This final exam is a 'take home'
exam. You are expected to work on it completely by yourself. It
is due at 10:30am on 12/9/05. By then you should have set up a
web page with your solution and emailed the location of that web
page to Andy. At that time we will meet in class and you will
have 5 minutes to briefly describe your solution to the class.
We wont have time for a question/answer period. Any published
text-based materials (i.e. books) or web-based materials may be
consoluted. This final is designed to have you think about all
of the things we have talked about, read about, and worked on in
class to solve a problem. The problem is this:
You are
approached by the president of the Lotsa Fun Arcade Game Company
who wants to use virtual reality as part of a new video arcade
concept (that seems suspicously like what Virtuality and
BattleTech tried to do in the 90s.) He would like you to make a
proposal for how to install a collaborative VR game in this
space.
Here
virtual reality assumes head and hand tracking, but can be
thought of in a general sense including augmented reality,
haptics, head mounted displays, projection displays, audio etc.
You get a
room that is 15 yards (or meters) by 15 yards (or meters) and a
ceiling as high as you want it to be (though you only get one
floor).
The overall
game concept is that the player will pay for a 20 minute
experience where he or she will chose between playing a fighter
or magic user in a fantasy adventure environment. The character
will be able to join in with other characters interacting at
this site or other sites to either collaborate or compete. The
time period and location of the fantasy world are up to you, but
the characters will be basically running around fighting bad
guys / monsters / each other and collecting treasure. Maybe
there are some quests but basically the player should get
maximum carnage for their money. At minimum the fighter should
have some kind of sword that he/she literally swings to hit
his/her opponents. At minimum the wizard should have some kind
of wand that is moved around to cast spells. The player should
be able to pick up better weapons/spells as he/she continues
through the game.
The players
should be able to talk to each other to either collaborate or
taunt each other.
You get to
pick the number and combination of displays that would best suit
the situation. Obviously they would like to mave as many VR
devices as possble in the space to maximize profit. Note that
there should be no bias towards or against displays that have
been developed here.
You
should talk about the hardware needed to drive these
displays and give a rough cost for the whole setup.
You should
describe the experience of the users, especially in terms of
interaction. Drawings will be useful here.
You should
also give a rough idea of the staffing involved in running these
games as well as maintaining them behind the scenes.
Your
write-up should be well thought out and organized ... in English
please, so I don't need to use altavista's babelfish to
translate your answer. You get time to do this, so it should not
be a stream of consciousness answer. I would suggest thinking
about it, making some sketches, writing some notes, then
organizing them, do a first draft, let it sit for a day or two,
then come back and read it critically looking for holes that you
need to fill.
One big
question is how long should this be, and that�s a hard one to
answer. You are not graded on quantity. You are graded on
quality and comprehensiveness but also succinctness. Quality vs
Quantity looks like a bell curve in this case. I would think
something about the size of a typical research paper would be
about right, including images. Organization is very important.
Make sure you have labelled sections.