1 / 33

Clive Fencott SpIDERStudio School of Computing University of Teesside

A Methodology of Design For Virtual Environments. Clive Fencott SpIDERStudio School of Computing University of Teesside. Introduction. Methodology Particularly content modelling Integration Problems and further research SpIDERStudio Strange Agency Limited. Me. Idle waster

matthew-weiss
Download Presentation

Clive Fencott SpIDERStudio School of Computing University of Teesside

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. A Methodology of Design For Virtual Environments Clive Fencott SpIDERStudio School of Computing University of Teesside

  2. Introduction • Methodology • Particularly content modelling • Integration • Problems and further research • SpIDERStudio • Strange Agency Limited

  3. Me • Idle waster • Poet and performance artist • Formal Methods • Methods Integration research • Virtual Environment Theory • Entrepreneur

  4. What is the problem? • Designing VEs is difficult and time consuming • Have to reconcile engineering and aesthetics • Need methods and tools • That’s why we’re here …

  5. What is a Method? • An underlying model • A language • A process model • Heuristics (Kronlof, 1993)

  6. A VE Process Model

  7. What Underlying Model? • Turing Machines, Lambda Calculus not expressive enough • Interaction Machines • Semiotics

  8. Semiotics • The study of how people find meaning in the world around them • Signs made up of: • Signifier • Signified • Huge body of theory built up from this basic insight

  9. Semiotically Closed Interaction Machines

  10. What Language do we use? • UML on the engineering side • Can Semiotics help us on the aesthetic side? • Yes, but it needs to be adapted for interaction • Do they work together?

  11. A chair looks like a chair:

  12. Interactive Content • but it might also be: • Something to stand on • Something to fight with • Something to buy and sell • A symbol of status, a throne for instance • The meaning paradox: • A chair doesn’t function as a chair • It does function as interactive content

  13. Content Modelling • Theories of: • The meanings people make of interactive content • The types of responses they make as a result • Has to be: • Multi-levelled • Multi-faceted

  14. VE Aesthetics • Agency • Intention • Perceivable Consequence • Narrative Potential • Co-presence • Transformation • Presence

  15. The Problem with Agency

  16. Perceptual Opportunities

  17. Method

  18. Now and Future • Object Aesthetics • POs as OO attributes of content code • Agency at the heart of all VR • Tools don’t support the design of agency • Most tools make implementing agency very difficult at best

  19. SpIDERS • Semiosphere: Interactive Digital Environment Research Studio • Semiosphere: • An ecology of meaning in which differing languages and media interact • Yuri Lotman, a Russian semiotician • Semiotics: • The study of how humans make meaning out of the world around them

  20. What is SpIDERS? • An interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, experimental psychologists and artists and designers • Conduct research into theories of interactive content • Experimental verification of theories • Practical research into the nature of interactive media applications • Particularly computer games

  21. Ethos • There are many ways of investigating the world: • Empirical science • Qualitative methods • Art practice and other humanities based approaches • And so on • They are all of use

  22. Experiments • Predictive content modelling • Genre theory, aesthetics, perceptual opportunities, the semiotics of interaction • Unrealisms • Specialised experimental methods: • Mood and presence • patterns of choice • VR as object of study

  23. Methodology • Specialist technology, e.g.. Eye-tracker: • To correlate focus of attention with observed behaviour

  24. Applications Research • VR as subject of study • People with Dementia (PWD): • The use of Virtual Reality to help PWDs learn new environments • Computer Games for exercise: • Games that respond to exercise bikes etc. • Computer Games and Older Adults

  25. University Spin-out company • Proof of Content: • The analysis of computer games before they are playable

  26. Conclusions • Interactive content a major field for research and commercialisation • Content modelling way behind the technology of interactive content • We are still only at the beginning: • Even computer games are in their infancy

  27. “A Methodology of Design for Virtual Environments” • In: “Developing Future Interactive Systems” • Ed. Sanchez-Segura • Idea Group • 2005

More Related