548 - Thesis Prep

- Advisors
Requirements
Is it still two from inside the department?
Two from inside IMD, and one from the outside. The idea being this third person should be someone from the industry to help you get contacts, outside perspective, etc.
Outside can be from elsewhere in the school.
You can make a case for not using 2 IMD faculty members, since there is already a strain on the current faculty members, being spread too thin between all the students.
However, INSIDE is suppossed to be a faculty member that understands what we do here, who you are, and what your process is.
Is Scott on every committee?
No.
What is expected from a thesis advisor?
It's mostly up to you. There are presentations to which your committee should be in attendance(the end of this semester, next semester, and the final), but it's as formal or informal as you dictate.

-Faculty
Who will be teaching us next year? When will we know?

- 2005-2006 Calendar
What are the milestones and approximate dates for the Thesis next year.
First presentations,
reviews,
final presentations,
exhibition
final submission of paper

- Department support in finding outside venues for future exhibition and publication.
We need to brainstorm about space options after Scott sees our presentations, since many of the students are looking at large installations and performance pieces.

Posted by pweil at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2005

brad's thesis

Abstract

(untitled) is a communal play experience involving cooperative puzzle solving and improvisational expression among 3 participants in a physical installation. The experience will attempt to use the power of the "magic circle" and intuitive interfaces to achieve creative and intimate interactions between participants. It will take the form of a large room akin to a surreal garden / playground, within which reside interactive tangible devices, along with some form of display of real-time graphics that are meaningfully connected to the interaction with the physical objects. This may take the form of projection, augmented reality displays, or both. Interfaces will be intuitive largely, and at times gestural. Techniques of sensing capacitance without touch (as in Theremins) and computer vision to detect motion would be employed, with OpenGL used to generate the graphics. The audience would be wide to create connections between strangers. 15 yr olds and up would likely be the best audience for the subject matter. Those inclined to being open, honest and creative would excel in the experience and could be a catalyst for others to.

Motivation / Background

This thesis follows from my interest in the power of play to decrease barriers and establish intimate connections between participants, as well as new forms of communication possible via interactive media. In addition, it involves interaction with tangible devices connected to computers that offer a more direct and visceral interaction. And last but not least, the power and uniqueness of immersive experiences to frame and focus interactions.

I am looking at prior art including: Happenings art movement, New Games Movement, Ludology theorists, Media artists using gestural interface such as Golan Levin and Zachary Booth Simpson. Surrealists/Dadaists, location based entertainment / theme parks: e.g. Disney, Universal, Chuck E. Cheese. Fantasy movie set design, Social / group psychology, adolescence and it's connection to creativity, gameplay, sexual / psychological development, hypnotism, ESP, synchronicity, improvisation, hallucinations, dreams, meditation, magic, etc. Bernie DeKoven, Carl Jung, Aleister Crowley, Marcel Duchamp, Allen Kaprow, Katie Salen/ Eric Zimmerman, Will Wright...

Methodology / Flow

I want to create a cooperative game to increase communication, understanding and expression in groups. Communal goals and play use the power of the magic circle and the lusory attitude to bring people together, now what can we do with this power once they're inside other than repetitive-distinct goal based activity? Where else can that connection be steered while maintaining the magic? What forms of interaction are more intimate than others? How can we seduce participants and lower social barriers with games, environment, and interactive media? How can you create more meaningful play and interactions? Is there a way to provide some individual expression and exploration within the experience? What sort of technology is most appropriate for creating this experience, and what sort of tech could create new content?

I would like to address these questions by creating a series of experiences that get people into a flow of interaction that can build and culminate in a sublime experience. I think that there are certain sequences and cycles that can be designed to build upon one another. For example, having participants engage in a playful and accessible group activity / game at the start of the experience may help to warm people up to one another, lower their guards, and establish a bit of trust. Following this with a simple puzzle can establish more complex intellectual cooperation and interaction. Providing a meaningful payoff and playful reward to solving the puzzle can make people value the amazing things that can be accomplished as a cooperative group, perhaps increasing the participant's value of different people's strengths, as well as increasing trust. Using the energy and state of mind that's been established, it may be easier to persuade participants to become more vulnerable than they normally would by getting them to reveal some personal aspects of themselves in service to the play of the game. The trick would be how to do this while not destroying the lusory attitude and the trust that's established. The payoff may need to be linked to people's level of admission. Psychological and Hypnotic techniques could be employed here.

Design

At the beginning of the experience, participants will enter from 3 separate and symmetrically spaced entrances into a domed tent roughly 12’ in diameter and 8’ high. 3 cushioned seating areas just inside the edge would clearly be designated. Low ambient music / sounds would be played over surround speakers. A physical structure residing in the center (very vague at this point, something between a tree / fire / bubble) would faintly glow (perhaps via an array of embedded LED’s) and come alive when all three participants took their seats. 3 projectors would be mounted outside the dome and project onto the dome’s translucent surface. Cameras inside the device would act as its eyes to observe the participant’s movements, and tangible tendrils jutting from the device would allow them to physically touch and interact with it. Capacitance sensors would provide non-touch interaction. When participants move in a certain manner or hold hands to form a circular link, the projections and sound would react.
Each person will have unique imagery and sound that is generated based on their movement. The manner with which they need to move their body will also be unique, in the hope that their interactions can form a sort of unified gestalt when they act cooperatively.

The experience would possibly begin with a fun and joyful activity such as popping or bouncing around images and sounds. A method of sensing touch and linking between participants would be rewarded with interaction that is more fun than when they act separately (e.g. what were separate musical notes or chords might unite into a song.) This would serve as a way of acquainting and training people to interact with the system.

Puzzle solving or simply a more structured game would follow this to engage participants in a more complex and communal goal driven activity (e.g. building some virtual device via stacking or interlinking of pieces). Upon reaching this goal or solution, this virtual device may come alive and integrate with the physical device, and provide an expressive form of interaction (similar to the beginning playful activity, but in this case more complex and refined, like the difference between clapping and a drum set).

Posted by brad at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2005

Paper Outline

I've started filling in some of the blanks for my proposal paper, and thought I would just put them up here for feedback as I go through development. I'll put up notices as I update it, if that's an okay use of blog space.

I. Title
Interface: Human

II. Abstract

This thesis proposes an investigation into game interface and play possiblities when natural human gesture is the guide. A gestural interface game vocabulary would allow for a much wider game playing audience, as well as increase the communicative possibilities of the game medium. By using the natural movements of the human body, I hope to design a game that is enhanced by the computer, instead of being dictated by it.

Influences:
The New Games Movement
Bernie DeKoven
Grotowski
butoh theatre

III. Images

Coming

IV. Text
A. Motivation

"Play is older than culture . . . [for] animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing . . . We have only to watch young dogs to see that all the essentials of human play are present in their merry gambols."
Homo Ludens, J. Huizinga

1) Games Connect People Together
It is demonstrated in the games kids play - they play the same games that have been handed down over generations and across cultures. Games can speak to all ages and races, and can be and extremely powerful communication tool.

However, as computer and console games have developed, their controls have been created almost completely self-referentially, so that each genre of game has a vocabulary of interaction that is specific to its own genre of gaming, and nothing else. For example, in a fighting game such as Mortal Kombat, one would expect that there are four buttons to use for upper-kick, lower-kick, upper-punch, lower-punch, a button for defense, and various standard combinations of these buttons will trigger a wider variety of moves. While this control schema is common to the genre of fighting games, it is not common to how people fight each other, nor is it common to the way our bodies are designed to move. Using this type of control schema limits the possibility of which peoples can play the game, and it limits the amount of new players it can attract.

2) Solution
My intention is to create a system that uses body language as its control schema. I believe this will allow for a wider range of players to participate, while not simplifying the game mechanics that make it exciting to more season players.

To truly meld our digital culture and our play culture, we must use the physical body to interact.

B. Methodology

In order to develop an effective gestural interface, it seems imperative that I play test. I will do a series of tests using pre-existing games with new gestural interfaces. Through these tests I plan on developing a gestural play vocabulary that is both natural and fun for the player.

Once this vocabulary is created I can then create a game that will highlight the benefits of this new control schema.

C. Definition
The final product of my research will be a simple game that demonstrates the results of my research and play-testing, offering a solution to the problem of controller interfaces.

V. Timeline

May - August: Research & Build Prototypes for Play Testing
Sept - Dec: Play Test and Develop Content for final iteration
Jan - April: Build final Iteration

VI. Budget

Coming

VII. Advisors

VIII. Possible future venues

IX. Bibliography & Prior Art

Posted by kellee at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)

April 07, 2005

PAPER HANDOUTS for Presentation

When you make your presentation, you should have an informal (but neat) handout for the faculty and your potential advisors. This shouldn't be a burden, but I found it very helpful when trying to follow the presentations last year. Make several copies of pages 1 and 2. Make at least four copies of your longer draft (3 advisors and me).

PAGE 1: TITLE
YOUR NAME
IMAGE w/caption (a quote, an explanation - whatever works for your piece)

PAGE 2: ABSTRACT

PAGE 3+
Whatever you feel ready to submit, keeping in mind that the more you give us, the more feedback you'll receive. So, even if the body text, and schedule, budget, etc of your proposal is rough, you can attach this with a "draft" label.

Posted by pweil at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)

Thesis Abstract

Title: Adjust Optimal Experience in Games

Brief Description:
This is a research about the relationship between different game-play settings and different players reaction. Explore how to give the different players the right amount of rewards in the right time; How to offer hard enough chanllenging for different players before they get bored; How to read the players' needs from their in game interactions.

Motivation
Most of the current video games are very scripted. The design of the video game are fixed once it's released. Normally designers design their games to a stereotype from the target market like teenager hard core gamers or middle age female non-gamers. Good game that fits for everybody is really hard to find.

Each person is an individual, their desire and needs for the expereince is different. Like body building, a good trainer knows to how design a good plan for different people. To design a game, a designer should also consider to adjust the weight and times for his different trainees. Tetris is boring for the hardcore gamer but very addicting to the beginners. RTS is really attracting mature gamer, while the non-gamer can not easily understand what's going on in the games. There are player like chanllenging, there's also players prefer casual play. If a game can ask and adjust the play based on the player's needs, it will be a great step forward from today's game design.

Media:
I'll use multiple prototypes to focus on detailed areas like: difficulty
chanllenging
rewarding
time
stimulation

After that I'll try to combine all these prototypes into one. If the game makes different players feel exsiting and different, I think the grammar and vocabulary will be a great reference to the industry and acadimia.

Posted by Jenova at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

brad's schedule

Week of April 7th
- Continue meeting with advisors
- Read more and digest DeKoven’s ideas
- Start designing playtests
- Research more into magic, ludological theory, collaborative puzzles, surreal and new games, social psychology, children's museums...

Week of April 14th
- Continue playtest designs
- Begin making as many tech decisions as possible
- Make a stab at a detailed physical layout
- Continue research

Week of April 21st
- Finalize decision about the flow and as many rules of the experience as possible.
- Work on presentation

Presentation on April 28th

May 5th FINAL SUBMISSION OF PROPOSAL

Posted by brad at 11:40 AM | Comments (1)

Abstract Draft

Feedback is most welcome!

Motion Rapture

This thesis proposes an investigation into game interface and play possiblities when natural human gesture is the guide. A gestural interface game vocabulary would allow for a much wider game playing audience, as well as increase the communicative possibilities of the game medium. By using the natural movements of the human body, I hope to design a game that is enhanced by the computer, instead of being dictated by it.

Posted by kellee at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2005

SED Thesis Bibliography

1.
The Fourth Dimension; Rudy Rucker; Houghton Mifflin, 1985

Absolutley mind blowing; Dr. Diane Voss, my former professor, had me read this for a class I took on "time". It helped me form for much of my current understanding of realitys' structure.

2.
Flat Land; Edwin Abbot; Dover Publications, 1880
This book helped reinforce Plato's "Allegory of a Cave", helping me to understand my condition.

3.
The Mission of Art; Alex Grey; Shambala Press, 2001
Great art and writing?!? Yep. Alex really helped me to understand my purpose, a blessing and a curse, as an artist in this world.

4.
Concerning the Spiritual in Art; Wassily Kandinsky, 1911
I love Wassily. He tried to speak in a language few have the eyes to see.

Posted by edinehart at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

Kellee's Schedule Spring '05

Wed April 07
First draft Abstract and Text are due
Research, research, research

Sunday April 10
Solidify committee members
Interview Bolas
Research, research, research

Tues April 12
Brainstorm potential game gestures with Peggy's Interactive Writing class

Thurs April 14
Fisher joins class to answer questions

Thurs April 21
Solidify my 'definition' - what is my final product?
Cheer on classmates who are presenting

Sun April 24
Budget completed

Wed April 27 - Thurs April 28
The National Information and Communications Technology of Austrialia (NICTA) hold the Gestural Interaction Workshop 2005
Will follow up with workshop organizers in obtaining documentation of the workshops (already in communication with them)

Thurs April 28
Presentation
Heavy drinking

May 5
Final paper due

Posted by kellee at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

Thesis Bibliography

Got the bibliography started.

Posted by kellee at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2005

SED Thesis Structure

Conscious reality exists as a series of relative experiences; displayed sentient for one to behold. As ones being moves through the forth dimension it displays the characteristics of a string, a point displaced over time. What one can quantify empirically are fragments of data gleaned from the localization of totality. Ones life can be summed up as a series of multidimensional experiences interwoven over time. Thus the story of one’s life maybe: I was at 1, and I saw 1F, I then acted, and it brought me to 3B, as so on.
My thesis will follow this model.

Posted by edinehart at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)

SED Thesis Abstract

I. Title
a. Flown Away with the Pink Elefant
II. Abstract
a. I am trapped between many dimensions, my being spread out over a multiplicity of existences. Each one a dream of the next. I traveler, poet, philosopher, player; no simple empiricist science can bind and explain my perspective; pulled from the past and placed into present. Each space, each place, each dimension, imbued with meaning, shadows and symbols of a string of being; interwoven into a fabric of what was will be. This is a journey, through mind, spirit, space and time; come let us play and create the story that is experience.

III. Influences:
a. Sun Ra
b. George Clinton
c. Salvador Dali
d. DJ Qbert
e. Wassily Kandinsky
f. Alex Grey
g. Stan Lee
h. Richard Wagner

Posted by edinehart at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)