Category Archives: design

PhD project finally published in article form

design, game, virtual heritage, , , , , , ,

The Adobe Atmosphere virtual environments that were the central part of my PhD thesis, but which I never directly published on (apart from a preliminary teaser in VSMM2003 in Montreal+VR in the Schools) is now  – in nearly full experimental glory or honesty  – available online or (soon) in printed journal form in the journal Virtual Reality (Springer website).

title: The Palenque project: evaluating interaction in an online virtual archaeology site.
authors: Erik Champion, Ian Bishop and Bharat Dave.
url: http://www.springerlink.com/content/y7750p3738878110/
abstract: This case study evaluated the effect on cultural understanding of three different interaction modes, each teamed with a specific slice of the digitally reconstructed environment. The three interaction modes were derived from an initial descriptive theory of cultural learning as instruction, observation and action. A major aim was to ascertain whether task performance was similar to the development of understanding of the cultural context reached by participation in the virtual environment. A hypothesis was that if task performance is equivalent to understanding and engagement, we might be able to evaluate the success of virtual heritage environments (through engagement and education), without having to annoy the user with post-experience questionnaires. However, results suggest interaction in virtual heritage environments is so contextually embedded; subjective post-test questionnaires can still be more reliable than evaluating task performance.

cfp: WHO DESIGNS DESIGN?

Conference, design, ,

WHO DESIGNS DESIGN? Practice, theory and history of participatory design

The Eighth Annual Conference of the German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF) Conference

Venue: Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd
*** October 21-22, 2011 ***

http://www.dgtf.de/tagung2011/english
The main conference language is German. We welcome contributions in English..

April 6: Submission of abstracts on the conference website opens
(www.dgtf.de/conftool) May 9: Submission of abstracts ends July 4:
Notification of acceptance/rejection September 5: Registration for the
conference opens (www.dgtf.de/conftool) October 21-22: DGTF Conference

reminder: I need book chapter proposals for GAME MODS (ETC Press)

design, game, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Call For Book Chapters: Game Mod Design Theory and Criticism

This will be both a practical and reflective book on game-mods, designing, playing and evaluating the quality, success and effectiveness of game engines for modding, individual game mod levels, related tools and techniques, and the social and cultural issues related to the design and use of game mods.

The type of book chapter content I am looking for:
· An overview of what is possible and what is commendable or admirable with exemplars.
· Critiques of game mods and game mod/engine technologies (and reviews of mods as creative and critical and reflective extensions of games and game audiences).
· The ethical and social implications using commercial game engines and the content supplied · A comparison of game mod technologies.
· Case studies (Unreal, Source, Panda 3d, Blender 3D, Neverwinter Nights, Marathon, XNA, Oblivion, Cobalt, Crystal Space, WoW, Halo, Far Cry and Crysis etc, Sims, Jedi Academy, Ogre 3D) etc.
· Feature art and aesthetics.
· Machinima features hindered and helped by mods.
· Review of terrible experiences trying to build game mods. · A feature list to help people choose the right game engine for their mod.
· Some sample chapters on how to get started, tips, quick step tutorials as simple 3D, animation, lighting, behaviors, interface customization.
· The social and cultural implications of using and designing game mods (issues with violent content, cultural empathy, copyright, educational issues and so on).

The publisher will be ETC Press, an academic, open source, multimedia, publishing imprint affiliated with the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and in partnership with Lulu.com The book will be published under a Creative Commons license. For more details about ETC Press refer http://www.etc.cmu.edu.

Time Line

· March 18 2011 Please send me a title and 300 word abstract, the earlier the better! Please email your submission to gamemodbook AT gmail DOT com

· March 25 2011 you should have heard back from me.

· June 10 2011 draft chapters to me.

· And after many drafts and checks and proofs later…by the end of 2011 (optimistically speaking), publication!

Editor:
Associate Professor Erik Champion
Auckland School of Design, Albany Village Campus
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Auckland New Zealand
email: nzerik AT gmail DOT com OR e dot champion AT massey DOT ac DOT nz for general questions.
Send submissions to gamemodbook AT gmail DOT com

embedding 3D content in Firefox or Chrome

design, , , ,

If you are using recent versions of the above browsers (Firefox 4 or, and preferably, Chrome) you should be able to download WebGL and then view and embed web3D content using ourbricks.com beta viewer – thanks to Henrik and team!

This post is my test that the embed function works fine with wordpress.com and if it does then perhaps I can use it with our Stream/Moodle LMS (learning management system).
http://vu.ourbricks.com/556b25706619315efa14d11b274ef67d/processed/embed.html
The link is below, the direct HTML (iframe scr) is above- but does not appear to work for me in wordpress.
http://vu.ourbricks.com/556b25706619315efa14d11b274ef67d/processed/embed.html

update; looks like I need to host my wordpress.com site via the wordpress.org tool (download) and then install an iFrames plugin so 3D models are run inside the browser.

New paper on Biofeedback and Architecture to be presented at CAADRIA 2011, 27-29 April

Architecture, Conference, design, game, virtual heritage, , , ,

I just sent the final paper off to the organizers of CAADRIA 2011.
It is rather a rare paper by Andrew Dekker and myself  as it talks about atmosphere, 19th Century German empathy theory, Heidegger (indirectly), Wild Divine biofeedback and Zombies. Actually it is not really about Zombies but about how indirect biofeedback could be used for architectural visualization, social worlds and virtual places in general. I was trying to make the case for indirect biofeedback to augment the environment, and to allow enhanced information or interaction based on mastering/achieving calm, rather than on raising excitement levels. It is a step in my attempt to convey an experience of holy places and cultural sites using (indirect) biofeedback. Biofeedback has been seen as highly subjective, variable, and unreliable as a direct interaction method which is one of the reasons I am so interested it as indirect and augmenting rather than direct and dominant. Anyway, the abstract follows:

INDIRECT BIOFED ARCHITECTURE
Strategies to best utilise biofeedback tools and interaction metaphors within digital architectural environments

This paper explains potential benefits of indirect biofeed-back used within interactive virtual environments, and reflects on an earlier study that allowed for the dynamic modification of a virtual environment’s graphic shaders, music and artificial intelligence (of Non Playing Characters) based on the biofeedback of the player. It then examines both the potential and the issues in applying biofeed-back (already effective for games) to digital architectural environ-ments, and suggests potential uses such as personalization, object creation, atmospheric augmentation, filtering, and tracking.

warped maps

design, , ,

like the article and comments say, if this could be done in realtime..

At first I thought this was just a gimmick, but after looking at it more closely and thinking about it, I realize it’s kinda brilliant. If they could make a virtual map like this that scaled in real time and say, put it on your iPhone or a car’s GPS, I’d use it continuously. To blend simple nearby perspective with an overhead view of where you’d like to go gives a sense of distance and travel you simply can’t get with a regular map. Here’s to hoping this becomes a cartographic trend.

CFP: Game Mod Design Theory and Criticism

design, game, , , , , , , ,

Call For Book Chapters: Game Mod Design Theory and Criticism

This will be both a practical and reflective book on game-mods, designing, playing and evaluating the quality, success and effectiveness of game engines for modding, individual game mod levels, related tools and techniques, and the social and cultural issues related to the design and use of game mods.

The type of book chapter content I am looking for:
· An overview of what is possible and what is commendable or admirable with exemplars.
· Critiques of game mods and game mod/engine technologies (and reviews of mods as creative and critical and reflective extensions of games and game audiences).
· The ethical and social implications using commercial game engines and the content supplied · A comparison of game mod technologies.
· Case studies (Unreal, Source, Panda 3d, Blender 3D, Neverwinter Nights, Marathon, XNA, Oblivion, Cobalt, Crystal Space, WoW, Halo, Far Cry and Crysis etc, Sims, Jedi Academy, Ogre 3D) etc.
· Feature art and aesthetics.
· Machinima features hindered and helped by mods.
· Review of terrible experiences trying to build game mods. · A feature list to help people choose the right game engine for their mod.
· Some sample chapters on how to get started, tips, quick step tutorials as simple 3D, animation, lighting, behaviors, interface customization.
· The social and cultural implications of using and designing game mods (issues with violent content, cultural empathy, copyright, educational issues and so on).

The publisher will be ETC Press, an academic, open source, multimedia, publishing imprint affiliated with the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and in partnership with Lulu.com The book will be published under a Creative Commons license. For more details about ETC Press refer http://www.etc.cmu.edu.

Time Line

· March 18 2011 Please send me a title and 300 word abstract, the earlier the better! Please email your submission to gamemodbook AT gmail DOT com · March 25 2011 you should have heard back from me.
· June 10 2011 draft chapters to me.
· And after many drafts and checks and proofs later…by the end of 2011 (optimistically speaking), publication!

Editor:
Associate Professor Erik Champion
Auckland School of Design, Albany Village Campus
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Auckland New Zealand
email: nzerik AT gmail DOT com OR e dot champion AT massey DOT ac DOT nz for general questions.
Send submissions to gamemodbook AT gmail DOT com

Kinect for the Web Through Javascript – KinectHacks.net

design, game, , , ,

I cannot keep up and won’t try to keep up with these kinect hacks, after this one. Nice though to hear Microsoft say (via pcmag) they are happy for the ‘modding’ community to use the usb connection as long as they don’t interfere with the kinect software itself. Interesting though, that you don’t need a PC or an XBox, a Mac will do.

http://kinecthacks.net/kinect-skeleton-test/
I think this is very cool but I am easily impressed these days.

http://kinecthacks.net/kinect-for-the-web-through-javascript/

Fluid Interfaces Group have developed an open-source Chrome extension that makes it possible for Javascript to talk to the Kinect. It’s called DepthJS. This means that web sites can provide custom interfaces to everyone with a Kinect and the DepthJS extension installed without requiring them to install any new software. Check out the video:

world’s greatest shadow puppet xbox kinect hack

design, game, ,

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/19/kinect-hack-creates-worlds-greatest-shadow-puppet-video/“..installation prototype created by Emily Gobeille and Theo Watson using an Xbox Kinect connected to a laptop using the libfreenect Kinect drivers and ofxKinect. The openFrameworks system tracks the elbow, wrist, thumb, and tips of the fingers to map a skeleton onto the movement and posture of an animated puppet.”

Hands Free 3D: Open Source Predecessor of Microsoft Kinect? | ARCH Virtual

design, game

http://archvirtual.com/?p=2873
nice post on technology that predates kinect..I wonder if it might appear one day in Opensim..

“$2,000 is the current bounty for free/open Microsoft Kinect drivers (via Adafruit Industries), which really jarred some memories for me. Whatever happened to ‘Hands Free 3D‘ – the “prototypical interface” that enabled the control of virtual worlds “hands free” …without a mouse or keyboard? Competitors for the bounty might be wise to look it up.”

 

NB some engadget kinect hack/tools

motion controller/sensors on game consoles

design, game, , , , , ,

I am very interested in xbox kinect, playstation move and nintendo wii (or wiimote plus) reviews, especially to see if and how they can be modded..here is an early review http://www.cnet.com.au/xbox-360-kinect-vs-playstation-move-vs-nintendo-wii-remote-plus-339307363.htm?feed=rss
here is a youtube video of using xbox move as a form of 3D scanner http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/Kinect/index.html
an article on the above at http://hackaday.com/2010/11/15/rendering-a-3d-environment-from-kinect-video/

nb (wiki) From a design standpoint, Ars Technica‘s review expressed concern that the core feature of Kinect, its lack of controller, would hamper development of games beyond those that have either stationary players, or control the player’s movement automatically; remarking that the similarity of the genres of the launch titles owed to the hardware not being able to “handle much else”, they predicted that Microsoft would eventually need to release a “Move-like” controller in order to overcome this limitation.[76]

Postdoc / Visiting Fellow opportunities

design, game, virtual heritage, , , , , , , , ,

I am not sure this is news for this site, but I have been lucky enough to be awarded a Massey University Research Fellowship (URF) which will pay for teaching relief for a semester in 2011. My university in its wisdom only supplements sabbatical or study leave research overseas, so I intend to look for an appropriate visiting fellow/scholar/professor roles in other countries next year. That may mean in 2011 this blog will hibernate a tad. Anyway, I’d appreciate knowing of opportunities in cultural heritage and new media, virtual heritage, digital architecture and design, interaction design or game design. I am also more and more interested in collaborative design and learning, not just because I am speaking on the topic in a few weeks here and next month in Italy, but it truly is fascinating (edusim, wave in a box, multi-touch, group biofeedback and camera tracking etc)! Ok, back on topic, under this post I will accumulate links to related visiting fellow and postdoc opportunities-I have trouble finding appropriate ones so I am assuming I am not alone.

cff: European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) Fellowship Programme

design, virtual heritage, , ,

http://www.eurias-fp.eu/
The European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) Fellowship Programme is an international researcher mobility programme offering 33 fellowships for the 2011/2012 academic year. It proposes 10-month residencies in one of the 14 participating Institutes: Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Cambridge, Helsinki, Jerusalem, Lyons, Nantes, Paris, Uppsala, Vienna, Wassenaar. The Programme builds on the strong reputation of the Institutes for Advanced Study for promoting the concentrated, self-directed work of excellent researchers within the stimulating environment of a multidisciplinary and international group of fellows.

Will Adobe Flash 11 feature a proper 3D rendering engine and API

design, game, ,

I spoke to an Adobe sales guy last week who knew nothing of this.

Is it premature to think Flash 11 will feature 3D?

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/07/09/adobe-flash-11-will-feature-a-proper-3d-rendering-engine-and-api/

The next version of Flash, amidst growing competition from emerging 3D-in-the-browser technologies WebGL and O3D, will feature support for 3D graphics.

But don’t get too excited just yet — we’ll probably have to wait until October and the Adobe MAX 2010 conference before we find out more. There, on October 27th, a Flash player engineer will give a talk about “the next-generation 3D API coming in a future version of Flash Player.” How exciting is that?!

NB see also http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/software/29151/flash-player-plans-embrace-3d-more-info-coming-october

Please Biofeed the Zombies demo video up on Youtube

Conference, design, game, , , , , ,

Our paper on biofeedback used for a half-life 2 zombie game was shown at DiGRA 2007 (Toyko). We presented a new demo movie last week at UX Australia 2010 in Melbourne during our talk for Blood Sweat and Fears which is now up on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-MinR-17CA. Thanks to Andrew Dekker!

PS I love the idea to sketchnote conference talks.

CFP: Making Design and Analyzing Interaction

Conference, design,

CfP for intent to contribute to the track “Making Design and Analyzing Interaction” organized by Jared Donovan and Trine Heinemann at the Participatory Innovation Research Conference, January 14-16, 2011, Sønderborg, Denmark.
PINC 2011 is a forum where participants from different disciplines and organisations can meet and challenge each other to develop the field of participatory innovation. Of special interest to Design Research scholars should be the track “Making Design and Analyzing Interaction” (Chairs: Jared Donovan and Trine Heinemann), as described below:
Participatory Innovation brings a wide range of stakeholders together in generative spaces where different perspectives can be challenged in constructive ways. An important research aim is to understand how this meeting of perspectives can be supported by tangible activities of “making”, such as for instance, prototyping, provotyping, tinkering, generative toolkits and forum theatre. “Making” should be understood not only as giving form to pre-established ideas, but also as a process through which innovation emerges out of the messy collision of people and stuff.
The aim of this track is to gather together examples from participatory innovation practices that involve “making”, so that track participants can build an understanding across the diverse range of tangible activities and open these up for (comparative) analysis. This track brings together ‘makers’ (interaction designers, process facilitators), who are willing to share video clips of their engaging participatory activities, with ‘analysts’ (conversation analysts etc.), who are able to investigate whether some of these activities serve particularly well in certain contexts or at certain stages of the process.
Researchers from Design Research and other related fields who are interested in contributing to this track should note that the ‘intention to contribute’ deadline is very soon – the 27th August 2010.
For this, we ask potential contributors to submit either:
– a video example of a participatory ‘making’ activity in the form of an unedited video-recording of 5-20 minutes, showing the activity as it has been employed in one or more contexts.
– an intent to analyse, including a brief description of method experience and a possible line of analysis. Analyses from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and from both micro- and macro-levels are encouraged.
For further information contact Jared Donovan at jared<mailto:jared> or check our (as yet) static conference site:http://www.pinc.sdu.dk/index.html
Keynote speaker for this track will be Lorenza Mondada.

Call for Work, FABRICATE LONDON 15-16 APRIL 2011

Architecture, Conference, design, ,

FABRICATE is an International Peer Reviewed Conference with supporting publication and exhibition to be held at The Building Centre in London from 15-16 April 2011.

http://www.fabricate2011.org/submissions/
Central to the aim of FABRICATE is to interrogate and disseminate difference, similarity and innovation across design and making practices in industry and academia. Submissions will be independently blind reviewed by two members of an international panel of experts. Selected submissions will be featured in ‘FABRICATE: Making Digital Architecture’ published by Riverside Architectural Press.