We will be presenting in a matter of hours so here are our statements.
Starting: For years now, companies have been tirelessly searching for better or more interesting ways to play a game and create a more immersive experience. We believe that our project could be a gateway to revolutionizing the way people play games yet again.
Finishing: If you don’t already enjoy playing games, we are confident that our exhibit will change that.
Harder than it sounds.
Our idea for a Capstone is solely grounded in the realm of digital media and interaction. This made it hard to imagine our project without the use of typical new media. Our project will ultimately be an interactive installation, so the parameters of this assignment greatly limited any alternative we might have been able to come up with otherwise. Our idea is based around the game Minecraft as well, which would not be a plausible factor if it weren’t for computers. Basically, our idea breaks down to nothing with the removal of the game, the computers and other gadgets to connect everything, and the installation for people to interact with, and leaves us with essentially just a treadmill.
In order to remove the interactive aspect of our idea, we need to create a project that turns users into viewers. They will no longer interact with it, simply observe it. Our original alternative idea was to have person run on a treadmill (a normal one) and have this treadmill be manually attached to a large, circular image on a conveyor. The person running or walking on the treadmill will cause the image to progress, and if the people view from the side, it will look like the person is walking through a forest, or whatever other scene happens to be in the picture.
Apart from this treadmill idea, another art exhibit would allow the viewers to examine objects and structures that appear to be straight from the game of Minecraft. These block structures would be built to scale and have various textures (wood, stone, etc.) all identical to the textures from the game. Viewers can examine these structures from all angles as they walk past the exhibit. Some structures may even permit viewers to walk underneath or through them, but viewers would not be able to move these blocks for they would be fixed objects. An alternative to this concept is for viewers to walk through various structures, as mentioned before, but as they do they will be able to watch as a specific builder place objects around them. The users wouldn’t be able to move these objects once they have been placed.
This is a very basic storyboard showing what the user experience is supposed to be like in our final installation.
Promotion Plan
1. Get a website.
It has been our plan to create a website specifically to promote our Capstone for at least a year. We know what the benefits of having a website are when it comes to getting the word out so we have explored options for how best to go about this step. There is someone that I (Chase) work with that specializes in web design who agreed to help with a website if necessary. Together, we already have a decent basis of knowledge about creating a website, and with help, we can make a really successful promotional location in the digital realm. It sounds from the article by Jeffrey Yamaguchi like GoDaddy.com is the best bet for acquiring a domain name, so we will most likely do that. We will obviously include certain things to make the site stronger, like access to our blog for constant updates, informational sections, relevant/helpful links, etc.
2. Promote your website.
If we are going to be making a website, this one is a no-brainer. How will anyone come across our site without a little shameless self-promotion? They won’t. So, just as we have been planning all along to create a site, so too have we been planning to promote it in any way that we can. Yamaguchi’s suggestion about submitting a URL to the major search engines seems like an excellent one, but among other things we will personally inform anyone we can, share it on various social media, and perhaps even shout it from the rooftops late at night. Additionally, we will follow Yamaguchi’s other suggestion about including the URL anywhere we can, be it at the end of emails, at the beginning of letters, or just about anywhere else.
3. Postcards rock
In this step, Yamaguchi explains how easy it is to make a postcard or print off a bunch of little pieces of paper with information about your project for people to either read or toss in the nearest recycling bin. This will be a good step for us (and for anyone) to help get the word out there. Obviously, we will pass these out to friends and family and anyone else we know, but we could also distribute them to people we work with or just leave them in various public locations for people to pick up. Of course, we will try to be creative and make the postcard as eye-catching as possible.
4. Put up flyers
Along the same lines as postcards, we are also interested in creating flyers and posting them in various places around town. A college campus has a plethora of places to put up flyers that will get attention from foot-traffic. We will make these flyers eye-catching, just as with the postcards. In this situation, clearly it is best to stand out from the rest. This option is pretty straightforward, and I think we will probably ignore the urging of Yamaguchi to explore alternatives to flyers, like grafitti.
5. Know about and help put out the word about other people’s projects
This idea is very simple: give and you shall receive. Basically, Yamaguchi says in this one that you should be willing to help other people promote their projects so that they will reciprocate. This, of course, is a great idea and we are completely willing to promote others’ projects alongside our own in exchange for a little help in return. Every little bit helps.
These were the five that stood out most to us and seemed to actually be relevant or helpful to our specific project. The others are all good ideas, but don’t seem to fit our goals or improve our chances of getting our project out there in a realistic sense.
An extraordinarily basic 3D render of what the omnidirectional treadmill will look like. The support beams will hold a harness.
A working budget with everything filled in to the best of our current abilities. The only thing missing is the cost of an omnidirectional treadmill, because further research is required to figure that one out.
What we have so far in our Gantt Chart. It is pretty complete, but obviously if we think of anything else to add, we will.
Yes. Sort of.
Progress is always happening, but not necessarily in visible ways. We are currently working on a handful of things, including but not limited to: A working budget, a working Gantt chart, resources that we have/will need, emailing people that could help us (including some BigWigs in the gaming world), preparing documents, and preparing to go for funding on sites like Kickstarter.
Wish us luck. More stuff on here soon.
Situation 1: Ian Larson wanted to help preserve the Passamaquoddy language from extinction.
After looking at these two options for a little while, I can’t say that I am particularly drawn to either of them, based on the definitions of the various terms earlier on that page (one-to-one, one-to-many, etc.) It says that for something to be many-to-many, the content needs to have a certain level of reciprocal control, which I don’t see much of in Solution B, because everyone would get the same content experience from viewing the videos. On the other hand, Solution A offers users a unique experience based on what words they feel like searching and hearing the pronunciation of. The flaw with Solution A is that only a select group of people is compiling this dictionary and presenting it to a bunch of people, so it barely seems like many-to-many, but rather like a few-to-many.
Were I forced to make a decision however, I would choose Solution B, because the number of people included in the creation of the content is much higher, and users do have an option of making their experiences different by use of the tag cloud.
Situation 2: Evan Habeeb wanted to make people aware of the beauty of abandoned buildings.
In this situation, Solution B is clearly the only one that offers a many-to-many experience. Situation A is more of one person broadcasting to a select group of people that may be interested in the DVD he creates. Solution B offers the opportunity for anyone interested to get involved, contribute (reciprocal control), and share.
Situation 3: Ryan Schaller and Jason Walker wanted to help people understand the many layers required to create a computer-animated film, including wireframe, textures, and light effects. As a case study, they created an animation depicting a cartoon archeologist digging for ancient artifacts.
Again, Solution B is the best one. A offers an interesting view of the layers of the animation, but nothing more, and nothing varied. In Solution B, users can use this application (which would be available to a much broader audience) to look at exactly which parts of the process they want to know about, and even to explore further by following links to other sites about animation.
Situation 4: Danielle Gagner wanted to renovate the waterfall fountain under the skylight in the middle of the University Union, which had fallen into disrepair.
In the final situation, Solution A is better because it actually provides interactive experiences that will be different for everyone. Solution B is simply an installation that is meant to look interesting but provides little else, and it will be the same for everyone. In Solution A, other people get to collaborate and contribute to the garden that would be growing there and then anyone can take plants and vegetables from it when they are grown.
Here is the first draft of the proposal for the project Steve and I are going to do.
(Draft 1)
Abstract
To create an interactive exhibit that allows users to control and view a game while providing them with a strong, unique immersive experience.
Why
As video games gain popularity, gamers are looking for better ways to play, not only in terms of graphics, but how the game is played. Over the years, companies have been developing more ways to engage gamers (e.g. the wii with their motion controllers, and the Kinect by eliminating the need for a controller). More companies are developing newer, better ways to interact with games. As the interest in new platforms expand, the opportunity to pursue such developing technology is greater.
Where
This kind of installation would potentially be usable in any setting. It would be an excellent exhibit for attracting attention at any kind of New Media show similar to Without Borders or the Senior Capstones, but it would also be an interesting addition to any public gaming scene. Also, if this kind of interface could be commercially available, then it could be something that people would like to have at home to improve their respective gaming experiences.
What
The original concept is to make to make a virtual reality game of Minecraft, a sandbox-type game made entirely of cubes (or blocks) that allows you to create literally anything you can imagine, created by Marcus Persson (@notch on twitter). The final objective of Minecraft is to slay the Ender Dragon, but of course you are by no means required to pursue this objective. You can just create anything you want for as long as you want. Currently, the game is at version 1.3.2 on the computer, but it is significantly older on the Xbox, as limitations in hardware, specifically RAM, exist.
A treadmill where users will be controlling the game with physical movement, actually walking, running, turning, looking, etc., eliminating any need for buttons. The treadmill would be modified to be omni-directional, giving users freedom to move naturally in any direction they choose, and the speed of the player would be relative to the player speed within the game. Users would wear virtual glasses to display a first person view of the world. Sensors from the treadmill would be connected to a central computer which will receive all the data and send information to the user.
The back-up intent(s):
There are many possibilities that follow the original intent that will depend on any limitations on the accessibility of hardware/ software, and the compatibility for these technologies. We would like to find a good way to interface with this game and give people an immersive gaming experience, whether that is achieved pertaining to our primary goal or not. In other words, our backup intent would be along the same lines, but simply interacting with the game in another way if need be.
If none of this turns out to be plausible, then we will pursue the possibility of getting an immersive gaming experience instead using fiducials and augmented reality glasses.
When
This Capstone will be deployed in April of 2013.
Here is a look at our current schedule of development as we expect it to go:
(Gantt Chart Will Go Here)
Who
This is a collaborative Capstone by Chase Dolloff and Steve Talbot. We shall seek further assistance.
How
This project will be completed by using all the resources that we have available to us, meaning technology and other people. Our idea will require a lot of research in order for it to graduate from the idea stage at all. We will explore options for alternative forms of communication between people and the games they play. We will need to determine the plausibility of getting a treadmill and giving it the ability to be controlled without the speed setting being necessary. Additionally, we will need to seek help from other people in order to successfully connect whatever we have for a replacement controller to the computer and figure out how to make it work to control it. All of the technologies listed above are possible things that we will use to help us complete our goal, and many of them, if not all of them, will certainly appear in our final installation.
Technologies:
-Augmented Reality glasses
-Cameras
-Kinect
-Projector/Screen
-Treadmill
-Accelerometer
-Computer
-Headphones/Speakers
Obviously, we are missing a Gantt chart, but otherwise, this has all the basic information. It will most likely be modified extensively over the course of the semester.
This is my WP Blog dedicated to documenting the progress of my Senior Capstone at the University of Maine.
This Capstone is a collaborative project with Steve Talbot, who will have his own blog for the same purpose. I will be posting many things over the course of the year about this project so stay tuned!