Players Unleashed! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming

Siirretty Doriast

Aesthetic choices: Defining the range of aesthetic views in interactive digital media including games and 3D virtual environments (3D VEs)

Defining aesthetic choices for interactive digital media such as games is a challenging task. Objective and subjective factors such as colour, symmetry, order and complexity, and statistical features among others play an important role for defining the aesthetic properties of interactive digital artifacts. Computational approaches developed in this regard also consider objective factors such as statistical image features for the assessment of aesthetic qualities. However, aesthetics for interactive digital media, such as games, requires more nuanced consideration than simple objective and subjective factors, for choosing a range of aesthetic features. From the study it was found that the there is no one single optimum position or viewpoint with a corresponding relationship to the aesthetic considerations that influence interactive digital media. Instead, the incorporation of aesthetic features demonstrates the need to consider each component within interactive digital media as part of a range of possible features, and therefore within a range of possible camera positions. A framework, named as PCAWF, emphasized that combination of features and factors demonstrated the need to define a range of aesthetic viewpoints. This is important for improved user experience. From the framework it has been found that factors including the storyline, user state, gameplay, and application type are critical to defining the reasons associated with making aesthetic choices. The selection of a range of aesthetic features and characteristics is influenced by four main factors and sub-factors associated with the main factors. This study informs the future of interactive digital media interaction by providing clarity and reasoning behind the aesthetic decision-making inclusions that are integrated into automatically generated vision by providing a framework for choosing a range of aesthetic viewpoints in a 3D virtual environment of a game. The study identifies critical juxtapositions between photographic and cinema-based media aesthetics by incorporating qualitative rationales from experts within the interactive digital media field. This research will change the way Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated interactive digital media in the way that it chooses visual outputs in terms of camera positions, field-view, orientation, contextual considerations, and user experiences. It will impact across all automated systems to ensure that human-values, rich variations, and extensive complexity are integrated in the AI-dominated development and design of future interactive digital media production

Players Unleashed ! Modding The Sims and the Culture of Gaming

The author of this hugely informative study explores the question of what happens when players practise and negotiate computer code, various ideologies, and the game itself by modding (modifying a game) in the context of The Sims, the bestselling computer game of all time.Sihvonen examines the technical and material specificities of The Sims mods, as well as their cultural context. Viewed as a manifestation of participatory culture, modding makes PC games ultimately malleable: players reconfigure the game by creating new content, altering the code and changing the behaviours of the game engine. Using a semiotic framework, Sihvonen suggests a signification process that includes representation, interpretation, investigation and experimentation with the game system and rules. From its historical roots in the shoot’em up games, the author bares the fascinating evolution and dynamics of modding, where gender stereotypes, the thrills of hacking and living the Sims’ American Dream intersect with the aesthetic and operational dimensions of modding

A representação emocional da personagem virtual no contexto da animação digital : do cinema de animação aos jogos digitais

Tese de doutoramento em Ciências da Comunicação (área de especialização em Comunicação Audiovisual)O fenómeno da proliferação de personagens virtuais nos mais variados contextos das indústria criativa e do entretenimento — especialmente no cinema de animação e nos jogos digitais — reflectem aspectos de uma cultura (audio)visual digital exigente de novas linguagens e emoções. Esta nova cultura da imagem espectacular e da animação computadorizada emergiu, a partir dos anos 70, diluída entre as fronteiras do filme capturado por uma câmara de vídeo, e das imagens animadas geradas por computador, desafiando os limites da imagem animada. O modo como a introdução destas novas técnicas e estilos se posiciona no processo criativo da produção clássica da animação de personagens, e se espalha pelos diversos objectos e conteúdos dos novos media, suscita novas prorrogativas, obrigando, como alguns autores sugerem, ao reposicionamento do estudo da animação. O uso do computador como um meio de novas possibilidades de criação traz à tona novas experiências emotivas e linguagens estilísticas. E é no campo da animação digital 3D que a mudança visual é mais significativa, surgindo regularmente inovadoras técnicas de manipulação da imagem com uma maior preocupação no desenvolvimento de personagens virtuais, em última instância, pivot e protagonista de múltiplas experiências visuais, comunicacionais e narrativas, sujeitas a um olhar de uma câmara que não conhece limites físicos. Esta imagem animada que nos possibilita um autêntico mergulho nos seus mais ínfimos detalhes, e resiliente o suficiente para ser partilhada por áreas como os jogos digitais e o cinema de animação, é um dos aspectos que nos leva a questionar acerca da dimensão da personagem virtual na contemporaneidade. Nesse sentido, a presente tese tem como objectivos centrais apontar hipóteses sobre os alicerces que levam à construção de uma “humanização” da personagem virtual, no sentido de uma representação credível de experiências reais como a tristeza, o ciúme, o medo, e outras emoções humanas. Para isso, o nosso estudo recaiu na análise de várias dimensões, modelos e aspectos clássicos da animação, com enfâse no contexto do desenvolvimento de personagens, procurando compará-los com os novos paradigmas definidos pelas novas rotinas do cinema de animação e jogos digitais. Com esta formulação foi necessário criar uma área transversal que abrangesse diversos campos de conhecimento, nomeadamente, o design de personagem, a interpretação teatral e, claro, a animação digital, palavras-chaves da nossa investigação. O resultado desta diligência permitiu encontrar novas características e mecanismos que tornam possível estabelecer um modelo de dimensões da personagem virtual com vista a uma experiência imersiva. Neste contexto, foi imprescindível proceder a um estudo aplicado para testar a veracidade das nossas conjecturas teóricas. Assim, procedemos ao desenvolvimento de uma personagem virtual e, posteriormente, à criação de um projecto interactivo, numa primeira fase, e uma curta-metragem de animação numa fase final. Ambas, a personagem e a curta metragem de animação, foram elaboradas tendo em vista os pressupostos resultantes da investigação teórica. Os resultados apresentados validam o nosso modelo dimensional demonstrando que, de facto, a credibilidade da animação de uma personagem virtual responde a um conjunto de prorrogativas que estão cada vez mais enraizados na arte e na indústria criativa.The proliferation of virtual characters in a broad range of contexts within the creative and entertainment industries — especially in animated films and digital games — reflects aspects of a digital (audio)visual culture that demands new creative languages and emotions. This new culture of extravagant images and computerised animation emerged in the 1970s as a confluence of the frontiers of film captured by a video camera and those of images generated on a computer, testing the very limits of the animated image. The way in which these new techniques and styles position themselves in the creative process for classic character animation and spread to a variety of subjects and content in new media requires new approaches and, indeed, as some authors suggest, a repositioning when it comes to animation studies. The use of the computer with its new creative possibilities brings to light new emotive experiences and stylistic methods of expression. The visual change is most noteworthy in the field of 3D digital animation, where innovative image manipulation techniques regularly emerge with a greater focus on developing virtual characters who, ultimately, serve as focal points and protagonists for multiple visual, communicational and narrative experiences, subject as they are to the gaze of a camera without physical limitations. This new animated image, which allows us to truly explore the most intricate details of the animated image and is resilient enough to be shared by a variety of fields such as digital games and animated films, is one of the aspects that brings us to question the role which the virtual character plays in contemporary society. Accordingly, this paper aims to develop hypotheses on the foundations that lead to the construction of a “humanisation” of virtual characters, which in this case refers to credible representations of real experiences such as sadness, jealousy, fear and other human emotions. To this end, our study analysed a range of classic dimensions, models and aspects of animation with an emphasis on character development in order to compare them to the new paradigms established by the new routines in animated films and digital games. This objective required the creation of a peripheral area that encompasses various fields of knowledge, namely, character design, theatrical interpretation and, of course, digital animation, all of which have served as keywords for our investigation. The result of this endeavour allowed us to discover new characteristics and mechanisms which made it possible to establish a theory of patterns and dimensions for virtual characters with an eye toward immersive experiences. In this context, it was absolutely necessary to proceed with an applied study to test the veracity of our theoretical conjectures. We therefore developed a virtual character and, later, an interactive project in the first stage and created a short animated film in the final stage. Both stages, the character and the short animated film, were developed with the predicted findings of the theoretical investigation in mind. The findings presented in this paper validate our dimensional model showing that, indeed, the credibility of the animation of a virtual character responds to new prerogatives that are constantly becoming more deeply rooted in art and the creative industries