jeffs
--
Jeff Sonstein http://www.blaxxun.com
http://ariadne.iz.net/~jeffs/jeffs.asc
=========================================
Director of Technical Support
blaxxun Interactive
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["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed May 19 07:59:01 1999
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From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Andrew Phelps <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jeff Sonstein
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Constantin Rahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Steve Guynup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Get the Paper While its HOT =)
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 09:52:17 -0500
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Good work! Excellent!
Stagecraft of "business" - gestural actions of characters usually added by
the actors to create
depth of character. These can be seen as "evocative" actions, not
invocative. In this case, it
may be hard to establish "causality" in terms of the A->B model of a
database transaction or
unit of work. Pre and post conditions of navigation nodes fit the A->B
model at a higher
level (Scene transitions or set-ups), but stage craft affects what you
described as the
"chaotic" human actions. An area of follow on investigation would be
incorporating a standard set of controls for h-anim-based characters which
can
be specialized (sub-classed). For example, a blink or eye brow movement
which
can be modified and renamed "nervous twitch". There are some references in
the
vrml-lit list to work in that area. Stories without these are perceived as
"flat"
(the reaction of many to Phantom Menace - all effects and action without
character development). One area where simulation approaches storytelling
is
in requiring a human player to "stay in character". A player chooses a list
of characteristics of a character then must keep these unless the simulation
characteristic/methods enable them to be modified. So there is still a
system
character (the author/director setup) and the choices the actor can make.
Note: Clint Eastwood points out the concept of "punctuation of actions"
related to knowledge of scene editing. Setups for transitions can be
very economical if the actor and the director cooperate on this. This
is a good pointer when you start to extend from single scenes to multi-scene
stories.
It may not be critical to the system that it be capable of storytelling at
all.
Once one introduces multi-players, and user and system controls with a
feedback
loop modeled as database transactions, *storytelling* may not be an
appropriate model.
One might say "story evolving" but that isn't catchy enough. The
discriminating feature of
non-linear systems is the degree and means by which they support
emergent features. A story teller may create variant features but
if the story must have the same overall feature set in any medium or
version, is emergence established?
The system you described where players cooperate or don't to get a piece of
information
is not so much storytelling, as limited improvisation to accomplish a task.
This does not detract from
your work, but you spend a lot of effort justifying a model of a story as a
causal
relationship set which is the same dependent on media among all versions.
I am
unsure if the story model is useful here.
The system you present is the same for interactive models of different
kinds, eg, the same model (pre-post node navigation using action/feedback
over
a persistent database) is used in many different applications (CBT,
interactive
technical manuals, diagnostic systems, etc). So, this *story model* is
a limited case of a general model of multi-user simulation.
What would be very interesting would be the development of a toolset
(authoring
system) for distributed authoring of these kinds of sims. We can do that
now
with existing tools, but the integration is hard because there is so much
handwork
and so far, no real overall standard set of representations for the basic
parts. We are
in the phase of applying the techniques of complex hypermedia (eg, pre-post
condition
node navigation) to 3D graphics. The theoretical basis is clear even if we
haven't
created a complete set of standards or even classifications for all of the
required
components.
Where we continue to justify a simulation in terms of storytelling may only
lead back
to debates about the nature of storytelling when what is needed is more
capable
tools for creating new expressions in the medium while relying on post-hoc
analysis
to name the names.
Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Phelps [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
> Well, for those of you taking an interest in the MU VRML stuff I am doing,
> the paper is TENTATIVELY COMPLETE. I will present this at RIT on Thursday
> (if anyone in the area would like to come please do, I will give
> directions). I have also spoken to Bruce Damer and I will make every
> effort to present this at the O-World Conference at the NASA Ames Research
> Center Nov 4-5. Additionally, I will be posting copies to bruce, Jeff
> Sonstien for V-Net and the Web 3d Org to make this available.
>
>
