Metaphors, MIT Press, Boston • Sterling, B. (1992) The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/101

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