Desert of the Real: Deep Dive into Social VR

Fall 2020 
Friday 9am - 11:55am

Office Hours:
	TBD

INTRO

The virtual expansion of screens began during the 1960’s with the exploration of head-mounted displays. Since the 60’s, virtual reality has been explored in a multi-disciplinary context including philosophy, design, arts, behavioral therapy. There is a technological convergence between virtual reality and online virtual words, by both independent creators and large social media platforms.

Baudrillard, with his publication of Simulacra and Simulation (1981), declared that human experience is being replaced by a simulation of reality (HyperReality). His theories around an understanding of shared existence often help build upon a dystopian narrative of the virtual present in mainstream pop-culture, as seen in films such as The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix. Contrary to Baudrillard, Canadian VR Pioneer Char Davies brings a more constructive perspective to Virtual Reality,

“facilitating a temporary release from our haitial perceptions and culturally biased assumptions about being in the world, to enable us, however momentarily, to perceive ourselves and the world us freshly.”

Throughout the class, the friction between Baudrillard and Davies will create the foundation of our exploration of Virtual Reality and traveling through Virtual Worlds such as VR Chat. We will use room scale headsets and game engines to create “temporal experiences” diving into themes from behavioral sciences to narrative storytelling.

We will be exploring

• existing VR projects, popular culture references and theory.
• travel through existing virtual platorms and make new friends
• concepts such as sense of embodiment (SoE), social VR design, and interactive storytelling techniques.
• methods for designing, modeling and rigging avatars for VR.
• live and pre-recorded animation.
• spatial audio techniques such as ambisonic sounds engines.
• build our own social vr project

Program Learning Objectives

This is a production class, along with a theoretical foundation in which we will prototype projects with networking, inverse kinematics, raycasting and face tracking technologies to explore questions such as “how does the viewer become part of the experience?” and “how does the real space relate to the virtual worlds we design?”

In the second half of the class, we will all collaborate a world building project in partnership with the UN.

Conduct

• This class meets for one 3 hour session per week.
• Assignment due dates are hard dates.
• In exceptional cases, at the discretion of the professor, a student may be excused from class. Leave will be considered 1 week (or more) before the class in question but not after that time. This does not apply to sudden illness, a death in the family, or other last-minute exigencies. Situations, which merit consideration for leave from a class
• Please Come on time

Recommended Books

1. Hamlet in The Holodeck
2. Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality

Curriculum

Week 1 ~ Intro (Sept 4)

• Class intro, syllabus review, technical skills hare
• Lecture - Intro to Virtual Worlds
• Discussion: - Jon Rafman - Kool-Aid Man and Second Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owyNALlnxk0 - Narrative vs Simulation - Hands on Unity - Intro to Unity Editor - Variables and Functions - Classes and Monobehaviour
• Homework:

  • Create an account in VR Chat and make 3 friends VR Chat

  • Reading:

    • Janet H. Murray, From Additive to Express Form: Beyond “Multimedia”
    • Char Davies, Rethinking VR: Key Concepts and Concerns

  • Unity Assignment

    • Unity Assignment 001 - Building a Basic Game

Week 2 ~ Building Blocks (Sept 11)

• Reading Discussions - Graph Session
• Watch/experience
  • Sachka Unseld - Dear Angelica (VR)
• Hands on Unity:
  • Intro to Building Blocks of a Scene
    • All About that Transform
    • Movement & Collision
    • Instantiation and Objects
    • Parameter Control
    • Basic Animation
• Homework:
  • Unity Assignment 1 - Prefabs
  • Unity Assignment 2 = Animation Clips
  • [Assignment 3](Photogrammetry Scan Your Room)
    • Use the following tutorial with reality capture
  • Reading:
    • Introduction to Ludology - Gonzalo Frasca
    • Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

Week 3 ~ Building Blocks p2 (Sept 18)

• Reading Discussions
• Watch/experience
  • Matrix - Desert of the Real
• Hands on Unity:
  • Build a world in Unity Part 1
    • Lighting & Shadows
    • Audio Integration
    • Basic Physics
• Homework:
  • Unity Assignment
    • Your first experience: You are your own worlds hero
  • Content Assignment
    • Scan your body for creating your avatar
  • Reading:
    • Kevin_Bewersdorf, That's Incredible - p17
    • Jonathan Crary - Techniques of the Observer

Week 4 ~ Interactions (Sept 25)

• Reading Discussions - Graph Session
• Hands on Unity:
  • Build the world in Unity Part 2
    • VR Camera
    • Interactions with Controllers
    • Movement Control
    • Inreaction libraries
• Homework:
  • Start ideating your final projects
  • Unity Assignment
    • Create a drawing app with multiple brushes and record your drawing from 3RD party camera perspective
  • Podcast
    • Elemental Theory of Presence
  • Reading
    • Plato's, Allegory of the Cave
    • The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality

Week 5 ~ Social VR Demos and Planning Final Projects (Oct 2)

• Thinking final projects
• • Hands on Unity:
  • Avatar Control
  • Rigging
  • Inverse Kinematics
  • Animation Based Avatar Control
• Form Groups
  • Ideation & Storyboarding for creating Social VR Exercise
• Homework:
  • Unity Assignment
    • Create a Room for VR Chat
      • Official Instructions
      • Youtube Tutorial
    • Optional Coding Assignment
      • Avatar Switcher
  • Reading
    • Janet H. Murray, Harbingers of the Holodeck (Chapter 2) - Tom Boellstorff - Chapter 5- The self - The life course -Avatar and alts - Gender and Race - Agency
    • Landscape, Earth, Body, Being, Space, and Time in the
  • Listen
    • Sara Ludy - Warzone

Week 6 ~ Embodiment & Networking Part 1 (Oct 9)

• Reading Discussions
• Watch/experience
  • Office Simulation (VR)
• Homework:
  • Unity Assignment
    • Create project avatars compatible with Final IK
  • Reading
  • [Immersive Virtual Environments Osmose and Ephémère](https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www. immersence.com/publications/char/2003-CD-Women-Art-Tech.html&sa=D&ust=1537458219944000)
    • Digital Sensations: Space, Identity and Embodiment in Virtual Reality

Week 7 ~ Midterms (Oct 16)

• Midterm Assignment Due
  • Complete the presentation template with your groups in detail and rehearse presenting
    • Midterm Presentation Template
  • Use Oculus Quill or Tilt Brush by Google to create 3D UX Diagrams and Flows
    • Oculus Quill
    • Tilt Brush by Google
  • Prepare your interactive UX drawings in VR for the class.
• Presentations, Feedback and Guest Crit

Week 8 ~ Audio & Networking Part 2 (Oct 23)

• Reading Discussions
• Hands on Unity:
  • User Experience Design for VR
    • Spatial Audio
  • Networking Concepts in Unity
    • Spawning
    • Authority
    • Synchronization
    • Networking Objects
    • Networking Avatars
• Homework:
  • Final Projects
    • Alpha version of project environment
    • Alpha version of avatars
    • Submit videos and screenshots of your project progress
  • Reading:
    • Coming of Age in Second Life - Place & Time
    • Virtual Reality, Healing Practice: An Interview with Char Davies

Week 9 ~ Networking Week 2 & Immersion (Oct 30)

• Reading/Discussion:
  • Enter the (un)Canny Valley
• Hands on Unity:
  • Social VR Construct Template
• Immersion - Plausibility Illusion - Place of Illusion - The Self - Paradox of Choice
  • Watch/Experience
    • Zikr (VR)
• Homework:
  • Final Projects Interactions Alpha
  • Final Project Audio Integration
  • Submit videos and screenshots of your project progress
  • Try
    • WaveVR

Week 10 ~ Final Project work Session 1 (Nov 06)

• Coding Workshop
• Homework:
  • Finalize Interactions
  • Submit videos and screenshots of your project progress

Week 11 ~ Final Project work Session 2 (Nov 13)

• Coding Workshop
• Homework:
  • Final Project Onboarding and Offboarding
  • Submit videos and screenshots of your project progress

Week 12 Final Project Pressentations