The Holodeck: but is it fun?Marc Cavazza

The Holodeck™ ...

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The Holodeck is AI + Graphics• … a Virtual Reality world (Graphics)• … populated by (realistic) Artificial Actors

playing their own roles (Graphics, AI)• The user is at the centre of that world, acting

as well as enjoying the story, interacting with the world and the actors through physical action and speech (HCI, AI)

Hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace – Murray - 1998

Toward the Holodeck: Integrating Graphics, Sound, Character and Story – Swartout - 2001

Can we Build One? Is it fun?

(Research) Questions

• We think more is better• ... The Holodeck is the ultimate entertainment

experienceBUT• ... Have no idea how users would engage• ... And if it would be fun or not

Immersive Interactive Storytelling

CaveUT™ Architecture

1 ...

... 2

... 3

The Narrative: Madame Bovary

Wik

imed

ia C

omm

ons

Madame Bovary?

Marc Cavazza, Jean-Luc Lugrin, David Pizzi, Fred Charles: Madame bovary on the holodeck: immersive interactive storytelling. ACM Multimedia 2007: 651-660

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Interactive Storytelling

EmoEmma (joint work with Univ. Augsburg)

Reference: Cavazza, M., Pizzi, D., Charles, F., Vogt, T. and André, E., 2009. Emotional Input for Character-based Interactive Storytelling. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS), Budapest, Hungary, May 2009, pp. 313-320.

Interaction Paradigms

Actor mode: plays as Rodolphe

Ghost mode: free ride

Lugrin, J.-L., Cavazza, M., Pizzi, D., Vogt, T. , and Andre E., 2010. Exploring the Usability of Immersive Interactive Storytelling. ACM Virtual Reality and Software Technology 2010, Hong-Kong, to appear.

User Interaction (speech)

User Interaction (physical)

Experiments

• 38 subjects (20 males, 18 female)• av. Age 30.6• Session: av. 45 mn = 10 briefing, 10 VR practice,

6 + 6 experiements, 15 questionnaires filling• $30 high street voucher• NGA• 1 casualty

Time Watching Actor (in%) Touching Non-Reactive Objects 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

68.2

4

73.3

17.4

ACTOR MODE

GHOST MODE

User Experience: what they do

Duration (Seconds) Distance Covered (Meters)0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

288

104

356

152

367ACTOR MODE

GHOST MODE

BASELINE STORY

Navigating stage and story

Non-Verbal Influences (NVI) Verbal Influences (VI)0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

3.64

11.4

6.675.28

ACTOR MODE

GHOST MODE

User Interactions

User Influence

User Experience (fun?)

spatial presence engagement ecological validity negative effects0

1

2

3

4

5

3.54 3.673.24

2.55

ITC/SOPI

User Comments

• 63.2% of users contributed written comments after the experiments - of these 44.7 % included explicit positive statement such as “I enjoyed the experiment a lot”, “I think the experiment was great”,"... It definitely was an interesting experiment... ,"Absolutely fantastic- could have done that all day. " “I felt that I could really interact with Emma, which made the experience really interesting and pleasurable”, “I was able to ‘steal’ Emma's gift to Rodolphe, thus changing the outcome of the scene, I found it particularly enjoyable”.

• Most of the 21% comments including negative aspects refer to disorientation, such as “I felt a little disoriented turning around while moving forward.”

• Some comments also expressed certain preferences towards one particular interaction paradigm: "I preferred the role of Rodolphe as I felt there was a definite purpose. As a ghost I didn't feel really involved", “I enjoyed the first part of the story where I took the role of a character as that made me more comfortable in the environment as I had a role".

Simulation Sickness ...

Nausea Oculomotor Disorientation TOTAL SSQ0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

14.2% 15.5% 18.1% 15.5%

Acknowledgements

• Jean-Luc Lugrin, David Pizzi, Fred Charles (Teesside University) ; Jeffrey Jacobson (Univ. Pittsburgh)

• Unreal Tournament™ is a trademark of Epic™• EmoVoice is developed by the University of Augsburg

• Research supported by:– the DTI Technology Programme (in collaboration with

Eidos Interactive plc) BARDS project– FP6 IP CALLAS– FP7 NoE IRIS

... The End