Tag Archives: workshop

3D and game editors, Academic, Architecture, board game, Conference, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, publication, virtual heritage, visualisation, workshop, , , , ,

“Workshopping Board Games for Space, Place, and Culture” revised chapter, authored with Juan Hiriart, for “Playing Place” (edited by Medina Lasansky and Chad Randl, MIT Press) sent off today. Each chapter has a 1000 word limit, I believe. Took me some time to trim this! Great to work with Juan on a chapter, I think our different strengths blend well. When (or if?) the book appears on MIT Press I will add another post, the list of authors and topics looks really good, possibly essential reading if you are into boardgames, or are not, but want to know why so many people are …

Workshopping Board Games for Space, Place, and Culture

Conveying built heritage values and historical knowledge through boardgame design may seem an odd decision. Communicating space, place, and culture through play is a challenge let alone through a medium inherently incapable of evoking the direct experience of inhabitation and architecture as a spatial art. Boardgames are engaging, social, quick to make, and fast to learn, intuitive or nuanced. From the complex to the spontaneous, boardgames can be effective, visceral tools for cultural immersion, challenging cultural assumptions and preconceptions, encouraging discussion and collaboration between players, provoking insight and enjoyment with simple props or intricate rules.

The following explains our experience hosting participative design workshops with historians, archaeologists, and heritage professionals. In small groups of three to four people, participants determine the design decisions, discussing and solving problems that often arise in an iterative process where historical research, game design, and play-testing both blend and butt heads.

game prototyping workshop, Dhdownunder 2019

Digital Humanities, , ,

Today I ran a game prototyping workshop, at Dhdownunder 2019, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.

Prototyping and Pitching Playfully Serious Games

I gave a very quick slide presentation of basic game concepts, slides here: https://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/2019-dhdownunder-game-prototyping-workshop

There were 4 groups, a total of only 9 people, and not a single digital tool or device ussed (I know it was Dhdownunder!) but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and in less than 4 hours developed the following prototypes:

Wheeling, Dealing & Stealing

David wanted to explore how games can communicate data privacy and ethics issues. His paper prototype was Monopoly-esque but also like a casino dealer’s wheel. Each player’s goal is to gain as much information about each other as they can while keeping their own profile and information unknown to the other players.

Burning Rubber

This group of four developed a collaborative  (Mad Max meets Inferno) drive across Australia board game, fighting and containing fires (and starting fires and fire breaks), depending on your character role. Entertainingly, when you finish fighting fires you take a plane to New Zealand!

I suggested it could also be called MAGA (Make Australia Green Again!) and everytime a fire took hold a tv personality on video would appear, shouting “You’re fired!”..

Heritage Road Tour

Hafiz and Bernadette (an archaeologist at the University of Newcastle) developed a game where your aim is to visit cultural heritage sites in Australia and gather local knowledge to progress further. You can be a hipster, German tourist, child, or grey nomad.

The Seven Seas of SQL (pron. Sequel)

 

Alan wanted to teach Structured Query Language using a game. These two developed a game with a strong pirate element, you have to move your boat across the board and answer questions, only some of which are SQL-related. There were various tactics like walk the plank, and stand on one leg, and I am still not sure how they all relate to SQL (not to mention the Kraken) but the players found it all very entertaining.

I briefly also wondered if it could be renamed Structured Quest Language, and whether the pirate theme would work better with R (Learning AARGH, me hearties!)

 

 

 

 

 

Free Workshop: 3D to Mixed Reality: From Regard3D to HoloLens (23.11.2018)

Announcements, augmented reality, Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, workshop, , , , ,

3D to Mixed Reality: From Regard3D to HoloLens

(register on Eventbrite) Friday 23 Nov 2-4PM Curtin University Library Level 5

3D models adopted/generated from image-based modelling techniques are increasingly used in research, shared online, incorporated into digital archives, and developed as assets for 3D games and for Virtual Reality applications. On the other hand, various HMDs (Head-Mounted-Display) offer Mixed Reality experiences; help us to experience and interact with virtual environments and objects via gesture, speech, gaze, touch and movement. This workshop will demonstrate how to make 3D models from photographs with free and open source software (FOSS, Regard3D), how to import a 3D model to a specific Mixed Reality HMD (Microsoft HoloLens), and you will also learn how the HoloLens can interact with the 3D model in mixed reality.

We will be using the following software:

  • Regard3D
  • MeshLab
  • Unity3D
  • HoloToolkit

What to bring:

You can just register and attend the workshop. However, it is better to bring your own laptop/device, preferably with the following software pre-installed (installation may take an hour but is free of charge):

Please register to secure your place, and cancel your ticket if you are no longer able to attend, as places are limited!

Game prototyping workshop in Turin

Academic, Digital Humanities, summer school, , , ,

At the Politecnico di Torino, Turin Italy, I gave a talk on Monday in their summer school on Cities Cultural heritage and Digital Humanities, on Virtual heritage and publication issues.

Yesterday I ran a workshop on game prototyping especially for history and heritage games.

The slides from the workshop are here

I am particularly interested in developing the conceptual framework for teaching this, on slides 3-4 (with a better diagram!)

CAA 2017 Other session “Mechanics, Mods and Mashups” ACCEPTED!

Announcements, archaeology, digital heritage, heritage, Presentation, Symposium, virtual heritage, visualisation, , ,

My proposal to the 2017 Computer Applications and Quantitive Methods in Archaeology (CAA) international conference, March 14th and 16th, 2017 at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA) has been accepted.The below will be updated when I speak to the co-organisers but we are thinking of a morning presentation and (possible) game pitch, and an aftertoon work on key ideas..

CAA2017 Atlanta: Other Session

Mechanics, Mods and Mashups: Games of the Past for the Future Designed by Archaeologists
Organizers: Erik Champion, Michael Nitsche, Natalie Underberg-Goode

Are you a fan of Assassin’s Creed but upset over how it could have made history exciting without having to employ and manipulate central historical characters? Love Lara Croft: Tomb Raider if only the tomb-raiding (stealing) mechanics could be replaced by something more meaningful? Wish that the Total War Series allowed you to employ agent modeling to test competing archaeological theories of migration, colonization and invasion or just to improve its historical accuracy? Dream you could use the language, graphic vision and immersion of Far Cry Primal in the classroom to explain (through engaging interaction) the Mesolithic rather than primarily use it as a backstage to fight semi- believable creatures? Then this workshop is for you. Correction. This workshop is BY you.

Archaeologists and people of a historical persuasion:

  • Either take a game with an inspiring concept, technique or mechanic..
  • OR extrapolate a current or past game to a game or simulation of the future
  • OR they share their vision of a game or simulation that reveals, expresses or augments their own research.At the workshop the writers will either:
  • Bring their own designs, video cut-scenes, and illustrations and media depicting what this new vision would look like
  • OR have some form of play-testing demonstration, cards, or illustrations or physical play-throughs (preferably involving the CAA workshop audience) revealing how this new level, mod or gameplay episode COULD be experienced or how it could be revealed.The writers will:
    Ask the audience to play through or role-play the actions that would be in the creative piece.

    The audience will:
    Give the writers feedback ideas and nominate the best presentation in terms of fun and engagement, imaginative ideas, and archaeological relevance (in promoting archaeology, teaching archaeology or extending archaeological scholarship).

    Potential tools:
    Gameplay cards, game prototyping tools, scenes or videos from a 3D editor or game editor (Unity, Unreal, Blender), board games as prototypes, playing cards, physical artifacts that are role-played by the presenter, illustrations, slideshows, game editors (like the SIMS: https://www.thesims.com/en_GB) used to make films (Machinima), roleplaying videos, flowcharts, interactive fiction (like https://twinery.org/). We will provide a fuller list of tools and examples to potential attendees before the workshop.

    Equipment:
    PC with sound and display, some floor space to move around in for physical re-enactments. Tables or some form of desk to provide written or graphical feedback.

    Length:
    Participants: 26 maximum (ideally) where 6 present. We require half an hour a presenter so three hours for 6 presenters, 6 hours a whole day if we want to go to 12 presenters.
    Ideally the non-presenting audience is not too large, preferably up to 20.

    Outcome:
    We will approach a creative publisher (Liquid Books, University of Michigan Press or other) to provide an online or printable output of the demonstrations and the audience feedback.
    We would also like to invite presenters – if they can make it – to a workshop at DIGRA2017 Melbourne Australia to test out their demonstrations and play-throughs to game academics.

    References
    Champion, E. (2012) Game Mods: Design, Theory and Criticism. Entertainment Technology Centre Press.

Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media

3D and game editors, Announcements, augmented reality, Biofeedback, design, digital heritage, game, heritage, HIVE, Presentation, Symposium, talks, tracking, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , , , , , , ,

Our internal small grant (School of Media Culture and Creative Arts, Curtin University) was successful!

Here is a synopsis of the application (redacted):

Digital Heritage, Scholarly Making & Experiential Media

We propose

  • A one-day workshop [Friday 26 August 2016, HIVE] with 3D, Digital APIs, UNITY and Augmented Reality workshops.
  • We will present our projects at that workshop and a month later meet to review progress and each other’s publications and grants.
  • Then we will organize with the Library and other GLAM partners a cultural hackathon in Perth where programmers and other parties spend a day creating software prototypes based on our ideas from the workshop. The best project will win a prize but the IP will be open source and contestants may be invited into the research projects or related grant applications.
  • Equipment to build prototypes and showcases for future grants. Part of the money will also go into Virtual Reality headsets, and Augmented Reality equipment that can be loaned out from the MCCA store to postgraduates and students.

The above would help progress the below research projects:

  • Another need is to develop the maker-space and digital literacy skills in information studies and the Library Makerspace, to develop a research area in scholarly making.
  • Another project is to integrate archives and records with real-time visualisation such as in the area of digital humanities scholarship, software training in digital humanities, and hands on workshops and crafting projects at the Curtin University Library.
  • Another project is to explore how SCALAR can integrate 3D and Augmented Reality and create a framework for cloud-based media assets that could dynamically relate to an online scholarly publication and whether that journal in printed form, with augmented reality trackers and head mounted displays could create multimedia scholarly journals where the multimedia is dynamically downloaded from the Internet so can be continually updated. Can this work inform future developments of eSPACE and interest in ‘scholarly making’ and makerspaces?
  • There is potential to create an experiential media research cluster with the new staff of SODA, to explore immersive and interactive media that can capture emotions and affects of participants or players. This requires suitable equipment.

Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites, Arkansas 2015 and Los Angeles 2016

Academic, Architecture, Conference, Digital Humanities, game, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , ,

The NEH Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, “Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites,” was recommended for funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The principle investigators are Associate Professor Alyson Gil and Dr Lisa Snyder.
I will be a guest lecturer, the first 1 week workshop will be hosted at the Arkansas State University around 8-14 June 2015, the 2nd event, a 3 day symposium, will be hosted at UCLA, (Los Angeles), 6-9 June 2016.

Summary: A one week institute with a follow up workshop held over two summers, hosted by Arkansas State University and the University of California, Los Angeles, to consider the theoretical and ethical issues associated with three dimensional modeling of cultural heritage sites and objects.

Guest Lecturers include:
Diane Favro UCLA
Bernie Frischer Indiana University
Chris Johanson UCLA
Maurizio Forte Duke University
Ruth Hawkins Arkansas State University
Angel Nieves Hamilton College
John Clarke University of Texas at Austin
Erik Champion, Curtin University (am I the only one from outside of the States?)

 

CFP: Workshop at Digital Humanities 2014, Lausanne, 8 July 2014

Academic, Conference, Digital Humanities, , , , , , , , ,

Are we there yet? Functionalities, synergies and pitfalls of major digital humanities infrastructures

DH2014 Workshop: Maximum Number of Participants: 30 (flexible)
Date: Tuesday, July 8th 2014, 13.00-16.00
Facilitator(s):

  • Agiatis Benardou, Research Associate, Digital Curation Unit, IMIS-Athena Research Centre, Athens, Greece
  • Erik Champion, Professor of Cultural Visualisation at Media Culture and Creative Arts, Humanities Faculty of Curtin University, Perth, Australia
  • Lorna Hughes, University of Wales Professor and Chair in Digital Collections, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, United Kingdom

Overview:
This workshop aims to bring together leading scholars involved in major digital scholarly infrastructure projects such as DARIAH, NeDiMAH, Europeana Cloud, ARIADNE, 3D ICONS, EHRI, DASISH, LARM, CLARIN, DiRT and DHCommons, in dialogue with practising digital humanists. Topics to be addressed include cultural heritage and digital media infrastructures, tools and services; the creation and curation of humanities digital resources; social and institutional issues of Digital Humanities infrastructures; and finally, lessons learnt from the role of digital humanities in pedagogy and academic curricula. It will provide an opportunity for humanists to find out about cutting edge developments on major digital infrastructure initiatives in Europe and beyond, and to make their views matter on future developments in this field.
The workshop aims to go beyond a description of project presentations. It will seek to provide an analytical framework that could contribute to a critical understanding of the current state of digital infrastructures vis-à-vis the potential of digital archives, tools and services for humanities scholarship, by addressing the following questions:
1. What are the objectives of each digital infrastructure project, and what are its intended users?
2. What are the functionalities and outcomes it aims to provide, and how do they serve the overarching goal of supporting and transforming humanities research?
3. To what extent were the needs of humanities researchers considered, and how is the digital humanities research community involved in the project?
4. Are there potential synergies, and actual collaboration, with other infrastructure projects? Conversely, are there any overlaps?
5. What are the main lessons learned from the life of the project so far? What are the pitfalls and potential failures, and what improvements could be achieved?

Audience:
The half-day workshop is expected to be of interest both to those involved in digital research infrastructure work, and to digital humanists who may benefit from the use and contribute to shaping the plans for future developments of digital infrastructures, tools and services.
Proposals should consist of an abstract of up to 500 words and a short bio which should be submitted by e-mail to: a.benardou@dcu.gr
The submission deadline is April 30th 2014.
The proposals will be evaluated and selected by a program committee of international experts. The length allocated to each contribution (10-15 minutes) will be decided by the program committee, depending on the number of contributions and the strength of the proposals.
Notifications regarding the acceptance of proposals will be sent out by May 14th, 2014

ALLC small grants award for “Cultural Heritage, Creative Tools and Archives” workshop

Conference, Digital Humanities, virtual heritage, , , , , , ,

Email from today:

Dear Erik,

We are happy to inform you that EADH (formerly ALLC) has decided to grant your proposal for the workshop Cultural Heritage, Creative Tools and Archives.

In a nutshell:

We proposed a 2 day workshop involving speakers from Denmark and Greece and other European countries; participants will be drawn in the first instance from DARIAH, ARIADNE and NeDiMAH, with the addition of leading digital academics from outside these projects. We envisage that the workshop will lead to closer cooperation between members and help attendees develop tools and methods that can be used by the wider community, to address a communication gap in 3Drelated Digital Humanities at a European level. This event will be case-study based, participatory in approach, and workshop-based rather than lecturer-driven. Sessions will be conducted with support from key participants / moderators.

This will be an introductory workshop, suitable for both recently started and experienced digital scholars, and aiming to introduce participants to the main tools, techniques, and resources for digital humanities in the field of digital heritage, tools and archives. Workshop methodology and enabling resources will be standardized so that it can be taught by a number of different scholars, and would last 2 days, with the possibility of a social event the night before (that would be funded by us).

Time of completion: 16-17, 23-24, or 27-28 May 2013.

Venue: Denmark, Copenhagen or Aarhus.