Interactive Narrative in Virtual Reality

Interactive fiction is a literary genre that is rapidly gaining popularity. In this genre, readers are able to explicitly take actions in order to guide the course of the story. With the recent popularity of narrative focused games, we propose to design and develop an interactive narrative tool for content creators. In this extended abstract, we show how we leverage this interactive medium to present a tool for interactive storytelling in virtual reality. Using a simple markup language, content creators and researchers are now able to create interactive narratives in a virtual reality environment. We further discuss the potential future directions for a virtual reality storytelling engine

Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality: Epistemology, Creation and Evaluation

This dissertation presents the Interactive Fiction in Cinematic Virtual Reality (IFcVR), an interactive digital narrative (IDN) that brings together the cinematic virtual reality (cVR) and the creation of virtual environments through 360\ub0 video within an interactive fiction (IF) structure. This work is structured in three components: an epistemological approach to this kind of narrative and media hybrid; the creation process of IFcVR, from development to postproduction; and user evaluation of IFcVR. In order to set the foundations for the creation of interactive VR fiction films, I dissect the IFcVR by investigating the aesthetics, narratological and interactive notions that converge and diverge in it, proposing a medium-conscious narratology for this kind of artefact. This analysis led to the production of an IFcVR functional prototype: \u201cZENA\u201d, the first interactive VR film shot in Genoa. ZENA\u2019s creation process is reported proposing some guidelines for interactive and immersive film-makers. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the IFcVR as an entertaining narrative form and a vehicle for diverse types of messages, this study also proposes a methodology to measure User Experience (UX) on IFcVR. The full evaluation protocol gathers both qualitative and quantitative data through ad hoc instruments. The proposed protocol is illustrated through its pilot application on ZENA. Findings show interactors' positive acceptance of IFcVR as an entertaining experience

Interactive fiction in cinematic virtual reality: an interactive and immersive narrative (text)

In its struggle to gain mass adoption, Virtual Reality (VR) industry and independent creators are exploring various types of content that may attract audiences. This paper presents a potential feature content for VR: Interactive Fiction in cinematic Virtual reality (IFcVR), a media and narrative hybrid resulting from the encounter between Interactive Fiction (IF), hypertextual fiction stories or hyperfiction, and cinematic Virtual Reality (cVR), that is the use of 360° videos. This hybridization of art and media creates immersive and interactive fiction films, in which the ‘interactor’ is placed within the scenic space and has the agency to change the course of the story. In the light of a new narrative and media product, the question of whether this can be considered a narrative text or not arises. This paper sheds some light on IFcVR and its narrative features according to Seymour Chatman’s structuralist model of narrative text, as well as its digital and interactive nature according to current research on the field of interactive narratives. The aim is to highlight the potential of IFcVR to become an entertainment content for the VR public

MISER: Mise-En-Scène Region Support for Staging Narrative Actions in Interactive Storytelling

The recent increase in interest in Interactive Storytelling systems, spurred on by the emergence of affordable virtual reality technology, has brought with it a need to address the way in which narrative content is visualized through the complex staging of multiple narrative agents' behaviors within virtual story worlds. In this work we address the challenge of automating several aspects of staging the activities of a population of narrative agents and their interactions, where agents can have differing levels of narrative relevance within the situated narrative actions. Our solution defines an approach that integrates the use of multiple dynamic regions within a virtual story world, specified via a semantic representation that is able to support the staging of narrative actions through the behaviors of the primary and background agents' that are involved. This encompasses both the mechanics of dealing with the narrative discourse level as well as the interaction with the narrative generation layer to account for any dynamic modifications of the virtual story world. We refer to this approach as mise-en-scène region (miser) support. In this paper, we describe our approach and its integration as part of a fully implemented Interactive Storytelling system. We illustrate the work through detailed examples of short narrative instantiations. We present the results of our evaluation which clearly demonstrate the potential of the miser approach, as well as its scalability

Liberate your avatar; the revolution will be social networked

This paper brings together the practice-based creative research of artists Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon, culminating in a collaborative interactive installation that investigates new forms of social and political narrative in multi-user virtual environments. The authors' artistic projects deal with the ironies and stereotypes that are found within Second Life in particular. Paul Sermon’s current creative practice looks specifically at the concepts of presence and performance within Second Life and 'first life', and attempts to bridge these two spaces through mixed reality techniques and interfaces. Charlotte Gould’s Ludic Second Life Narrative radically questions the way that users embody themselves in on-line virtual environments and identifies a counter-aesthetic that challenges the conventions of digital realism and consumerism. These research activities and outcomes come together within a collaborative site-specific public installation entitled Urban Intersections for ISEA09, focusing on contested virtual spaces that mirror the social and political history of Belfast. The authors' current collaborative practice critically investigates social, cultural and creative interactions in Second Life. Through these practice-based experiments the authors' argue that an enhanced social and cultural discourse within multi-user virtual environments will inevitably lead to growth, cohesion and public empowerment, and like all social networking platforms, contribute to greater social and political change in first life

Narrative Transportation and Virtual Reality: Exploring the Immersive Qualities of Social Justice in the Digital World

This dissertation explores the potential applications for virtual reality (VR) stories in support of social justice causes, examining whether digital games historically been successfully leveraged for social justice purposes, and determining which components of VR technology can most encourage narrative transportation of participants in VR stories. The first chapter examines theories of simulation, virtual reality, narrative, and interactivity, as well as concepts of immersion from various disciplines and settles on narrative transportation, a theory from cognitive psychology, as the most useful in measuring the effect of VR stories on participants. The second chapter examines ethnographic practices, activist games, and modes of reclaiming digital spaces as a way to encourage digital social justice and ensure traditionally marginalized communities have meaningful access to technology—or, the tools to use it, create with it, and critique it. The third chapter presents the result of a play study conducted to measure participants\u27 transportation in a recent VR narrative and finds VR interactive narratives to be more transportive and engaging than their two-dimensional counterparts. The fourth chapter interrogates some of the fears of VR technology, namely that it will be used to further current societal injustices and as a potentially powerful propaganda tool. The final chapter presents five recommendations for designers seeking to experiment in virtual reality narratives. The ultimate aim of this work is to encourage scholars, designers, and participants to make ethical decisions in the creation and use of virtual societies

Narrative Transportation and Virtual Reality: Exploring the Immersive Qualities of Social Justice in the Digital World

This dissertation explores the potential applications for virtual reality (VR) stories in support of social justice causes, examining whether digital games historically been successfully leveraged for social justice purposes, and determining which components of VR technology can most encourage narrative transportation of participants in VR stories. The first chapter examines theories of simulation, virtual reality, narrative, and interactivity, as well as concepts of immersion from various disciplines and settles on narrative transportation, a theory from cognitive psychology, as the most useful in measuring the effect of VR stories on participants. The second chapter examines ethnographic practices, activist games, and modes of reclaiming digital spaces as a way to encourage digital social justice and ensure traditionally marginalized communities have meaningful access to technology—or, the tools to use it, create with it, and critique it. The third chapter presents the result of a play study conducted to measure participants\u27 transportation in a recent VR narrative and finds VR interactive narratives to be more transportive and engaging than their two-dimensional counterparts. The fourth chapter interrogates some of the fears of VR technology, namely that it will be used to further current societal injustices and as a potentially powerful propaganda tool. The final chapter presents five recommendations for designers seeking to experiment in virtual reality narratives. The ultimate aim of this work is to encourage scholars, designers, and participants to make ethical decisions in the creation and use of virtual societies

Minard revisited: exploring augmented reality in information design

This study intends to test and confirm the interest and viability of incorporating augmented reality (AR) technologies in cultural mediation driven by information design, focusing on narrative representation. It is specifically intended to explore semantic relations between reality and virtuality in augmented narratives, ie. expanded narratives through the multimodality enhanced by the use of interactive processes based in augmented reality systems. Departing from Charles Minard’s Figurative Map (1869), three experiments were conducted, in order to reinterpret the program embodied in that artefact, testing several hypotheses in which, through augmented reality, the combination of different modes and media configures different semantic relations between real and virtual. The action-reflection approach undertaken with Figurative Map experiments enabled us to observe and openly systematize different augmented reality functions regarding the physical instance, which can potentially expand traditional forms of information design. Although they are not entirely extrapolatable, the proposal of virtual functions regarding reality were repurposed and adapted from the illustration field, specifically from the semantic relation between text and image. It is acknowledged that this is an open model to be reconsidered and reformulated through several action-reflection iterations and fostered through the narrative study.publishe

Influence of Narrative Elements on User Behaviour in Photorealistic Social VR

Social Virtual Reality (VR) applications are becoming the next big revolution in the field of remote communication. Social VR provides the possibility for participants to explore and interact with a virtual environments and objects, feelings of a full sense of immersion, and being together. Understanding how user behaviour is influenced by the shared virtual space and its elements becomes the key to design and optimize novel immersive experiences that take into account the interaction between users and virtual objects. This paper presents a behavioural analysis of user navigation trajectories in a 6 degrees of freedom, social VR movie. We analysed 48 user trajectories from a photorealistic telepresence experiment, in which subjects experience watching a crime movie together in VR. We investigate how users are affected by salient agents (i.e., virtual characters) and by the narrative elements of the VR movie (i.e., dialogues versus interactive part). We complete our assessment by conducting a statistical analysis on the collected data. Results indicate that user behaviour is affected by different narrative and interactive elements. We present our observations, and we draw conclusions on future paths for social VR experiences

Right, Left, High, Low: Narrative Strategies For Non–Linear Storytelling

Based on studies of affect, and on theoretical works concerning spatial semantics by Yuri Lotman, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault and others, spatial story design provides a seven step algorithm of story development for inter- active audio-visual narrative. Following spatial semantics and its application in interactive storytelling, the author no longer creates the protagonist, his or her want or need, nor con- trols the story arc. Instead, spatial story design allows the author(s) to make the formative cre- ative decisions by designing a narrative space, and spatial dynamics that then translate into user generated storylines. Spatial story design serves as a framework for interdisciplinary col- laborations, and can be used to not only create interactive digital narrative but also screenplays, improvisational theatre, 360°  lms, and walk-in story world experiences for a number of users in either live or holographic virtual reality spac- es. Spatial story design could inspire creators of interactive narrative, storytellers in time-based media, and possibly also technology developers for authoring tools