nn Walks in the Fictional Woods

This paper presents a novel exploration of the interaction between generative AI models, visualization, and narrative generation processes, using OpenAI's GPT as a case study. Drawing on Umberto Eco's ``Six Walks in the Fictional Woods'', we engender a speculative, transdisciplinary scientific narrative plentiful with references and links to relevant talks. To enrich our exposition, we present a visualization prototype to analyze storyboarded narratives, and extensive conversations with ChatGPT. Our paper is thoroughly decorated with thoughtful decorations that try to encode meaning and complement the narrative.Comment: this is a submission for alt.vis 202

STORYTELLING INTERATIVO BASEADO EM VÍDEO

A geração de representações visuais envolventes para storytelling interativo é um dos desafios-chave para a evolução e popularização das narrativas interativas. Usualmente, sistemas de storytelling interativo utilizam computação gráfica para representar os mundos virtuais das histórias, o que facilita a geração dinâmica de conteúdos visuais. Embora animação tridimensional seja um poderoso meio para contar histórias, filmes com atores reais continuam atraindo mais atenção do público em geral. Além disso, apesar dos recentes progressos em renderização gráfica e da ampla aceitação de animação 3D em filmes, a qualidade visual do vídeo continua sendo muito superior aos gráficos gerados computacionalmente em tempo real. Na presente tese propomos uma nova abordagem para criar narrativas interativas mais envolventes, denominada Storytelling Interativo Baseado em Vídeo, onde os personagens e ambientes virtuais são substituídos por atores e cenários reais, sem perder a estrutura lógica da narrativa. Este trabalho apresenta um modelo geral para sistemas de storytelling interativo baseados em vídeo, incluindo os aspectos autorais das fases de produção e os aspectos técnicos dos algoritmos responsáveis pela geração em tempo real de narrativas interativas usando técnicas de composição de vídeo.The generation of engaging visual representations for interactive storytelling represents a key challenge for the evolution and popularization of interactive narratives. Usually, interactive storytelling systems adopt computer graphics to represent the virtual story worlds, which facilitates the dynamic generation of visual content. Although animation is a powerful storytelling medium, live-action films still attract more attention from the general public. In addition, despite the recent progress in graphics rendering and the wide-scale acceptance of 3D animation in films, the visual quality of video is still far superior to that of real-time generated computer graphics. In the present thesis, we propose a new approach to create more engaging interactive narratives, denominated Video-Based Interactive Storytelling, where characters and virtual environments are replaced by real actors and settings, without losing the logical structure of the narrative. This work presents a general model for interactive storytelling systems that are based on video, including the authorial aspects of the production phases, and the technical aspects of the algorithms responsible for the real-time generation of interactive narratives using video compositing techniques

The meaning of life (in video games)

This paper explores how the concept of life has been used in video games through time. Life is an essential element in different types of action games and several nuances have been used to provide various types of emotions and effects during gameplay. However, the details and patterns have not been extendedly analyzed. Primarily, we survey works regarding the description and formalization of game analysis with emphasis on works in which the concepts have impact in the arguably accepted notion of life. Multiple examples are provided to show different approaches to the concept of life and the impact of such approaches in overall gameplay, namely in the game difficulty and emotions. The examples are then generalized, resulting in a proposal of framework to describe life representation in games. The proposed framework was evaluated in a user study, having participants with gaming culture (professionals, academics, and students of game development courses). Each participant was assigned with the task of fitting a preselected set of games within the framework. The results indicate good coverage of the main concepts with satisfactory consistencyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio