The Traveling Burito King is a novel split into two narratives that work to compare the virtual to the real world and push against the politic climate created by anonymity It is a novel centered around the development of Denver and his avatar Dovim The novel demonstrates a confrontation with the fantasy of change and how that culminates in little more than a shift and an impossibility to turn back time / Includes bibliography / Thesis (MFA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016 / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Inspired by the baroque prose of Melissa Pritchard, The Animalcules of Adam: & Other Small Tales is a genre-bending short story collection that incorporates elements of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and translation. Spanning in subject and setting, from the primitive bear rituals of Finland to the coroner’s inquests of 19th century England, the purpose of this thesis project is to develop a uniquely immersive voice, while ostensibly investigating the origins of curious inventions, including the microscope, the kaleidoscope, and the first English dictionary. This collection borrows from, and deliberately manipulates, the texts of important historical figures, such as Walt Whitman, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Cawdrey, in an effort to make a home in the voice of another. It is a playful and linguistically sensitive study of the nature of invention; a meta-fictional commentary on the anxiety (and ecstasy) of influence; and above all else, a celebration of the written word. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014.. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-06-06T12:06:38Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Clayton Mendonça Feliciano.pdf: 2611426 bytes, checksum: a439000bde04e6b90b53d641f6aba297 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-06T12:06:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Clayton Mendonça Feliciano.pdf: 2611426 bytes, checksum: a439000bde04e6b90b53d641f6aba297 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-21 / Virtual reality (VR) and the forms of interactions with this environment have evolved and advanced a great deal in recent decades. Parallel to the advance of the creation and modeling of three-dimensional (3D) environments, new possibilities arise. Assuming that the virtual environment allows creating scenarios with details and architectural richness, the proposal of this work is focused on the development of a 3D environment and its application in the Web environment, having as object of study the Square Sé, Sao Paulo City. Bibliographical surveys were made to aggregate historical and cultural knowledge, as well as visits in locus for creation of the photographic collection and three-dimensional virtual development. The elaboration of the virtual scenario was made using Sketchup and Unity3D modeling software. Within what was proposed, both the modeling part and the integration part of the Web environment were successful / A realidade virtual (RV) e as formas de interações com este ambiente evoluíram e avançaram muito nas últimas décadas. Paralelamente ao avanço da criação e modelagem de ambientes tridimensionais (3D), novas possibilidades surgem. Partindo do princípio que o ambiente virtual permite (re)criar cenários com detalhes e riquezas arquitetônicas, a proposta deste trabalho está voltada ao desenvolvimento de ambiente 3D e sua aplicação no ambiente Web, tendo como objeto de estudo a Praça da Sé, ponto turístico da cidade de São Paulo. Levantamentos bibliográficos foram feitos para agregar conhecimento histórico e cultural, visitas in locus para criação do acervo fotográfico e desenvolvimento virtual tridimensional. A elaboração do cenário virtual foi feita por meio de softwares de modelagem Sketchup e Unity3D. Dentro do que foi proposto obteve-se sucesso tanto na parte de modelagem quanto na parte de integração ao ambiente Web

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-12-04T11:46:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Antunes de Oliveira Rodrigues.pdf: 2502573 bytes, checksum: b9be7ad020151fc8cbad343711414219 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-04T11:46:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Felipe Antunes de Oliveira Rodrigues.pdf: 2502573 bytes, checksum: b9be7ad020151fc8cbad343711414219 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-24 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation has the objective of analyzing the experience of immersive audio in digital games, as perceived by the player as a listener and agent in the soundscape of virtual reality. The first chapter seeks to briefly examine and define the concepts of immersion and presence, in order to allow a deeper study of immersive audio to be possible. It also presents considerations about the coupling devices through which immersion in digital games is possible, in particular headphones, so common in the gamer routine. The second chapter is dedicated to the analysis of sound elements found in the virtual reality of digital games through the crossing of concepts and theories by authors such as Schafer, Meneguette, Huiberts, Droumeva among others. By doing so it seeks a comprehensive understanding of what can typically be heard in this medium in order to stimulate the immersive experience. The chapter also deals with problems and solutions that might interfere in the immersion in positive or negative ways, in order to clarify the relevance of the minutiae with respect to immersive audio. The third chapter approaches the subject from another angle, seeking an understanding of how the immersive experience of audio em digital games presents itself to the player. Next, analysis of of the game can hear the soundscape in the game are made. At the end of the chapter the concepts are reviewed, aiming to presenting an understanding of how the player is given the immersive experience of audio in digital games. The fourth and last chapter consists of a case study, in order to demonstrate, in a practical way, the immersive experience of audio studied so far / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a análise da experiência do áudio imersivo em jogos digitais, como percebida pelo jogador enquanto ouvinte e agente na paisagem sonora da realidade virtual. O primeiro capítulo busca examinar e definir brevemente os conceitos de imersão e presença, de forma a permitir que um estudo mais aprofundado sobre o áudio imersivo seja possível. Também apresenta considerações sobre aparatos de acoplamento através dos quais a imersão em jogos digitais é possível, em particular os fones de ouvido, tão comuns na rotina gamer. O segundo capítulo é dedicado a análise dos elementos sonoros encontrados na realidade virtual dos jogos digitais através do cruzamento de conceitos de teorias de autores como Schafer, Meneguette, Huiberts, Droumeva entre outros. Busca-se assim um entendimento abrangente daquilo que tipicamente pode ser ouvido nessa mídia de forma a estimular a experiência imersiva. O capítulo também trata de problemas e soluções que possam interferir na imersão de forma positiva ou negativa, de forma a clarificar a relevância das minúcias no que diz respeito ao áudio imersivo. O terceiro capítulo aborda o assunto de outro ângulo, buscando um entendimento das formas como o áudio é apresentado ao jogador através de convenções e escolhas de design. Em seguida são feitas análises das diferentes formas como o jogador pode ouvir a paisagem sonora do jogo. Ao fim do capítulo são revisados os conceitos estudados, visando apresentar um entendimento de como se dá para o jogador a experiência imersiva do áudio em jogos digitais. O quarto e último capítulo consiste em um estudo de caso, com a finalidade de demonstrar, de forma prática, a experiência imersiva do áudio, estudada até então

One of the most fundamental components of our daily lives is social interaction, ranging from simple activities, such as purchasing a donut in a bakery on the way to work, to complex ones, such as instructing a remote colleague how to repair a broken automobile. While we interact with others, various challenges may arise, such as miscommunication or physical interference. In a bakery, a clerk may misunderstand the donut at which a customer was pointing due to the uncertainty of their finger direction. In a repair task, a technician may remove the wrong bolt and accidentally hit another user while replacing broken parts due to unclear instructions and lack of attention while communicating with a remote advisor. This dissertation explores techniques for supporting multi-user 3D interaction in augmented reality in a way that addresses these challenges. Augmented Reality (AR) refers to interactively overlaying geometrically registered virtual media on the real world. In particular, we address how an AR system can use overlaid graphics to assist users in referencing local objects accurately and remote objects efficiently, and prevent co-located users from physically interfering with each other. My thesis is that our techniques can provide more accurate referencing for co-located and efficient referencing for remote users and lessen interference among users. First, we present and evaluate an AR referencing technique for shared environments that is designed to improve the accuracy with which one user (the indicator) can point out a real physical object to another user (the recipient). Our technique is intended for use in otherwise unmodeled environments in which objects in the environment, and the hand of the indicator, are interactively observed by a depth camera, and both users wear tracked see-through displays. This technique allows the indicator to bring a copy of a portion of the physical environment closer and indicate a selection in the copy. At the same time, the recipient gets to see the indicator's live interaction represented virtually in another copy that is brought closer to the recipient, and is also shown the mapping between their copy and the actual portion of the physical environment. A formal user study confirms that our technique performs significantly more accurately than comparison techniques in situations in which the participating users have sufficiently different views of the scene. Second, we extend the idea of using a copy (virtual replica) of physical object to help a remote expert assist a local user in performing a task in the local user's environment. We develop an approach that uses Virtual Reality (VR) or AR for the remote expert, and AR for the local user. It allows the expert to create and manipulate virtual replicas of physical objects in the local environment to refer to parts of those physical objects and to indicate actions on them. The expert demonstrates actions in 3D by manipulating virtual replicas, supported by constraints and annotations. We performed a user study of a 6DOF alignment task, a key operation in many physical task domains. We compared our approach with another 3D approach that also uses virtual replicas, in which the remote expert identifies corresponding pairs of points to align on a pair of objects, and a 2D approach in which the expert uses a 2D tablet-based drawing system similar to sketching systems developed for prior work by others on remote assistance. The study shows the 3D demonstration approach to be faster than the others. Third, we present an interference avoidance technique (Redirected Motion) intended to lessen the chance of physical interference among users with tracked hand-held displays, while minimizing their awareness that the technique is being applied. This interaction technique warps virtual space by shifting the virtual location of a user's hand-held display. We conducted a formal user study to evaluate Redirected Motion against other approaches that either modify what a user sees or hears, or restrict the interaction capabilities users have. Our study was performed using a game we developed, in which two players moved their hand-held displays rapidly in the space around a shared gameboard. Our analysis showed that Redirected Motion effectively and imperceptibly kept players further apart physically than the other techniques. These interaction techniques were implemented using an extensible programming framework we developed for supporting a broad range of multi-user immersive AR applications. This framework, Goblin XNA, integrates a 3D scene graph with support for 6DOF tracking, rigid body physics simulation, networking, shaders, particle systems, and 2D user interface primitives. In summary, we showed that our referencing approaches can enhance multi-user AR by improving accuracy for co-located users and increasing efficiency for remote users. In addition, we demonstrated that our interference-avoidance approach can lessen the chance of unwanted physical interference between co-located users, without their being aware of its use.

This thesis explores the utility of interest management in peer-to-peer environments. Specifically, it proposes: a model for formulaic specification of interest criteria that is implementation neutral in terms of underlying interest operators (the functions that determine the satisfaction of interest); and, an interest management propagation model that ensures the specifications (termed formula interest expressions) are only sent to those DVE components that are likely to be able to satisfy the interest criteria. This selective propagation model uses a distributed index of supported interest operators to determine candidate remote filterers. Remote filtering ensures that a state change message is only sent if it meets the interest criteria previously expressed by the intended recipient. The selective remote filtering model requires no central infrastructure and is entirely supported by peer DVE components, which may join and leave the DVE dynamically. The performance of the proposed propagation model, in terms of the number of logical messages required, is compared to the only existing propagation model where interest expressions are simply sent to all participating DVE components. Analysis reveals that for stable long-lived DVEs the proposed model can significantly messaging overhead and thereby increase the potential scale-up of the DVE. The viability of the proposed model is examined by means of proof-of-concept system, which exercises the specification and propagation models over a range of values for key variables. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Interactive narratives are marked by two characteristics: 1) a space of player interactions, some subset of which are specified as aesthetic goals for the system; and 2) the affordance for players to express self-agency and have meaningful interactions. As a result, players are (often unknowing) participants in the creation of the experience. They cannot be assumed to be cooperative, nor adversarial. Thus, we must provide paradigms to designers that enable them to work with players to co-create experiences without transferring the system's goals (specified by authors) to players and without systems having a model of players' behaviors. This dissertation formalizes compact representations and efficient algorithms that enable computer systems to represent, reason about, and shape player experiences in interactive narratives. Early work on interactive narratives relied heavily on "script-and-trigger" systems, requiring sizable engineering efforts from designers to provide concrete instructions for when and how systems can modify an environment to provide a narrative experience for players. While there have been advances in techniques for representing and reasoning about narratives at an abstract level that automate the trigger side of script-and-trigger systems, few techniques have reduced the need for scripting system adaptations or reconfigurations---one of the contributions of this dissertation. We first describe a decomposition of the design process for interactive narrative into three technical problems: goal selection, action/plan selection/generation, and action/plan refinement. This decomposition allows techniques to be developed for reasoning about the complete implementation of an interactive narrative. We then describe representational and algorithmic solutions to these problems: a Markov Decision Process-based formalism for goal selection, a schema-based planning architecture using theories of influence from social psychology for action/plan selection/generation, and a natural language-based template system for action/plan refinement. To evaluate these techniques, we conduct simulation experiments and human subjects experiments in an interactive story. Using these techniques realizes the following three goals: 1) efficient algorithmic support for authoring interactive narratives; 2) design a paradigm for AI systems to reason and act to shape player experiences based on author-specified aesthetic goals; and 3) accomplish (1) and (2) with players feeling more engaged and without perceiving a decrease in self-agency.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-118).

Thesis (M. S.)--Literature, Communication, and Culture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Pearce, Celia; Committee Member: Do, Ellen Yi-Luen; Committee Member: Knoespel, Kenneth; Committee Member: Nitsche, Michael.

Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-51).