The aesthetics of science fiction spaceship design

In this thesis, we present a detailed analysis of the conventions that appear in fictional spaceship design, including a discussion of their origins, their uses in emulating certain traits, and reasons these conventions might be followed or ignored. We uncover these conventions by examining and comparing popular spaceship designs from the past sixty years, which we present in a detailed survey. We also examine an aesthetic interpretation of information theory, which can be used to describe the balance of uniformity amidst variety, and discuss specific strategies for incorporating these principles into the creation of spaceship surface details. Procedural modeling describes a set of techniques used to allow computers to generate digital content such as 3D digital models automatically. However, procedural modeling to date has focused on very specific areas: natural scenery such as trees and terrain, or cityscapes such as road maps and buildings. While these types of models are important and useful, they focus on a specific subset of the procedural modeling problem. Though procedural generation can be an invaluable tool for providing viable and dynamic content, it is troubling that so few types of objects have been studied in this area. Using the aesthetic and spaceship principles we define, we have developed a prototype system to procedurally generate the surface details of a large scale spaceship. Given a surface representing the frame of a spaceship, we apply geometry automatically in a coherent manner to achieve the appearance of a spaceship by emulating important traits

Towards 3-D Sound: Spatial Presence and the Space Vacuum

This chapter demonstrates the evolution of relationships between sound design and music in cinematic representations of the interstellar space vacuum. Mera provides a framework for understanding how audiences believe they are physically present in the represented environment and argues that, in the late 2000s, we move towards three-dimensional (3-D) sound, an aesthetic and technical extension of the superfield and the ultrafield as defined by Chion and Kerins, respectively. 3-D Sound’s primary characteristic is the emancipation of music from a fixed sound-stage spatialization, resulting in greater fluidity between sound design and music. This chapter examines the relationship between two types of spatial presence, articulating both the audience’s suspension of disbelief within a film’s narrative world and the spatial presence of sound and music within a multichannel cinema environme

“We’ve Forgotten Our Roots”: Bioweapons and Forms of Life in Mass Effect’s Speculative Future

Many cultural artefacts explore the relationship between populations and politics, including Mass Effect, a role-playing videogame that both critiques and affirms liberal and conservative biopolitical tendencies. Of particular interest is the biopolitical dynamics of the Krogan lifeform. Due to population difficulties deriving from both naturalistic and cultural tendencies, they were targeted by a bioweapon – the genophage. The genophage drastically transformed how they comprehend their own form of life, as the bioweapon infected the Krogan with a plague-like genetic modification targeting their reproductive organs. The player in the Mass Effect trilogy can cure the genophage or not, and reasons are provided to contextualize both options. In this article, I argue that the genophage problematic can be interpreted as a reflection on the attempt to affect a form of life from the outside. I emphasize what Tristan Garica describes as we-expansion: that Mass Effect leaves open the question of the possibility of expanding our sense of we. But Mass Effect also leaves open the question of we-contraction, in so doing it neither offers a utopian or dystopian political vision, but an agnostic one

Can The International Space Station Pay For Itself?

The feasibility of obtaining a profit from the International Space Station is examined. Current and future transportation methods and the prospects of manufacturing, tourism, and research in space are discussed, showing that it is currently impractical to generate a profit from the ISS due to considerable initial and transportation costs, a restricted timeframe and limited benefits from such ventures

Making Gamer Worlds in Mass Appeal Futuristic Online Games

Online games have become massively – and unevenly – distributed across human society. While most commonly played for leisure, online games also help to raise awareness about environmental degradation and promote conservation initiatives. My research explores the popular appeal of two futuristic online games, No Man’s Sky (2016) and Sid Meiers Civilization Beyond Earth (2014). I examine gamer critiques of the visual and other spatial content—or ‘worlds’—encountered in these two games, in order to understand what kinds of ideas about nature are created, promoted and consumed in mass-appeal virtual spaces. This paper expands the study of nature 2.0—a new component of nature that exists in and through online social media—contributing to emerging research on what it means to engage with nature in the digital age. The environments in these two games are both fictional and alien, yet existing physical environments inspire virtual game spaces and are critical for a player’s successful immersion in the game. Gamers reinvent game spaces to perpetuate a game’s particular narrative or gaming objectives. Much of the imagery that gamers’ consume for other contexts, depicts a narrow or skewed framing of ‘nature’, which scholars have shown impacts real-world interventions and assumptions. I argue that gamers’ world making in virtual game spaces provides opportunities for complicating confronting and renegotiating human nature relationships

Representing information using parametric visual effects on groupware avatars

Parametric visual effects such as texture generation and shape grammars can be controlled to produce visually perceptible variation. This variation can be rendered on avatars in groupware systems in real time to represent user information in online environments. This type of extra information has been shown to enrich recognition and characterization, but has previously been limited to iconic representations. Modern, highly graphical virtual worlds require more naturalistic and stylistically consistent techniques to represent information. A number of different parametric texture generation techniques are considered and a set of texture characteristics are developed. The variations of these texture characteristics are examined in a study to determine how well users can recognize the visual changes in each. Another study is done to determine how much screen space is required for users to recognize these visual changes in a subset of these texture characteristics. Additionally, an example shape generation system is developed as an example of how shape grammars and L-systems can be used to represent information using a space ship metaphor. These different parametric visual effects are implemented in an example prototype system using space ships. This prototype is a complete functioning groupware application developed in XNA that utilizes many parametric texture and shape effects

Non-determinism in the narrative structure of video games

PhD ThesisAt the present time, computer games represent a finite interactive system. Even in their more experimental forms, the number of possible interactions between player and NPCs (non-player characters) and among NPCs and the game world has a finite number and is led by a deterministic system in which events can therefore be predicted. This implies that the story itself, seen as the series of events that will unfold during gameplay, is a closed system that can be predicted a priori. This study looks beyond this limitation, and identifies the elements needed for the emergence of a non-finite, emergent narrative structure. Two major contributions are offered through this research. The first contribution comes in the form of a clear categorization of the narrative structures embracing all video game production since the inception of the medium. In order to look for ways to generate a non-deterministic narrative in games, it is necessary to first gain a clear understanding of the current narrative structures implemented and how their impact on users’ experiencing of the story. While many studies have observed the storytelling aspect, no attempt has been made to systematically distinguish among the different ways designers decide how stories are told in games. The second contribution is guided by the following research question: Is it possible to incorporate non-determinism into the narrative structure of computer games? The hypothesis offered is that non-determinism can be incorporated by means of nonlinear dynamical systems in general and Cellular Automata in particular

Conceptual Representations for Computational Concept Creation

Computational creativity seeks to understand computational mechanisms that can be characterized as creative. The creation of new concepts is a central challenge for any creative system. In this article, we outline different approaches to computational concept creation and then review conceptual representations relevant to concept creation, and therefore to computational creativity. The conceptual representations are organized in accordance with two important perspectives on the distinctions between them. One distinction is between symbolic, spatial and connectionist representations. The other is between descriptive and procedural representations. Additionally, conceptual representations used in particular creative domains, such as language, music, image and emotion, are reviewed separately. For every representation reviewed, we cover the inference it affords, the computational means of building it, and its application in concept creation.Peer reviewe

What is the Avatar? Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games: Revised and Commented Edition

What are the characteristic features of avatar-based singleplayer videogames, from Super Mario Bros. to Grand Theft Auto? The author examines this question with a particular focus on issues of fictionality and realism, and their relation to cinema and Virtual Reality. Through close-up analysis and philosophical discussion, the author argues that avatar-based gaming is a distinctive and dominant form of virtual self-embodiment in digital culture. This book is a revised edition of Rune Klevjer's pioneering work from 2007, featuring a new introduction by the author and afterword by Stephan Günzel, Jörg Sternagel, and Dieter Mersch

Understanding computer game culture: the cultural shaping of a new medium

In the past few decades, video games have developed from a marginal technological experiment into a mainstream medium. During this period they have gone through several transformations, from arcade machines offering a few minutes of solitary fun for a quarter to monthly subscription-based online MMOs in which thousands of players spend hundreds or even thousands of hours and lead a significant part of their social life as a fantasy character. But what is it that has driven video games? development? Is it technology? Indeed, with every new generation of hardware, game designers were given a broader set of tools for evoking exhilarating experiences. But is not culture at least as important? What would games look like if Tolkien never had written Lord of the Rings, or if Nintendo had not brought Japanese manga drawing styles to the new medium? This book looks at the theoretical challenges and foundations on which to base a cultural shaping approach towards the evolution of video games and proposes a set of concepts for analyzing and describing this process