Week 9 — Real and Virtual Worlds

John K. Bucher (2018) Storytelling for virtual reality: methods and principles for crafting immersive narratives — Chapter 7

I must say this was one of my favourites readings so far. It was very interesting to me as I am passionate about narrative, so the start of the chapter kept me captivated and wanting to learn more. It was very interesting to learn about metaphor, symbolism, and the four different types of irony and their differences with what one wants and needs, as I wasn’t truly aware of some of their meanings in the narrative. The six different types of inciting incidents were also very informative as I knew them by watching series and playing games, but I had never thought of classifying the events accordingly.

One of the concepts by Chris Edwards I felt was important was the “Technical limitations should not be considered in the earliest stages of immersive designs, as they can inhibit imagination”, a rule I follow and I believe should be followed by every designer, as our job is first and foremost to create the best experience possible. Not the word possible, which means that we need to think big at first and only after adjust our product to the technologies we have at hand.

From Steve Peters concepts, I chose these three as the most important to me:

“Gaming has established a vocabulary effective at getting users to look in directions that creators desire”, and I see this reflected well into the principles of level design like spatiality, light, and size, as well as the in-game design itself in the form of landmarks and other points of interest (evidenced through those principles of level design);

“True VR should allow the user agency and the ability to interact with the environment”, which led me to think of my decision to include more interactable object within my experience; and,

“Cultural cravings for the organic and tactile will be a challenge for VR. Agency can include the illusion of impacting the story”, where I see this last part as something that many designers and writers already use in their game/interactive stories, and I feel it might relate to the impairments to VR imposed by the technologies (un)available.

Marie-Laure Ryan (2015) Narrative as virtual reality 2: revisiting immersion and interactivity in literature and electronic media, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press — Chapters 3 and 4

I found the first of the two chapters I had to read a good insight into some of the ‘VR and Immersion’ problematics like the differences between VR-induced immersion and books induced immersion, conflicting with the definition of immersion not being based on technologies but rather seen as a state that is achieved through the sole use of the brain (without any inducer but the text). Another thing I liked about this chapter was the ‘Mental Simulation’ part, in which the author affirms that immersion requires mental stimulation (effort) to be achieved, which is one of the things the designers and developers have little control on, as it relies on the user’s capacity to do so. However, I believe the designers and developers can develop techniques and strategies to facilitate the ‘transition’ into that state. Amongst those strategies are the strong feeling of physical immersion, achieved by having realistic and carefully designed scenarios, emotional immersion, where the experience transmits certain emotions to the user, and embodiment, as the user should feel themselves ‘bodily present’ in the experience.

The fourth chapter went pretty much in the same direction as what I have just referred to as good practices for mental stimulation towards (the feeling of) immersion. There was one part I found quite important for my project as it has been something I have devoted some thinking and concerns to how to transport the user to the scene. In “Spatio-Temporal Immersion: How to Transport the Reader onto the Scene”, the author talks about that and analyses different examples. Thanks to them, I have a better idea of how to shape my ‘intros’ to better present the experience to the user.

Grau, Oliver (2003) Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. Cambridge: MIT Press, Chapter 8 & 9, Evolution and Perspectives, pgs 296–351

The book presented some works that have evolved past the barrier of the ‘purely artistic’ and were perceived as something that managed to integrate various fields into themselves, like sciences (apologies if I have offended art, I meant to refer to this as an adaptation and embracement of ‘new subjects’ that was not present before, to the best of my knowledge). A great example is “A-volve” where the artists-scientists could simulate breeding and evolution of lives. They created creatures and controlled their behaviours by changing their habitats and the things they interacted with, which was very interesting as it can be the basis for something future where we might be able to predict certain behaviours or responses from a species based on a specific occurrence.

Transgenic life was also something quite fascinating conceptualized 22 years ago. It is nice to see that nowadays technology has improved enough to increase the chances of this happening. I fear we won’t be able to reach something like a ‘real-life Jurassic park’, but it will be nice to see where this will lead…

Voices of VR Podcast #611: “Sleep No More” Creative Producer on Blurring the Lines of Reality with Punchdrunk’s Immersive Theatre

In this podcast, I learned that about the necessity of experiencing the VR experience because they can’t be described in words to other people. This was a point both speakers made clear throughout the podcast and is something I can see from my personal experience as it is really difficult to describe a good and immersive experience to someone else, or at least the feeling of presence.

There was one point I found particularly interesting which related to the lack of freedom that teachers have to teach new things, as there is no space to tailor an experience to students who are not engaging with the way things are normally taught. I personally relate to this as I too feel like the way things are taught in my country is quite different and less engaging when compared to other countries like the UK, even at higher levels like university, so I can say I understand the issue and I know how to address it (having been on both ends).

Another point I liked was the explanation of how the journey of creating different experiences for people who are not the ‘common’ audience is so much different and a whole new experience when compared to the more mainstream, commercialized, or accessible experiences that the big audiences see.

Following that, when they mentioned the experiences for people with dementia and how carefully planned they had to be to avoid hurting the patients reminded me a lot of one of the first videos I watch for this unit about experiences for people with phobias.