Virtual Environments

Improving presence theory through experiential design

by Dustin Chertoff

Rendered Subjection: Representations of the neo-Oriental in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

by James C. Vlisides

Beginning in late October 2003, and spanning a series of 8 games and counting, the Call of Duty franchise has... more Beginning in late October 2003, and spanning a series of 8 games and counting, the Call of Duty franchise has established a reputation as the premier First-Person Shooter (FPS) on both PC and console platforms. Traversing a history from WWII to the modern "War on Terror," the Call of Duty franchise highlights significant global conflict from a vantage point of the exceptional American combatant. The franchise recently released Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) in November 2011, selling over 6.5 million copies on launch day and grossed $400 million in the U.S. alone in its first 24 hours. Modern Warfare 3 went on to gross $1 billion throughout the world in just 16 days of availability, making it the biggest entertainment launch of all time. Thus, Modern Warfare 3 represents a potent example of global military-entertainment consumption, and certainly seems to have more to say about the current economic, political, and international relations between nations and states. Through a close reading of MW3 as a text, I will explore questions including: How does MW3 represent the embodied “Other”? How are terrorist bodies corporealized in virtual spaces? How are these bodies rendered both visible and invisible? What spaces does the game privilege? Who has access to this structure of power? With these questions framing my research, I will look into the virtual geography that frames the logic of the game itself. I will engage various texts including The International Journal of Computer Game Research, Roger Stahl's book Militainment, Inc: War, Media, and Popular Culture, and Marcel O'Gorman's book Angels in Digital Armor: Technoculture and Terror Management, among many others. Through these texts I will begin to explore the intersections of technology, culture, the military, cultural economy, and border studies. Further, I will maintain a specific sensitivity to "neo-Orientalism," as the Middle-East has arguably been the primary focus of American economic and military interests since the end of the Cold War. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how MW3 (re-)constructs the East, the Oriental, and the terrorist within its virtual game space, as well as the spatiality between reality and “virtuality,” and what this has to say about the current social, political, and economic agendas surrounding global conflict.


Keywords: American Empire, Orientalism, US Imperialism, Globalization, War-on-Terror, Bodies, Virtual Reality

C-Sheep: Controlling Entities in a 3D Virtual World as a Tool for Computer Science Education

by Eike Falk Anderson

Co-authored with Leigh McLoughlin - presented as a poster at Future Play 2006

An exploration of user engagement in HCI

by Christopher Edward Peters

Peters, C., Castellano, G. and de Freitas, S. "An exploration of user engagement in HCI", Proceedings of the Affect-Aware Virtual Agents and Social Robots (AFFINE) Workshop, International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Interaction (ICMI-MLMI'09), Boston, MA, USA, November 6, 2009. ACM 978-1-60558-692-2-1/09/11
Bibtex available here: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/ec/~cpeters/bibtex/bibtex.html#AFFINE2009

Engagement is a concept of the utmost importance in human computer interaction, not only for informing the design and... more Engagement is a concept of the utmost importance in human computer interaction, not only for informing the design and implementation of interfaces, but also for enabling more sophisticated interfaces capable of adapting to users. While the notion of engagement is actively being studied in a diverse set of domains, the term has been used to refer to a number of related, but different concepts. This paper represents a first attempt at exploring a number of important concepts that the term has been used to refer to, of relevance to both human-human and human-machine interaction modelling.

Novelty processing and emotion: conceptual developments, empirical findings and virtual environments

by Christopher Edward Peters

Grandjean, D., and Peters, C.
In P. Petta, C. Pelachaud and R. Cowie (Eds.), Emotion-Oriented Systems: The Humaine Handbook, pp. 441-458, Cognitive Technologies Series, Springer, January 2011 isbn:978-3-642-15183-5
Bibtex available here: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/ec/~cpeters/bibtex/bibtex.html#HandbookNovelty2011

Novelty detection is a crucial ability of organisms to detect changes in the environment and to adapt their behaviours... more Novelty detection is a crucial ability of organisms to detect changes in the environment and to adapt their behaviours accordingly. In this chapter we review a conceptual framework of novelty detection informed by cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology. The relationship between attentional processes and novelty detection is also discussed and developed, supported by a case study highlighting methods for implementing a novelty detection capability for artificial agents in virtual environments.

Real-Time Smoke Rendering and Light Interaction

by Eike Falk Anderson

Co-authored with Christopher Bass (first author) - presented as a poster at Eurographics 2010

In computer graphics, smoke can be represented by using particle systems. Adding shadows to particle systems can go a... more In computer graphics, smoke can be represented by using particle systems. Adding shadows to particle systems can go a long way to improve visuals and realism. Our work is concerned with external shadows cast onto a particle system by an occluding object, for which shadow mapping is combined with the particle system in an implementation that uses the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).

GPU Destruction: Real-Time Procedural Demolition of Virtual Environments

by Eike Falk Anderson

Co-authored with Derek Morris (first author) - presented as a poster at Eurographics 2010

We introduce a method for the real-time simulation of destructible materials for use within videogame environments.... more We introduce a method for the real-time simulation of destructible materials for use within videogame environments. Our system combines a number of existing techniques in a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based implementation that employs procedural geometry generation to reduce content creation times while retaining artist control.

A level of interaction framework for exploratory learning with characters in virtual environments

by Christopher Edward Peters

Panzoli, D., Peters, C., Dunwell, I., Sanchez, S., Petridis, P., Protopsaltis, A., Scesa, V., and de Freitas, S.
Intelligent Computer Graphics, Studies in Computational Intelligence, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 321:123-143, 2010 doi:10.1007/978-3-642-15690-8 7
Bibtex available here: http://www.coventry.ac.uk/ec/~cpeters/bibtex/bibtex.html#CI2010

This paper investigates a range of challenges faced in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching history in situ,... more This paper investigates a range of challenges faced in the design of a serious game aimed at teaching history in situ, through the use of an immersive, open virtual environment. In the context of this paper, such an environment is described as an exploratory, expansive virtual world within which a user may interact in a non-linear and situated fashion with the virtual characters that populate it. The main contribution of this paper consists of the introduction of the Levels of Interaction (LoI) framework, designed to assist in the creation of multiple forms of interaction between a user-driven avatar and synthetic characters. The LoI approach addresses the necessity for balancing computational efficiency with the need to provide believable and interactive virtual characters, allowing varying degrees of visual, interactive and behavioural fidelity. The Roma Nova project demonstrates a first implementation of the concept, showing in practice how the LoI are likely to foster more natural interactions between the player and the non-playing characters.

La représentation en réalité virtuelle de la “Maison de Dionysos” à Pella, créée par la Fondation du Monde Hellénique

by Athanasios Sideris

in Descamps-Lequime S., Charatzopoulou K. (éds.), Au royaume d’Alexandre le Grand. La Macédoine antique. Catalogue of the exhibition in the Louvre museum (Paris 2011), pp. 682-683

Virtual Experience Test: A virtual environment evaluation questionnaire

by Dustin Chertoff

Exploring Additional Factors of Presence

by Dustin Chertoff

Collaboration Tools in Virtual Educational Communities: A Case of the Paulo Freire Project for Critical Pedagogy

by Trudi Wright

Co-authored with Dr. Eun Park (McGill University), and Dr. Charles Cole (McGill University)

The purpose of this study is to engage community members in the design and development processes of the Freire Project... more The purpose of this study is to engage community members in the design and development processes of the Freire Project web site in order to assess their needs and preferences for collaboration tools in virtual communities. This study consisted of surveys taken by the participants of the Freire Project communities. The survey questionnaire investigated participants’ familiarity with activities and preferences for certain web tools in order to improve collaboration on the Freire Project website. Participants favored web tools with only marginal differences to increase the member collaboration in wikis, blogs, RSS, and folksonomy. Using digital technology and web tools encourages members to be active participants in the communities’ activities and creates new possibilities for the development of educational communities in online environments.

Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2003). 'Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework', in Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, ed. by Stefan Göbel et al. (Darmstadt: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag), pp. 296-310

We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental... more We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental capability of a compelling and meaningful virtual environment (VE). Our main objective is to develop flexible interactive techniques that supply VE’s with a coherent context and make the resulting ‘virtual place’ available to the user in a dramatically engaging way. To support the concept of narrative expressive space, we propose a three-layer multi-purpose spatial mediation framework that utilizes an interactive narrative structure to coordinate stylized dramatic camera work, lighting, effects and sound. We then describe the use of pre-scripted events as a layer in this framework and explain the inherent benefits and problems, using a single-user prototype environment as illustration. The work offers guidelines for the design of VE’s to all fields that combine narrativity and spatiality, such as interactive entertainment, education and architecture.

Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2002). 'Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment', in Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2002, ed. by Thomas Binder, Judith Gregory and Ina Wagner (Palo Alto: CPSR), pp. 386-390

This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert... more This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert Hall Virtual College research project at the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) and the Centre for Applied Research in Education Technology (CARET). The project identifies key properties of dramatically engaging real-time three-dimensional virtual environments (RT 3D VE) and how the holistic experiential phenomenon of place is organised and mediated through spatial narrative patterns. Interdisciplinary by nature, the project requires a collaborative approach between science, engineering, media and architecture, and the results are revealing for all these areas. The Cuthbert Hall project invites discussion of the importance in the creation and use of RT 3D VE’s - under single and multi-user conditions - of articulate aesthetics (the quality of architectural, visual and audio design; the production and incorporation of dramatic properties) and of the conditions required for collaborative, communicative use of the environment.

The full theoretical and technical discussions as well as the evaluation results are outside the scope of this submission.

Dynamic action in virtual environments: Constraints on the accessibility of action knowledge in children and adults

by Moritz Daum

Sarah and Emma: Case Studies of Two Instructors and How They Use Social Presence in Second Life

by Salwa Khan

The focus of this qualitative multiple case study is on two higher-education instructors who teach online in virtual... more The focus of this qualitative multiple case study is on two higher-education instructors who teach online in virtual worlds, specifically in Second Life, and how they think about and implement social presence strategies in their courses. The study also offers a view into the student learning experience in the virtual world of Second Life. The results of the study are in agreement with previous research that shows that developing social presence is important in online teaching and learning. It provides evidence at least in the two cases under study that communication and interactivity, which are components of social presence, can be fostered in a virtual world. It also indicates that faculty development for instructors who teach online may need to consider instructor characteristics and that institutional support is essential for online courses in virtual worlds.

Embodied Conversational Agents: A New Kind of Tool for Motor Rehabilitation?

by María Lucila Morales-Rodríguez

María Lucila Morales-Rodríguez, Bernard Pavard. Proceedings of the 11th Annual International Workshop on Presence. pp. 95-99. ISBN 978-88-6129-287-1. Padova, Italy, on October 16-18, 2008.

In this paper, we follow a pluridisciplinary approach to propose a concept of emotional and social interfaces. This... more In this paper, we follow a pluridisciplinary approach to propose a concept of emotional and social interfaces. This concept has been developed in a social and emotional behavioral model for Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) in the context of virtual therapy. In our paradigm, a virtual therapist interacts with a patient in order to guide and encourage him to fulfill their exercises. We are interested in the production of a sense of immersion in the patient by the expression of a social as well as emotional presence in ECA.
This In order to improve the patient / virtual therapist interaction and thus to stimulate the participation of patient during the rehabilitation therapy.

Interactions Professionnelles en Univers Virtuel

by María Lucila Morales-Rodríguez

Bernard PAVARD , Nico PALLAMIN , Lucila MORALES, Maria Cristina PALMER LIMA ZAMBERLAN, Venetia SANTOS.
UNIVERS VIRTUELS & COLLABORATIONS, TELECOM & Management SudParis 2008. pp 30-39.

Interactions sociales en univers virtuels vers une recherche d’immersion émotionnelle

by María Lucila Morales-Rodríguez

María Lucila Morales-Rodriguez, Bernard Pavard, Nico Pallamin. Colloque Scientifique Approches croisées de la création de logiciels et dispositifs numériques ludo-éducatifs dans le cadre du forum Ludovia. July 7-8 2005, Saint-Lizier, France.

Pour générer un sentiment d’immersion dans une simulation avec des personnages virtuels, il est fondamental que ceux... more Pour générer un sentiment d’immersion dans une simulation avec des personnages virtuels, il est fondamental que ceux ci puissent exprimer un comportement interactionnel et émotionnel réaliste. Notre objectif est de provoquer un sentiment d’immersion sociale et culturelle chez des sujets humains en interaction dans l’univers virtuel en reproduisant des comportements corporels et gestuels dépendant de leurs états émotionnels propres. Une importance particulière a également été accordée à la dimension indexicale de l’interaction notamment à l’usage de gestes de désignation d’objets extérieurs et à la gestion du dialogue entre individus.

Cyberspace and virtual places

by Paul Adams

Computer networks are often described in terms that imply a virtual space or place: electronic frontier, cyberspace,... more Computer networks are often described in terms that imply a virtual space or place: electronic frontier, cyberspace, and information superhighway have been used to indicate computer networks as a whole; cafes, dungeons, and virtual offices are some of the "places" people refer to as being in or on networks. The use of this language, which I collectively call "virtual-place metaphors," indicates three broad metaphorical themes: virtual architecture, electronic frontier, and cyberspace. The metaphors encourage control, surveillance, and capitalist expansion through computer technologies--and also evasion and resistance through computer technologies.