| Week
1 |
- Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment
- Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
- History of Multimedia
- Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
- Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)
- Introduction to Storytelling
- Introduction to augmented and virtual reality
- Second Life and other Virtual Words
- What is required in a virtual environment?
- Introduction to Second Life
- Registering (code SLBook, referrer Dale Luna)
- Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
- Applying textures
- Using the Appearance Tool
- Searching
- Teleporting
- Object, Library and Inventory Use
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| Week
2 |
- What is Interactive Story telling?
- How can VR be used to tell a story?
- Creating a virtual world/interactive environment, examples
- Navigating the virtual environment
- Students must visit three places in Second Life and complete a short review on each place.
- Location Name?
- Region?
- People Online?
- What is done there?
- What is your opinion of it, and why?
- Would you visit again?
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| Week
3 |
- Building an Identity in Second Life
- Everyone is given a gallery viewer.
- Project One;
- Everyone is shown how to load images into the gallery viewer, from real life(photos) and within Second Life (snapshots). Each student must load their viewer with 10 images which reflect their avatars personality (whether real or not).
- Project Two; (Building tools walkthrough, prims, shapes, textures)
- Everyone is shown how to start building basic objects on their own land, we build a small hut each, before expanding and creating in individual directions.
- Project Three; individual Creations
- Each person chooses a simple object to make (not animated) and creates it. Objects can be as simple as a seat or table, or as advanced as you like. The most important thing is expanding your knowledge and creating something which never used to exist.
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| Week
4 |
Now that we have had a look at Second Life and what has been done in Virtual Environments, let's take a step back and consider what we would really like to do.
- Virtual Marketing - considering your audience as a target market
- What is required?
- Online presence
- Real world presence
- Skills involved
- Limits/New Freedom
- Examples
- Product Lifecycles
- Marketing - the 7Ps and how they relate to Virtual Reality and New Media
- Marketing exercise;
- Visit a seemingly successful Second Life location (it may be one you have previously reported on), and complete a report on it with regards to the 7Ps of marketing;
- Product
- Price
- People
- Place
- Position
- Promotion
- Process
- Add your own opinion on why this virtual environment is good or bad, and why you think it will or wont succeed in the future
- Discussion on marketing reports followed by a chat about fringe cultures and the innovators who drive innovative technology
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| Week
5 |
- Who are you?
- Shopping
- Resident case studies
- Making money in Second Life
- Creating your own environment
- The 7Ps - applying them to our own ideas
- In a group discussion, we move around asking person by person what their ideas are for each of the Ps in terms of their own storytelling and environment idea, as well as discussing how they could possibly be created in Second Life.
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| Week
6 |
Building in Second Life;
- Rezzing prims
- Editing prims
- Using the camera
- Using the grid
- Linking prims
- Textures
- Permissions
- Introduction to shaped prims
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| Week
7 |
- Landscaping
- Animations
- Introduction to basic scripting (chair, ball, soccer)
- Class soccer match
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| Week
8 |
A detailed discussion about the group assignment and options to consider;
- Real or fantasy?
- Period
- Town Planning
- Town Residents/Characters
- Native Flora and Fauna
- Restrictions/Laws
- Architectural Styles
- Terraforming
- Infrastructure (Stores, Roads/Paths, Parks, Schools, Community Spaces, Transport, Housing)
- Signature Landmark
- Weather
- The Secret!
You will be given a 10,000 sq m island and 1872 prims to both practice and build this world within Second Life.
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| Week
9 |
- We discuss ideas for the story behind the town and it's hidden secret, and how we can tell this story using a storybook, comic/cartoon, animated slideshow(flash/after effects) or alternate methods.
- We start to research ideas for our town, compiling lists of possibilities and discussing them as a group.
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| Week
10 |
We start working on our town. Each class member has specific tasks which they must concentrate on, as well as group projects.
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| Week
11 |
Working on town and accompanying story. |
| Week
12 |
Working on town and accompanying story. |
| Week
13 |
Working on town and accompanying story. |
| Week
14 |
We read other classes stories and visit their towns and review them as a class, trying to find their own hidden secret. |