Australian Cultural Data Futures — Australian Cultural Data Engine
Free event at the University of Melbourne next Thursday, yes I will be there! Australian Cultural Data Futures, Thursday, 24 August 2023, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, University of Melbourne.
I will talk about 360 panoramas and 3D, the article from this research is available online via the Heritage Journal or via an online encyclopedia
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GLAM Games: Gaps and Glimmers in the Visitor Experience
Bradley Forum Level 5 Hawke Building 50-55 North Terrace, Adelaide
25 September from 9.30. Book a free ticket at Eventbrite.
GLAM Games: Gaps and Glimmers in the Visitor Experience
Join us for an exciting event that explores the fascinating world of visitor experiences in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Discover the gaps and glimmers in the visitor journey as we delve into the latest trends and strategies to enhance engagement and create memorable experiences.
Date: Mon Sep 25 2023 Time: 09:30 AM ACST Location: Bradley Forum, Level 5, Hawke Building, UniSA City West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, SA
Immerse yourself in a day filled with insightful discussions, interactive workshops, and networking opportunities with industry experts and like-minded professionals.
Whether you’re a curator, librarian, archivist, or museum enthusiast, this event is a must-attend to stay ahead in the ever-evolving GLAM landscape.
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to gain valuable insights and exchange ideas with fellow GLAM enthusiasts. Register now to secure your spot!
SCHEDULE:
9.30 Intro & talk Associate Professor Erik Champion (UniSA) Learning Through Play
10.00 Peter Tattersall (Head of Visitor Engagement, National Maritime Museum (Sydney)) What are you playing at? Contested histories, video games, classrooms, and museums
10.30 MORNING TEA (provided)
11.00 Dr Melissa Rogerson (University of Melbourne) Avoiding “analogue” – combining physical components with technologies to make new playful experiences
11.30 Dr Bernardo Pereira (ANU) Insights from a Computer Science Escape Room Experience
12.00 Drs Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller & Katrina Grant (ANU) Lo-fi Games in GLAM
12.30 Dr Susannah Emery, George Martin & Sophia Booij (UniSA) “Escaping the classroom” – engaging students with history
1.00 LUNCH
2.00 Natalie Carfora & Claudia von der Borch (MOD. Museum) Designing Museum Experiences: Learnings from George Alexander Foundation Fellowships
2.30 Peter Tullin (Remix) The changing landscape for the cultural and creative industries
3.00 Sam Haren (Sandpit) Bringing Intimacy Back to Digital Interactions
3.30 AFTERNOON TEA (provided)
4.00 Dr Juan Hiriart (the University of Salford UK (virtual)) Co-designing indigenous games: South America and beyond
Above image: Gallery & Museum AR-game workshop, Finland 2021 (copyright Erik Champion).
This event was supported by a Creative UniSA grant and with the help of the Department for Industry, Innovation and Science (South Australia).
I wish! (Well, hopefully next year)… but anyway, I will give a 20-25 minute talk by Zoom, on Thursday June 16. The PHIVE conference (PROMOTING HERITAGE IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS) is kicked off by the President of Iceland, a noted Professor of History, and a few months older than me (so I still have time to become a head of state).
Title
Into the Heritage-Verse
Abstract
Proponents of virtual reality, extended reality, and the “Metaverse’ suggest the digital future of multiple entertainment and education worlds is imminent. And the field of virtual heritage (virtual reality and related technologies) is arguably over three decades old already.
If this is true, and given that we are saturated by phone-media, apps, and games, why is it so hard to find example of virtual heritage? What is stopping the uptake of these new technologies? And how can we use these new, imminent, and hyped devices and platforms for the benefit of digital heritage, or are there conceptual challenges still to be resolved?
Despite COVID, lack of travel resources etc, (especially to the UK from Australia), I’ve been thinking about proposing a panel/session at CAA2022 about “what is lost in the digits”-which elements, features, beliefs or interpretations are left behind or overlooked when scanning / digitally simulating…and what we can or should do about it (with a nod to @EthanWatrall). A short twitter discussion (with many points by Anton Scoetzee) followed.
So, if I think it is feasible, I will apply to CAA2022 before 17 January and post the proposal here. I can see it morphing into an open access, dialogue-friendly edited book.
I’m giving a virtual lecture for DHGraz Wednesday 6 October 2021 (tomorrow): “We’re delighted to welcome @nzerik this Wednesday, who will open our Lunchtime Lecture series with an online talk on “Games as Serious Visualisation Tools For Digital Humanities, Cultural Heritage and Immersive Literacy”
More info: https://informationsmodellierung.uni-graz.at/de/neuigkeiten/detail/article/online-lunchtime-lecture-30.-juni-2021-1200-uhr/
Not recorded but slides are here https://www.slideshare.net/nzerik/games-xr-dhgraz-talk-06102021
My presentation slides for virtual The Interactive Pasts Conference Online 2 (TIPC2), (held 5-6 November, notionally, at Leiden) are on slideshare.
The twitch stream for the conference is at https://www.twitch.tv/valuefnd (my talk from yesterday is on there somewhere).
This paper explores Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey as a way to explore idyllic historic landscapes and heritage sites with some degree of questing and simulated danger. It applies Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey in two ways, as discovery tour option mode and as a metaphor to explore in more general and speculative terms how questing and historical dilemmas and conflicts could be incorporated into both fan tourism and cultural/historical tourism (Politopoulos, Mol, Boom, & Ariese, 2019).
Keza MacDonald views Assassin’s Creed as a virtual museum, Ubisoft regards it as the recovery of lost worlds: “ “We give access to a world that was lost” said Jean Guesdon (MacDonald, 2018). “Discovery Tour will allow a lot of our players to revisit this world with their kids, or even their parents.”
Origins’ Discovery Tour mode “promises” educational enlightenment (Thier, 2018; Walker, 2018); Odyssey’s additional Story Creator Mode (Zagalo, 2020) adds personalized quests. Beyond the polaroid fun of sharing landscape selfies with other players and ancient history voyeurs across the Internet, there is also the prospect of “Video game–induced tourism: a new frontier for destination marketers” (Dubois & Gibbs, 2018). Plus physical location VR games. Game company Ubisoft created escape game VR and virtual tours inside physical exhibitions such as Assassin’s Creed VR – Temple of Anubis (Gamasutra Staff, 2019). Is there a market for historical playgrounds as virtual tourism?
I promised not to write so many book chapters and I am failing miserably. Time to focus on projects, not words.
I gave a keynote Monday 9 December at Dhdownunder 2019, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia. The title was Digital Heritage: Presenting Futures Past
The slides can be viewed and downloaded in the nzerik directory at slideshare.
MAIN POINTS
To cut over 80 slides short, my answers to the initial questions are
I suggest future research and potential solutions are
Free event at Curtin University Friday 8 November 12.30-3 PM
Register at eventbrite. [Above image care of Alexandra Angeletaki NTNU Trondheim]
Speakers:
Dr Christina Lee will MC the event.
nb below are photos of the venue (direct drive in from Manning Road, east of Waterford Plaza). Theatre “Exhibition Space” is on the ground floor directly ahead, after entering the door in the photo (to the left of the vertical Visitor Reception sign).
Today Ikrom had his milestone presentation and (it was the first for me at Curtin so training wheels) but the reviewer questions were more,..ok can you do this for this project of mine..which actually is great..
Ikrom showed his project development to build a web-based 3D landscape or building model viewer with GIS and Semantic Web/RDF compatibility using open source technology. It is basically the starting demo for the paper released, open source, at:
So, cultural heritage people, what would you want to do with 3D online models with LOD, Semantic Web technology, and the ability to question, select or annotate the 3D online model using say a drawing tablet pen or lassoo or…what questions would you want to be able to ask it or what parts or argument would you want to be able to show?
I was the second-author of two papers presented at CAADRIA 2019: INTELLIGENT & INFORMED in Wellington New Zealand, and they are now published in CUMINCAD. The primary authors were Mafkereseb Bekele for the first paper (he won a Young CAADRIA award) and Hafizur Rahaman for the second paper, both are colleagues at Curtin University, Mafkereseb is a PhD student here and Hafizur is a Research Fellow.
The primary objective of this paper is to present a redefinition of Mixed Reality from a perspective emphasizing the relationship between users, virtuality and reality as a fundamental component. The redefinition is motivated by three primary reasons. Firstly, current literature in which Augmented Reality is the focus appears to approach Augmented Reality as an alternative to Mixed Reality. Secondly, Mixed Reality is often considered to encompass Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality rather than specifying it as a segment along the reality-virtuality continuum. Thirdly, most common definitions of Augmented Reality (AR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MxR) in current literature are based on outdated display technologies, and a relationship between virtuality and reality, neglecting the importance of the users necessarily complicit sense of immersion from the relationship. The focus of existing definitions is thus currently technological, rather than experiential. We resolve this by redefining the continuum and MxR, taking into consideration the experiential symbiotic relationship and interaction between users, reality, and current immersive reality technologies. In addition, the paper will suggest some high-level overview of the redefinition’s contextual applicability to the Virtual Heritage (VH) domain.
To validate the hypothesis that virtual heritage papers are reliant on providing scholarly argumentation based on 3D models, and convenient access is provided to these models where relevant, this study reviewed 264 articles from the last three available proceedings of major digital heritage events and conferences (14 in total). The findings revealed this was not the case, few contain references to accessible 3D models. We discuss why this may be so, and we outline recommendations for ensuring that virtual heritage 3D models can be preserved and accessed.
Very happy to see this https://openheritage3d.org/ but have some questions!
Also with 3D publishing, Professor Elaine Sullivan’s project on Digital Karnak was shown last Friday at CAA2019 in Krakow, Poland.
More for my own use, here are two papers accepted for CAA2019 in Krakow Poland, 23-27 April, 2019.
Author Erik M Champion (Mafi?)
Title Mixable reality, Collaboration, and Evaluation (S36: User Experience Design in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage)
If we are to move past one hit AR wonders like Pokémon Go, scalable yet engaging content, stable tools, appropriate evaluation research, long-term and robust infrastructure, are essential. Formats like WebVR and Web XR show promise for sharing content across desktop and head-mounted displays (without having to download plugins), but there is also a non-technological constraint: our preconceptions about virtual reality. For example, in a 2018 Conversation article “Why virtual reality cannot match the real thing” by Professor of Philosophy Janna Thompson) she argued that virtual reality (and virtual heritage in particular) attempts to provide accurate and equivalent realistic interactive simulations of the existing real world.
VR is not only a possible mirror to the current world. As Sir David Attenborough noted about the Natural History Museum’s “Hold the World” VR application, it provides a richer understanding of process, people can move and view virtual objects that are otherwise fragile, expensive or remote. And it allows people to share their mashups of reality, mixable reality. Collaborative learning can compel us to work in groups to see the bigger picture… your actions or decisions can be augmented and incorporated into the experience. However, there are few studies on collaborative learning in mixed reality archaeology and heritage. This presentation will discuss two projects, (one using two HoloLens HMDs, one a game where two people with different devices must share and control one character,) the theories adopted, and the range of possibilities for evaluating user experience in this collaborative mixed reality.
This is related to part of an article on VR for tourism that was submitted to the online Conversation website, this abstract will be further modified and updated.
Authors: Erik M Champion, Hafizur Rahaman
Title: 3D Models: Unwanted, Unknown, Unloved (Session S37: 3D Publishing and Sustainability: Taking Steps Forward)
Given the importance of three-dimensional space and artefacts to archaeology and to heritage studies, one might therefore assume that publications in the area of virtual heritage are heavily reliant on providing scholarly argument based on 3D models.
To corroborate this hypothesis, we reviewed virtual heritage proceedings of five major digital heritage conferences one could expect to be focused on projects incorporating 3D models. A total number of 264 articles across 14 proceedings were studied, and the results will be tabulated and presented.
The lack of accessible 3D models, usable projects, or ways in which the 3D model could be used and critiqued in a scholarly argument is of great concern to us. We suggest that long-term usage and preservation of virtual heritage models are worrying and persistent issues, and their scholastic impact is severely compromised. We suggest there are least three critical issues: we lack accessible, durable and complete infrastructure, which is essential for storage and preservation; we still don’t have a shared understanding of how to develop, integrate and demonstrate the research value of 3D heritage models; we also lack robust, long-term publication systems that can integrate and maintain both the 3D models and their relevance and functionality in terms of both community engagement and scholarship. We recommend seven practical steps for ensuring that the scholarship going into the development of 3D virtual heritage models, and arising from 3D virtual heritage models, can be fully implemented.
Last trip of the year planned (still to be confirmed, approved, of course)..
Paper accepted for Researching Digital Cultural Heritage – International Conference, Manchester UK, Dates: 30/11-1/12/2017 twitter #digheritage17
Keywords:Digitally enabled collaborative, participatory and reflexive approaches in cultural heritage design, research and practice.
If conveying cultural significance is a central aim of virtual heritage projects, can they convey cultural significance effectively without an understanding of the contextual role of cultural knowledge? In this talk I will argue this is very difficult, but even populating virtual environments with others (human-guided or computer-scripted), there are still vital, missing ingredients.
In virtual heritage projects with enough computational power and sophistication to feature intelligent agents, they are primarily used as guides (Bogdanovych et al. 2009). They lead players to important landmarks, or perhaps act as historical guides (revealing past events, conveying situationally appropriate behaviour). Intelligent agents are usually designed for limited forms of conversation and typically help convey social presence rather than cultural presence. For an enhanced “sense of inhabited place”, engaging narrative- related elements, or embodiment, a cultural agent recognizes, adds to, or transmits physically embedded and embodied aspects of culture. They could provide a sense of cultural presence, becoming Aware-Of-Not-Quite-Being-‘There’.
Cultural agents would not be mere conversational agents if they were able to:
To fulfil the above criteria, cultural agents would be culturally constrained. Not just socially constrained; their actions and beliefs would be dependent on role, space, and time. They could understand and point out right from wrong in terms of culturally specific behaviour and understand the history and possibly also the future trajectory of specific cultural movements. In this talk I will discuss three scenarios for cultural agents, their relationship to roles and rituals, and two more missing ingredients. The result? A more situated, reflexive appreciation of cultural significance via virtual heritage.
Our session of presentations, projects, play-testing, game pitches for CAA2017:
March 14-16, 2017: ATLANTA
Video games are a popular form of media, with over 155 million gamers in America today, and they thus serve as a unique way to analyze how pop-culture can influence public perceptions of the past. The player’s ability to move through, interact with, and have an effect on virtual environments creates intimate, complicated relationships with virtual materials, including artifacts and ruins, that can have real-world effects. Although aspects of archaeology are often included in video games, the discipline is not always portrayed as scholars would like. However, as problematic as games like Tomb Raider or Uncharted might be, they are quickly becoming a key way in which the public learns about and interacts with archaeology.
This paper will explore the ways the popular 2015 game Fallout 4 shapes ruined landscapes (‘ruinscapes’) for specific thematic purposes that ultimately influence player interactions with ruins in both the virtual and real worlds. To do this, I will create a walkthrough exploring the ruinscapes of Fallout 4 and consider how the game’s strong themes of anti-capitalism and relative morality can create biases and preconceptions of Mid-Century Modern ruins.
Games like Fallout 4 are extremely popular and consumed by millions of gamers worldwide. Video game analysis is an essential element to understanding current public perceptions of ruins and, more generally, archaeology. By considering the representation of virtual ruinscapes and how their thematic underpinnings can affect popular attitudes towards ruins, archaeologists can become better equipped to engage with public audiences.
The goal of the Samothracian sailing simulation is to recreate the ancient social networks of Greece through the lens of the maritime infrastructure as a video game. How did maritime trade affect the societies of the Mediterranean and their interaction? By reconstructing the physical landscape of the ancient Mediterranean in the Unity3D game engine, we can study the behavioral patterns and decision making of contemporary human beings as players when placed under the same stressors and variables as their ancient Greek mariner counterparts. With this data we hope to bolster the existing social network analysis of the area with quantitative human behavior. This data is gleaned by tracking all player interactions of sailing and trading through the simulated environment to search for patterns that help explain ancient analogs. The game also serves as a ludic and pedagogical experience for the players through attached myth and literature that act as the narrative for the world. Currently, we have a working and very functional prototype already tested in a classroom of 60+ students. By the time of this conference, the prototype will be finished with plans for expansion.
Reference:
https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/samothraciannetworks/the-game/play-the-game/
The Battle of Waterloo (1815) as well as being the turning point in a huge European struggle has been the subject of a number of computer games. These range from the innovative turn-based mechanics of Mirrorsoft’s Amiga game – Waterloo (1989) to the sophisticated and highly graphically appealing Napoleon: Total War with a vast number in between. However, none of these games allow for a detailed examination of the individual parts of the highly complex battle, mostly focusing on the wider strategy of the day.
The charity Waterloo Uncovered is currently excavating at the battlefield in Belgium and uncovering new information every year about the minute details of the day of the battle. Our current focus is the struggle for Hougoumont Farm and we are discovering how the micro-topography, architectural structures and even the types of plants in the gardens would have affected the soldiers and how they moved and fought on the day. We would like to see how a gaming engine and game mechanics could be used to investigate this – charting the fall of musketballs (and comparing them with the recovered remains), simulating the visual and physical impact of hedges and ditches, and even modelling the build-up of dead bodies on the field and how they would have affected movement, morale and the will to continue the fight.
In the past decade, Agent Based Models (ABM’s) have become a functional part of the archaeologist’s toolbox. Many ABM’s include elements of game theory in their ruleset, which is the foundation of a working model. The line between a purely scientific ABM and a video game from the simulation genre is already thin, but why not blur the line further and blend an ABM into a full-blown game experience?
The use of games as tools of research is the next logical step. Instead of formalizing our theories in a ruleset for an ABM, we could design a game based on them. Where the player makes choices through gameplay and be monitored exploring various strategies!
This talk will investigate the potential of the given approach, based on a fictive open-world game, set in the European Bronze Age. The players will have to manage resources and tackle the spatial organization of a village. They are also bound to make decisions on the social organization of their village. There is no direct interaction with the inhabitants of the game world as they act as agents. The collected datasets will be analyzed with emphasis on the correlation between certain forms of social organization and the rise of warfare, as well as on connections between wealth distribution and tensions within the tribe.
Archaeogaming does not need to be limited to the research of games anymore; we can try to take a step forward and do research through games.
The project is based on the work of Peruvian arpillera (appliqué) artist Flora Zárate, whose three dimensional “story cloths” narrate cultural stories both of people from her native Peru and of immigrants in the United States. Although not created in the ancient past, these works illustrate very old and persistent themes found in Quechua-language (the language of the Incas) mythology and folktales such as the concept of ayni, or reciprocity, expressed in such activities as cooperative labor. In addition to identifying key themes in Andean mythology, we consider how elements of mythic thinking and Andean worldview that figure in Quechua folktales—such as the presence of religious syncretism, the relation between time and space in Andean thought, and the conception of gender complementarity and dependence—could be integrated into the design of the interactive experience based on exploration of an arpillera reimagined as board game prototype. Throughout the game, the main character will have to make choices that relate to Andean culture, including understanding and demonstrating the importance of reciprocity or, “today for me, tomorrow for you.” We will present a paper prototype using materials including paper, blocks, dice, and index cards, identifying the presence of these recurring Andean cultural themes in the arpilleras, addressing how the design is intended to present characters whose roles relate to corresponding knowledge and tasks, and how objects are linked to culturally-relevant potential uses. Participants will be invited to play through the prototype, giving feedback and making design suggestions.
The virtual presentation of landscapes in games, thanks to the exponential increase of representational power of digital technologies, has been progressively challenging the capacity of gaming audiences to distinguish virtual environments from real-world referents. This spectacular growth, however, has not been mirrored by a comparable progress in the simulation of the natural and social processes from real environments. Although highly realistic, game landscapes in most commercial titles still remain as inert theatrical scenery, devoid of any capacity to reflect the effects of human life agency and the inextricable nature of social and natural processes.
In this presentation, I would like to demonstrate a historical game prototype that I have been developing as part of a PhD research, with the purpose of investigating possible design solutions to the problem of creating game environments capable of transmitting the inherent complexity of historical landscapes. The game reconstructs Early Medieval Britain, focusing on the micro-histories of everyday life instead of more stereotypical forms of gameplay centred on the simulation of violent conflicts. Currently in its final version, the game has been iteratively produced in cycles of development and play-testing sessions with the participation of archaeologists, historians, and educators who have given valuable feedback about its design, direction, and potential use.
31 August, I was part of a panel in Curtin’s research week to discuss digital scholarship. And from my notes I was asked to email here are some of my suggestions that might be of some interest and not just for library makerspaces..
In my brief chat I said when I was the project leader of Dighumlab for 4 universities (and now 2 libraries) in Denmark, I asked myself the following questions (abridged):
I suggested that genuine infrastructures invest and support not just equipment but also people, skills, training, exchanges, enthusiasm.
Most DH centres are resource based or centre-based, few are distributed. But the most important thing is to work out who you want to work for and with and what resources and profile you hope to focus around.
For our discussion in research week I was not sure if people are talking about a cluster, centre, lab, and for learning, scholarship or support. Perhaps all three but I suggest to focus on one or two but ensure knowledge is carried on past individuals and some of the research aims to evaluate maintain and improve the quality or quantity of that information (it should not just be a pipeline, the pipeline itself should also be an area of research).
I did say some form of meeting space is important (like Curtin Library Makerspace!), archives are important (our Library has that but perhaps it needs to start looking at new more public focussed ones as well), and there are related degrees. So you could tackle any one of those three areas I mentioned, learning, scholarship and support.
For example with this UNESCO chair I have 3 years of workshop funding and 4 years of visiting fellowship funding. Rather than invite people who arrive talk and leave I think it best for me to build it around the makings a 3D archive, invite experts* in the first year to help us survey and build best practice, invite people to help us build it, invite experts in year 3 to help us evaluate it with local communities etc.. AND build a summer workshop or senior class around the visiting experts and workshop funding.
*With DIGHUMAB in 2012 I organised a 1 day conference, invited 4 experts from Nordic/UK countries and 2 infrastructure leaders (CLARIN and DARIAH), in areas we wanted to learn more about or connect with, to come and talk.
What did we get out of that? DARIAH helped DIGHUMLAB academics find partners for an EU project application and asked to host a meeting in Copenhagen, CLARIAH received ERIC EU status with a strong Danish leadership component, Sweden (HUMLAB) invited two of us to their conference; Oslo invited me for a talk and so did Aalto U (Finland), and Lorna Hughes helped bring NeDiMAH people to Copenhagen in 2013 for a conference on cultural heritage tools and archives, and a book (Cultural Heritage Digital Tools and Infrastructures, Routlege 2017 or 2018, google books?) will come out of that. All from a one day conference with just 6 invited and 4 local speakers! Oh, breakout time helps.
See also
Image By Frank Vincentz – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31999344
Title: Talk on Game Design, Virtual Heritage and Digital History by Professor Erik Champion
Time: 18:00-19:00, Wednesday, 12 October.
Location: Studio 8, National Centre of Creativity, Fondazzjoni Kreattività – Spazju Kreattiv, St James Cavalier, Valletta, VLT 1060, Malta
Abstract:
Professor Erik Champion of Curtin University, Australia, will discuss fundamental challenges and promises of computer game design and interactive media when designed to help the communication and preservation of digital heritage, focusing particularly on examples of built heritage. He will examine serious games designed for history and heritage, definitions and challenges of ‘virtual heritage’ and possible technical and imaginative solutions.
Time: 15:45 – 17:15 (session) , Wednesday 5 October.
Location: Area della Ricerca di Genova, Via De Marini 6, 16149 Genova (Genoa), Italy.
Title: The Missing Scholarship Behind Virtual Heritage Infrastructure
This theoretical position paper outlines four key issues blocking the development of effective 3D models that would be suitable for the aims and objectives of virtual heritage infrastructures. It suggests that a real-time game environment which composes levels at runtime from streaming multimédia components would offer advantages in terms of editing, customisation and personalisation. The paper concludes with three recommendations for virtual heritage infrastructures.
Time: 11:00 – 12:00 (short paper, session) , Thursday 6 October.
Location: Area della Ricerca di Genova, Via De Marini 6, 16149 Genova (Genoa), Italy.
Title: 3D in-world Telepresence With Camera-Tracked Gestural Interaction
While many education institutes use Skype, Google Chat or other commercial video-conferencing applications, these applications are not suitable for presenting architectural or urban design or archaeological information, as they don’t integrate the presenter with interactive 3D media. Nor do they allow spatial or component-based interaction controlled by the presenter in a natural and intuitive manner, without needing to sit or stoop over a mouse or keyboard. A third feature that would be very useful is to mirror the presenter’s gestures and actions so that the presenter does not have to try to face both audience and screen.
To meet these demands we developed a prototype camera-tracking application using a Kinect camera sensor and multi-camera Unity windows for teleconferencing that required the presentation of interactive 3D content along with the speaker (or an avatar that mirrored the gestures of the speaker). Cheaply available commercial software and hardware but coupled with a large display screen (in this case an 8 meter wide curved screen) allows participants to have their gestures, movements and group behavior fed into the virtual environment either directly or indirectly. Allowing speakers to present 3D virtual worlds remotely located audiences while appearing to be inside virtual worlds has immediate practical uses for teaching and long-distance collaboration.
Conference URL: http://gch2016.ge.imati.cnr.it/index.php/technical-program
My proposal to the 2017 Computer Applications and Quantitive Methods in Archaeology (CAA) international conference, March 14th and 16th, 2017 at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA) has been accepted.The below will be updated when I speak to the co-organisers but we are thinking of a morning presentation and (possible) game pitch, and an aftertoon work on key ideas..
CAA2017 Atlanta: Other Session
Mechanics, Mods and Mashups: Games of the Past for the Future Designed by Archaeologists
Organizers: Erik Champion, Michael Nitsche, Natalie Underberg-Goode
Are you a fan of Assassin’s Creed but upset over how it could have made history exciting without having to employ and manipulate central historical characters? Love Lara Croft: Tomb Raider if only the tomb-raiding (stealing) mechanics could be replaced by something more meaningful? Wish that the Total War Series allowed you to employ agent modeling to test competing archaeological theories of migration, colonization and invasion or just to improve its historical accuracy? Dream you could use the language, graphic vision and immersion of Far Cry Primal in the classroom to explain (through engaging interaction) the Mesolithic rather than primarily use it as a backstage to fight semi- believable creatures? Then this workshop is for you. Correction. This workshop is BY you.
Archaeologists and people of a historical persuasion:
The audience will:
Give the writers feedback ideas and nominate the best presentation in terms of fun and engagement, imaginative ideas, and archaeological relevance (in promoting archaeology, teaching archaeology or extending archaeological scholarship).
Potential tools:
Gameplay cards, game prototyping tools, scenes or videos from a 3D editor or game editor (Unity, Unreal, Blender), board games as prototypes, playing cards, physical artifacts that are role-played by the presenter, illustrations, slideshows, game editors (like the SIMS: https://www.thesims.com/en_GB) used to make films (Machinima), roleplaying videos, flowcharts, interactive fiction (like https://twinery.org/). We will provide a fuller list of tools and examples to potential attendees before the workshop.
Equipment:
PC with sound and display, some floor space to move around in for physical re-enactments. Tables or some form of desk to provide written or graphical feedback.
Length:
Participants: 26 maximum (ideally) where 6 present. We require half an hour a presenter so three hours for 6 presenters, 6 hours a whole day if we want to go to 12 presenters.
Ideally the non-presenting audience is not too large, preferably up to 20.
Outcome:
We will approach a creative publisher (Liquid Books, University of Michigan Press or other) to provide an online or printable output of the demonstrations and the audience feedback.
We would also like to invite presenters – if they can make it – to a workshop at DIGRA2017 Melbourne Australia to test out their demonstrations and play-throughs to game academics.
References
Champion, E. (2012) Game Mods: Design, Theory and Criticism. Entertainment Technology Centre Press.
Erik Champion 