topical media & game development
development(s) -- hybrid multimedia
In chapter
1, we introduced the notion of
digital convergence to explain the occurrence of the great variety
of elements of multimedia applications, from a technical perspective.
From an aesthetic perspective, this great variety of elements may easily
lead to chaos, unrelatedness or divergence,
where meaning gets lost in a multitude of perspective(s).
To cut a long deliberation short, for simplicity, let's assume
that
meaning lies in the context, the story or
narrative structure.
For 2D images, [Semiotics] identify
narrative elements, that is relations between
objects in the image that suggest a story,
such as a diagonal line from a person to a door,
or a relation of an object to the viewer,
such as a gaze towards the viewer,
a technique that has been used only since late
renaissance painting.
More than paintings or 2D images, film is the medium
for conveying narrative structures.
The art of storytelling in film has been perfected
in such a way that Hollywood films may seem more real
than life.
However, as emphasized in [Remediation], this is not due
to any inherent form of naturalism, but to
the fact that we have got accustomed to the conventions
applied, that is the techniques of cutting, montage, camera
movements, close-ups, etcetera.
In a highly recommended book, [Film], Rudolf Arnheim
gives an extensive analysis of the
principles of montage and film technique, and he explains why film is such
an effective medium:
frame(s) of reference
It is one of the most important formal qualities of film
that every object that is reproduced appears simultaneously in two
entirely different frames of reference, namely the two-dimensional
and the three-dimensional, and that as one identical object it fulfills
two different functions in the two contexts.
Due to the subtle play between these two frames of reference
film may be considered an art form,
and as such perhaps the dominant art form of the 20th century.
As a mass medium, film may be characterized by
what Arnheim, following Benjamin, called the aesthetics of shock,
replacing reflective distance with immersive thrill.
As an art form, however, it is the dominant paradigm
for aesthetic awareness, lacking however still one dimension,
interactive dynamics.
As observed in [Remediation], interaction is what
distinguishes video games from film.
Current day technology allows for high-resolution
photorealist graphics, that make video games or
virtual applications almost indistinguishable from film.
Virtual reality technology as applied in video games
adds arbitrary choice of perspective,
as exemplified in first-person shooters or fly-overs,
as well as an arbitrary mix of
the imaginary and real, as in CG movies, in an interactive
fashion.
Now, should we take the aesthetics of interactive video games
as the standard for interactive applications?
Not necessarily, since the naturalism strived for
in most games may at best be characterized
as naive realism, mostly photorealism.
As observed in [Semiotics], realism is a social construct,
and hence the program for developing an aesthetics for
interactive applications should perhaps
include the development of appropriate realisms.
Again with an eye to the history of art,
where we have for example impressionism,
cubism, expressionism,
as a guideline in the
design of interactive systems, it might be even better
to look for appropriate interaction-isms,
styles of developing interactive systems and games
from a particular perspective. Not excluding provocative perspectives! Cf. [Avantgarde].
Where an arbitrary interactive system may differ from a game played
for entertainment is obviously the actual outcome,
the value attributed to that in
the real world, and probably
the effort required and the possible consequences.
You would not like to run the risk to die a virtual
death when answering your email, would you?
However, when interactive systems replace task-bound
functionality with fun, the difference becomes less clear.
As we indicate in [Serious], one element not sufficiently captured by a
classic game model, as introduced in [HalfReal], is the narrative aspect of the game play.
To quote [HalfReal]:
rules vs fiction
Game fiction is ambiguous, optional and imagined by
the player in uncontrollable and unpredictable ways, but the emphasis
on fictional worlds may be the strongest innovation of the video game.
We may observe that many games already have a
strong relation to reality in what narrative context
they supply, or else in the realities of the media industry,
in particular Hollywood.
For serious interactive systems, we may assume an even stronger
and in some sense more straightforward relation
with reality, by the use of media content
that is relevant for the life of the individual.
All these aspects of playing games are clearly relevant for
the new interactive systems, which appeal more to play
than task-oriented behavior.
For example rules may be used to describe the visual characteristics of
a system (e.g. the display of images as a flow in a particle system),
outcome may be regarded as the benefits of the system (e.g. social awareness),
value may include the risks of the system (e.g. a transgression of privacy),
efforts is important when asking for contributions from the user (e.g. as image material
to be displayed in the system), attachment may result when the system is installed
(e.g. when people look forward to find new information), and finally consequences must be
considered when a system is installed and used (e.g. interaction between people may actually change
when they get to know eachother, for better or worse).
Given the large variety of games, including first
person shooters, role-playing games, strategy games
and decision-making simulation games, we can distinguish
between a range of degrees of interaction,
direct interaction, on the one hand, as for example in first person shooter and
indirect interaction, on the other hand, as for example
in simulation games, or role-playing games
where the individual actions may contribute to a plot
such that the effects will become visible at a later time.
Where in game playing the variety of interaction modes
seems to be well understood within each community
of game players, for the development of more
general interactive systems we will have to think seriously
whether the target user will be able to learn the
various modes of interaction,
either by explicit instruction or during play.
And as designers we must be concerned with the rules of interaction as well as
issues of visualisation and
interaction mappings, that is in other words which
affordances the application offers for a particular
group of users.
dynamic contribution(s)
Another potential source of confusion lies in where the material comes from.
Not in the sense of network transport or local storage of the platform of delivery,
as discussed in the context of convergence of delivery in section 1.2,
but in terms of authorship, which in our participatory culture,
where users contribute content may result in a great variety of forms and formats.
To develop multimedia applications and games that accomodate contributive authorship
by a community of users is the great challenge for the next era (period).
In [Mashups] we wrote:
We explored the use of AJAX and web services in an X3D/VRML implementation
of PANORAMA, a system meant to support social awareness in a work environment.
As explained in section 5.4,
PANORAMA represents casual encounters in the work environment and displays
self reflections, that is postcards and other item contributed by employees, at a large display
in a central public space.
1
The figure above, taken from [PanoramaWeb], illustrates the architecture of an AJAX-based web implementation of PANORAMA,
which includes facilities for game playing as occasional battle(s),
using a PHP server and the google GWT toolkit
to allow users to contribute their image material, video's and whatever else.
(C) Æliens
04/09/2009
You may not copy or print any of this material without explicit permission of the author or the publisher.
In case of other copyright issues, contact the author.
