Category: Spring 2020

Development Journal 1: Humans Fall Flat

February 17, 2020

After looking through the Unity Asset Store, I found many low poly nature objects such as trees and grass. I did not find a castle that fit with what I had in mind so I switched a few things. The two main points of focus was to give off the feel that one was situated near the edge of a platform with clouds surrounding the user and to create a sense of peace and serenity. I tried to create a medieval feel by having a church and a building with a water wheel. There is also a water closet directly behind the user. In the Human Falls Flat scene, there is a catapult and a bundle of rocks. In response, I just created a pile of rocks. The sun is situated in a way that everything is lit up and bright, with the clouds casting shadows to indicate proximity. Ultimately, I wanted my space to instill a sense of calmness: the entire space is just nature, buildings, and clouds.

February 11, 2020

For this project, I drew inspiration from the platform-puzzle video game Humans Fall Flat. This was a game I played with my friend last semester and I really enjoyed the art style. The game utilizes low poly for its objects and scenery. The feeling I get from this game/scene is one that is peaceful and serene, but also with a tinge of loneliness.

In this project, I hope to incorporate the scene where the character is falling through the sky as he/she is traversing through levels (Figure 1). I intend to have a character situated near the edge of a platform and behind the user is just space and clouds (Figure 1). I’m aiming to create my own interpretation of the medieval like scene from the game which may include objects such as the castle, bridge, and catapult (Figure 2 and Figure 3). After yesterday’s class, another approach that I thought of separating the various objects (castle, bridge, etc.) and placing them on different islands. By doing so, one would be able to better observe the sky/clouds from all angles.

Figure 1: Character Falling Through the Sky
Figure 2: Medieval Scene
Figure 3: Medieval Scene (Different Angle)

Reading response to Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch.3: From Additive to Expressive Form, Janet Murray

In the chapter “From Additive to Expressive Form: Beyond ‘Multimedia’,” Janet Murray discussed the ideas of additive forms and expressive forms, stating that “additive formulations are a sign that the medium is in an early stage of development and is still depending on formats derived from earlier technologies instead of exploiting its own expressive power” (p.83). Indeed, additive forms, such as narrative films, are merely dependent on the available technology without any further exploration into possible changes of physical properties. Meanwhile, expressive forms are the result after a long aggressive process of discoveries, inventions, and adoptions, extending the horizon of the current digital world. 

From my perspective, without much prior experience with virtual reality (VR), I believe that our today’s idea of VR must also start as a simple additive form, and has been developed throughout history to achieve the current much more expressive state. VR falls in between additive and expressive forms, as it is really challenging to define VR exclusively belonging to one. It is more of a process where VR is heading towards more innovations in technology and bringing about a better expressive virtual environment for the users. Just a few decades ago, the concept of 3D or VR was still new to most of the people. Now, VR is hitting the mainstream – hundreds of companies are working in creating and improving VR technology, adding on devices and features. VR is existent everywhere, in games and films, and it is what makes the journey of VR development even more appealing. There has been a long way since its start, and I firmly believe that VR is advancing towards a more expressive form.

Reading Response: Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch. 3

As is mentioned in Hamlet on the Holodeck, the expressive forms have their own affordances and norms to be regarded as a new media format. From my point of view, VR falls in the expressive form given its unique nature of immersive and interactive experience. One can argue that VR seems to be the first-person form of narrative that could be categorized as a combination of film/game and 3D imaging technology. Nevertheless, the gap between 2D expression and VR experience is so large that we could count it as a brand-new field. In the field of VR, how different types of sensations are simulated undoubtedly replies to certain rules and expectations. To my knowledge, there’s no existing media form that focuses on giving people a realistic feeling of exploring the world with one vision and one sound.

Hamlet on the Holodeck

In reading Hamlet on the Holodeck, I found it hard to categorize which of the four principal properties of digital environments best suited VR. I think there are two audiences here for VR; the creators and the participants. I make this distinction because I think some elements of digital environments simply apply more to the fabricators’ experiences than to the participants and vice versa.

What do I mean by this? Well, I want to start by saying that I thought procedural was the least fitting for VR. While there is a sense of “procedural” within VR, as there are rules and structures that guide the worlds inside VR, I do not think they apply as much to the audience as the do to the creators. The creators can see the rules and algorithms in the making of VR, but I think in most cases they reach a level of complexity that it becomes hard for the user to understand these patterns. In the reading example of Eliza, her pattern was basic enough for the users to understand and even become frustrated at due to unintentional humor. I do not believe the audience of an open world in VR would begin to understand the series of rules unless the creators themselves wish for the audience to understand. 

The most fitting aspect of the four digital rules I found was participatory and spatial. I say this because from personal experience, I found VR games/worlds with the utmost basic layout to still have effective narratives through the user participation. And in the case of VR being focused on more spatial than participatory, it simply becomes a complex type of “film” in which the audience are merely viewers. I think combining these two aspects are what bring the success and wonder of VR.

Reading Response to “From Additive to Expressive Form: Beyond ‘Multimedia'” by Janet H. Murray

In the chapter “From Additive to Expressive Form: Beyond ‘Multimedia'”, Murray claims that multimedia, or whatever people are referring to with the word, remain to be an additive form and have not yet been exploited of its expressive power, while the 2016 update illustrates how a lot of progress has been made in the industry ever since, in terms of the four affordances of digital environments: “procedural,” “participatory,” “spatial” and “encyclopedic.” In explanation for the terms “additive” and “expressive,” Murray says, “… additive formulations like ‘photo-play’ or the contemporary catchall ‘multimedia’ are a sign that the medium is in an early stage of development and is still depending on formats derived from earlier technologies instead of exploitig its own expressive power” (p. 83). Superficially, “additive formulations” refer to seemingly new media that present no essential breakthrough from their traditional predecessors, while “expressive” media are the ones that are actually innovative and significantly different from their predecessors. It seems to me that the two terms are more like two ends of a spectrum than they are definitive. There exist no standards with which we can define a medium as completely additive but not expressive, or vice versa. All new media, including VR, are to some extent more expressive compared to old ones; it is more a matter of degree of how much expressive power a medium has been exploited of. VR specifically, seems to be towards the more additive end in my opinion, given that it is still on an early stage of development and yet to be very accessible.

It appears interesting to me how Murray mentions the word “convention” a few times in different contexts. She attributes the success of Zork partly to how its designers used “literary and gaming conventions to constrain the players’ behaviors” (p. 96), while also pointing out that “hypertext fiction is still awaiting the development of formal conventions of organization that will allow the reader/interactor to explore an encyclopedic medium without being overwhelmed” (p. 105). Convention seems to be a constraining factor for new media to be more expressive; nonetheless, it is also important that new media break out of old conventions and build new ones. For instance, Murray categorizes e-book as an additive medium, but Kindle, the most famous e-book, channels some conventions of book and as a result, succeeds commercially. Would Kindle still be successful if it displayed text, rather than on separate pages like a book, on a continuous page where readers have to keep scrolling down? The question is, how do we build a new medium upon old conventions but not get contrained by them?

Hamlet on the Holodeck Chapter 3 Response

I think that from Murray’s four principal properties, the one that VR represents the most is the spatial affordance, however, it is also largely based on the remaining three. To me, spatiality is the definition of VR, as almost any environment can be created in VR. VR is unique because by physically remaining in the same location, the user can “travel” to any space, whether it is a different country or the middle of a patient’s stomach during a surgery. VR is different from other media because it creates the effect of feeling physically present in a certain space, thus being more realistic than imagining a space by reading a book or seeing it on a computer screen.

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Compared to Murray’s description of the interactive fiction computer game Zork, VR is a huge breakthrough in terms of visualizing and experiencing a space. Whereas Zork provided the user simply with text for imagining spatial situations and making certain choices in them, VR combines giving the user the option of an action with visual and sensory add-ons. A user can not only see these options in front of their eyes in the headset but also hold certain objects or sometimes even move around to experience the environment as vividly as mimicking a real-life situation.

Reading Response: Hamlet on the Holodeck, Ch 3

The phrase “virtual reality” just a few years ago meant something that seemed like a toy or just pleasant entertainment. Today, however, VR blends entirely with our everyday lives. It allows us to plunge ourselves into video games as if we were one of the characters. That being said VR creates a type of “fake world”, so when people put on a VR headset, their brain starts to believe that they have entered into a new world where they can actually move around and interact with virtual objects. Nevertheless, VR not only provides an immersive experience but also the sensation of being one with the character. It is very engaging to relate emotionally to the whole atmosphere while personally experiencing everything in detail. I believe in the near future VR will be the main focus. As you have seen, the world of virtual reality is constantly evolving. In fact, it could actually bring hundreds of benefits to any area such as education, health and entertainment.  As an example, from Murray’s reading, Eliza was an imitation of a therapist which was created at MIT. Where users would sit at a terminal and send messages to Eliza, who would respond that would initially involve some processing. Most of her answers were switching out pronouns to make the sentence and answer after some time. As Murray mentions in her readings, there was uncertainty and speculation whether or not it was possible to write a program that could be so persuasive. People actually thought they were talking with an actual therapist, for instance, in the story with the vice president where Eliza was not only persuasive but also very successful as a therapist in her role as well. 


Hamlet on the Holodeck: Response

In Chapter 3 of Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet H. Murray elaborates on the concept of additive and expressive forms. Additive forms, including narrative films (initially), eBooks, and even web soaps, are those that depend and even piggyback on existing media formats instead of taking advantage of the new affordances and forms of expression they offer. Expressive forms, on the other hand, are capable of maximizing their “own affordances that can be used for creating new forms of narrative” (113). For instance, social media platforms, with their own particular rules, norms, and expectations, allow for new modes of expression online. Unless in Twitter, for example, people would not necessarily limit their what they say or express to 280 characters.

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In my opinion, the additive or expressive nature of VR cannot be fully generalized, and instead seems to change according to its different cases and applications. For instance, it could be argued that 360 films in VR lean more towards the additive spectrum, as it utilizes virtual reality as another, arguably more immersive, movie theater. However, when using 360 VR films in a way that leverages on the capabilities of a VR headset, either through spatial audio or through the capacity of moving inside the film, this medium veers away from its predecessors. For instance, once I experienced a VR film where the user was physically placed in the middle of 4 different locations (an art gallery, a dark alley, an apartment room, and a hallway), all having scenes happening simultaneously. Depending on which scene one views, one could hear and understand what was happening in that one pocket of the story. As the narrative progressed, it became clear that the 4 locations are heavily related to one another and to the overall story, with one character eventually going through all of them. Being an omniscient viewer that could literally see all 4 scenes representing the same moment in time was something I had never experienced before, and which I consider a positive push for VR towards becoming a more expressive form. This same argument can also be applied to VR games, which could be considered the additive form of 3D digital games. When leveraging on the unique affordances of Virtual Reality, such as by providing more immersion through more intuitive controllers whose functionality fits with their use in VR, the medium definitely veers more towards being an expressive form.

Murray | Ch. 3

Murray asserts that digital environments are spatial, but her definition of that property more appropriately fits to an assertion that digital environments simulate spatiality. In her own words, these “environments are characterized by their power to represent navigable space” (96). That is to say that the “computer screen is displaying a story that is also a place,” which leads to the “challenge” of “invent[ing] an increasingly graceful choreography of navigation to lure the interactor through ever more expressive narrative landscapes” (100). In the sense that Murray describes, then, VR can represent this property at its most extreme. As graphics and motion tracking and field of view improve over time, there will be a thinner veil between physical reality and a virtual experience. However, to appreciate this potential fully, Murray’s definition has to be expanded. 

Digital environments do not only simulate spatiality; they exist spatially. Computers and the devices in which they are embedded take up space. Digital environments  crisscrosses the world in cables and satellites. These environments draw us into overly relaxed postures, shifting the way we take up space as well. Of course, digital environments do simulate spatiality, but this is trick, one we are acutely aware of. We can willingly suspend our disbelief and pretend digital environments extends beyond our screens. We can overlay useful digital environments onto our real world, the way we do with Google maps. We can also leave these simulations. In VR, these choices still exist, except there is much less, if any, need to suspend disbelief because the user is in the digital environment. Hence, VR takes the spatial principle from being a representation or a display to a truth.