Trying to determine teams was actually much more difficult than I thought.  I believe this alignment does not include anyone working on a project that they indicated they did not want to work on and should have a decent amount of overlap of interest.

The first steps are to come up with a team name and determine a project of mutual interest for the group.  Please email with an questions or concerns.

Group 1
Jerry C
Natalie
Hasti
Jerry H

Group 2
CC
Nick H
Kevin M
Lauren

Group 3
Russel
Dan
Nick P

Pitches from Day 1

Jerry H
 Planting Music: Use gestures to cultivate music experiences

Hasti
Haunted Hotel: Create a frightening ghost based experience

Jerry C
Stainless Steel World:  Build worlds with real time realistic materials
Interior Spaces: Create realistic environments with emphasis on real time effects.

ChengCheng
Desert: Create a game like experience of surviving a desert
Under Water: Create the experience of “swimming with the fishes”

Kevin M
Kowloon Walled City: Create the experience of being in a strange location inspired by a real locale.

Dan
Street CAVE: Visualize google street view immersively for virtual tourism.
Wizard Duel: Be a wizard!

Nick P
Shipping Crates: Locate objects in the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Magic Doors: Experience the door room from Monster’s Inc.

Nick H
Immersive Learning Environment: Create a static environment useful for teaching languages
Modeling WID Building: Create a accruate representation of the WID building
Scale Across the Universe: Create a visualization that is able to convey scale across a wide variety of objects
Historical Spaces: Explore spaces that we can no longer go to

Pitches from Day 2

Natalie
Portkey: Use objects to teleport to different environments like in Harry Potter

Lauren
Impossible Scaling Environment: Environments that change their scale as you enter them

Russel
Mountain Resort:  Escape a mountain resort by skiing down a mountain

Due for Class 3/12/13

This is assignment is to give a pitch for a project you would be interested in pursuing.  You will give a 5 minute presentation in class.  Things you should cover in your presentation:

• What you are trying to do
• Why you think this would be interesting
• Things you think you know how to do
• Things you don’t think you know how to do

After you finish the presentation we will open up for questions.  Pay attention to everyone  presentations.  After class I will have you email me:

• Two to three projects you would be interested on working on
• Projects you would definitely not want to work on

 Addition Info: I have had some questions about the specifics about what I am looking for.  Here is kind of an FAQ

How should I try to frame what I am pitching?

Think of trying to pitch an experience you would like to create.  For instance, “I want to create the experience of being in a sea battle with pirates.”  As an example, here are the project pages from the class from two years ago

http://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/virtualreality11/2011/03/30/what-the-space-muffins-are-all-about/

http://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/virtualreality11/2011/03/30/jc-project-desc/

http://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/virtualreality11/2011/03/31/netcave-overview/

http://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/WP/virtualreality11/2011/03/30/the-galaxy-map-project/

Do I need to know how to do what I pitching?
At this stage we will work a very conceptual level.  Don’t worry if you have no idea of how to implement your idea.  That type of thinking will be for when we split up into teams.

How would the ideas of designing environments turn into an interesting project?
Here are some ideas that come to my mind.

Impossible Environments

In virtual reality we can make environments that aren’t physically possible.  What would it be like to experience something like the infinite staircase?

In virtual reality we can change ideas of scale.  What would it be like to be a very small or very large.

Environments that change as you interact with them.

Those are just a handful of ideas.  Please email if you would like to bounce ideas for projects.  Remember that this project pitch is not the final declaration of what you will be doing for the final project, that will be decided on a team by team basis.  At the end of the day the goal is to come up with cool project ideas and to have fun.

This assignment is to warm us up to bringing models into the CAVE.  We will walk through everyone’s models in class on 2/21/13.  This assignment will consist of two steps.

More Information

• Your model should be built so that we can walk around it in VR.  Therefore models should be at least room size.
• Units matter in the CAVE.  Make sure your models are in meters.
• The center of the CAVE is at (17’x17′) in our model loading program.  Not really sure why but if you want the user to start in the center of the CAVE offset your model by that amount
• Make sure you bring all associated files (i.e. textures files) with you
• The Trimble (aka Google) Warehouse is a good source of pre-built models.  If you use these models:
  • provide documentation of where you got the model
  • At least one object in the environment should be built by you

Due for class 2/14/13
Describe the environment you want to build (a few sentences) and have one piece of concept artwork (e.g. a photograph, a sketch, or an initial rendering of the environment you would like to create).  We will go around the room and present the ideas in class.

Due for class 2/21/13
Bring your model on to class on an external drive.  We will load up the models and walk through them in the CAVE.  Be prepared to answer the following questions:

• What tools you used to make your model?
• What object was the most difficult step in the process?
• If you had more time what you would do next?

We will use OpenSceneGraph for our model loading.  A list of supported file formats can be found at: http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/-/9781849512824/saving-and-loading-files/ch10lvl1sec03

Common formats that work well:
3ds, dae, dxf, ive, obj, ply, stl

For people using 3DS Max.  Here is a tutorial on how to bake lighting.  I encourage you to try it out

http://kb.worldviz.com/articles/1222

If we are going to create realistic virtual environments we first need to understand the environments around us.  Choose an active environment that you would like to study, maybe a coffee shop, the union, the mall, your room, etc. and describe this environment in such a way so that someone else could create a virtual representation of it.  The representation need not be a recipe to make an exact duplicate, but rather should be a description of attributes needed to recreate the “feel” of the environment.  You just need to describe the environment itself, not the actions taking place (think PI and not Psi).  Please write this up via sentences and paragraphs as opposed to a bullet point list.

Things you should include:

• What kind of objects are in the environment (chairs, tables, books, etc)
• How are these objects placed (neat, messy, randomly, etc)
• What kinds of ambient sounds are naturally occurring in the environment (buzzing fluorescent tubes, computer fans, etc)
• What kinds of colors and textures are present in this environment (wood grains, magazine covers, plastic labels, etc)
• How is the environment lit (sun light, floor lamps, overhead fluorescent tubes, etc)

Also at the end of your write up I would like you to single out what characteristic you believe would be the most difficult to model and briefly explain why.

This assignment is not meant to be difficult, but is an exercise to get you thinking about what factors you need to account for when making virtual scenarios.

Please write up at least 1 page worth of information (4-5 paragraphs) but you can do more if you feel like it.  This assignment is to be done individually (almost all other assignments will be done in groups).

Send me an email with the assignment either being the content or as a pdf by 2/10/2013 at 11:59pm