Games

Food Chain is a two-person mixed reality experience currently in development in collaboration with the Mixed Reality Lab at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

SnapShotMapPlot is an early prototype version of Food Chain. It is a collaborative mapping game in which one player walks across the USC campus, carrying a laptop and a GPS unit in a backpack, and wearing a cap with a webcam and 3DOF orientation sensor. In the Zemeckis Media Lab, a 3D model of the campus buildings is projected as a four-screen panorama. The indoor client receives position and orientation from the outdoor player (via the USC wireless network), and updates the panorama so that spectators indoors continuously see the model from the same point of view. At any moment, the outdoor player can transmit a snapshot, which is instantly placed – at the correct position and orientation – as a flat textured rectangle, so that (from the current point of view) the image matches up with the model, thus building up a database of images. The two nodes (indoors and outdoors) are in constant voice contact (via VOIP or cellphone). Periodically, an indoor operator takes over the point of view and flies to revisit any previous snapshot location.

In Food Chain, each player is both predator and prey in a hybrid virtual/physical space. One player (the Terran) is outdoors, on foot, carrying a pair of augmented-reality binoculars through which he can see virtual creatures; the other player (the Avian) is indoors, flying around a virtual model of the outdoor space. The Avian is just above the Terran on the food chain; she is trying to catch and consume the Terran, while avoiding a virtual AI Predator to whom she is herself prey. Meanwhile, the Terran tries to catch and consume virtual AI Prey while avoiding the attentions of the Avian Predator. Thus, the two players have a specific, non-symmetrical relationship, even as both players experience the dual nature of being both the hunter and the hunted.

A number of technologies are being used to create a rich shared experience for the two players. Their positions are tracked and they can communicate verbally with each other at all times. The Terran wears a backpack with a mobile computer, and carries a pair of see-through stereoscopic augmented-reality binoculars with an orientation tracker. He is tracked by a Global Positioning System (GPS) unit, and wears a stereo headset. The Avian is indoors, experiencing the shared space as a large stereoscopic projection. Her full-body position and orientation are tracked by an optical system, allowing her to navigate the virtual environment by swooping and gliding. Outdoors, a number of positions on the ground are physically marked with large symbols. These represent locations where the Terran can find AI Prey. At the center of each of these symbols is an RFID tag. When the Terran positions himself at the center of one of these symbols, his precise position is known. At these times, he can look through the AR binoculars to see virtual creatures superimposed over a video background of his location. He catches these creatures without moving, by shooting out his tongue, in the style of a frog.