ALTERNE

Gyre & Gimble Team:
Mark Palmer, artist
University of Teesside for integration with UT engine
Laval Mayenne Technopole for SAS 3 integration

Artistic Objectives:

To create a series of environments relating to the logic of Carroll’s Alice stories and to explore the possibilities of networking these environments. Eventually, one scene was explored – that of the shop in Through the Looking Glass.

Project Description:

“It is the quality of surface and the structure of events that will form the focus of this interactive immersive installation. Rather than using static texture wraps as a means to simulate 'reality' the intention is to create dynamic texture maps that move across the surface of a scene's geometry. Borrowing from the style of wood engraving, these simple black and white lines might develop in any number of ways, moving slowly and then quickly, in this direction and that, forming vortices, eddies and flows that might develop in a fractal nature.
Borrowing from the illustrative conventions of books the rendering of this environment can take place across a number of platforms. The problems usually associated with the problem of having to choose one viewpoint to render the scene for a CAVE falls away. Where once other viewers would see the discontinuity between screens as a rupture of the illusion this can now be played on as these surfaces switch between a sense of immersion and the pages of a book. Indeed this might provide an opportunity to play extending the conventions of a CAVE by using augmented reality within it's walls so characters enter the space of the CAVE as if they had come off of it's 'pages'. The use of 'pages' would also allow new forms of navigation to be developed.
Scenes could be fractured (in much the same way that multiple windows are used for multiple players within games) or stretched. Rather than one user controlling the experience for all, optical tracking would allow relationships between user and screens to develop in such a way that their body becomes the interface. But equally important these conventions would not disadvantage online participation. Indeed the fact the some participants would not be present provides the opportunity to play with the shifts in size“ (http://www.alterne.info)

Technical Choices:

The work made use of the SAS 3 and the Unreal Tournament (UT) game engine.

The artist felt that the use of the SAS 3 and the UT Engine were a given due to the nature of the call to which he responded. His preference would have been to explore the situations and experiences that could have been created using networked environments. This exploration, while it was not yet possible to realise at the beginning of the project, is more possible now due to the developments done at WSA involving AG, the multicasting, multi-screen platform.

The use of the SAS 3 offered the possibility of relatively unencumbered immersion although he felt that this was balanced against a number of disadvantages, such as “only a single viewer has the viewpoint that allows the surfaces of the cube to seamlessly mesh together�.

Palmer has programmed and used immersive systems since 1997 whilst using WTK to create immersive environments (utilising a head mounted display and creating an Osmose like tracking system with a Polhemus Fastrak). Whilst the opportunity to use a Cave-like system has undoubtedly been beneficial to him, it remains an expensive technology to utilise and for this reason he states that it may well be limited to this project. However the use of the ‘middleware’ created for the UT engine is something that he hopes to take advantage of as a relatively cheap technology.

A technical innovation in the realisation of Palmer’s piece was the need to use point of view as the means of interaction in the SAS 3.

When asked whether the technologies he used could be mastered by non-specialists and whether collaboration with technical specialists was essential to his work, Palmer replied:

I came to the project having programmed immersive 3D environments in C++; If anything I found my relative distance from the technology frustrating. This experience also makes it difficult for me to judge whether there might be restrictions to the non-specialist. However I certainly would not have liked to be in the position of creating the interface (‘middleware’) to allow the UT engine to be used in this way. I suspect that there will be certain issues that non-specialists might need an initial amount of help in addressing – however if they were capable of using the UT modelling environment this would be very small indeed.

Tools resulting from the work, which can be used by other artists:

A small amount of descriptors for objects that allowed the matrix used in Gyre and Gimble to be set up as well as the use of the users’ point of view as the interface with the SAS cube.

However, Palmer would prefer to complete and exhibit Gyre and Gimble prior to the release of these tools.

Conceptual Choices:

When asked to elaborate whether there were other conceptual choices beside Qualitative physics, which could make use of these technologies, Palmer replied:

The first and foremost is whether VR is used to imitate reality. It seems to me that its creative potential is far greater than this and the opportunity to create new systems drawing on a variety of sources is the route to achieve this. This also relates to the discoveries made through complexity theory – whereas artists used to invoke concepts such as the sublime they now have the opportunity to work with systems that produce sensible affects and emergent properties.

Next Steps:

For Palmer, the next step to complete his work involves the implementation of networked environments. One of the options which has opened up during the course of the project is the use the developments made by the WSA team with AG, which could offer him interactivity and distribution over the network. This may entail creating some modifications to Gyre and Gimble and looking at the compatibility with the immersive space of the SAS cube. By using the network the artist now wishes to “explore the possibility of overcoming the usual bias towards a primary viewer within VR systems, thereby opening the possibilities of such systems towards social rather than simply solipsistic experience.�

Overview of "Gyre and Gimble" Experimentation

Mark Palmer’s approach draws reference from Spinoza’s philosophy in rejecting transcendental explanations, as well as the notion of final cause. In that sense, the very term of “user� is misleading in its utilitarianism and in that it suggests a simple causality as a means to an end. Interaction should never resonate with the notion of a final cause; rather, experience should derive from adjustments of efficient causes only.

In the context of this research, “Gyre and Gimble� brief revisits Alice in wonderland, through an interactive VR installation. In the original novel, as in this installation, Alice is certainly confronting an environment which exhibits behaviour of its own. Objects have a life of their own, generating all sorts of (inter)actions. In addition, the world itself is hardly predictable, the outcome of such interactions depending on changing conditions.

The brief environment is a 3D world reflecting the aesthetics of the original Tenniels’ illustration (using 3D objects with non-photorealistic rendering,). The user, evolving in the environment as Alice, in first person mode is a witness to various objects' behaviour which she can also affect by her presence.

One small room surrounded by 4 cabinets and a table. Six types of objects, a total of 30-40 objects dispersed on shelves / cabinet and table. The user can only walk around

The “Gyre and Gimble� Environment, as the Ego.Geo world, exploits the Causal engine features to gradually change the degree of causality modification. Palmer's brief explores a user empathy system similar to Alok Nandi's brief. However, in the "Gyre and Gimble" Brief, the user-agitation corresponds to its frequency of intervention with the objects.

"Gyre and Gimble" Experimentation and Manipulations (Mark Palmer)

During the first exploration of his brief in the SAS-cube, Mark Palmer identified a series of changes he wanted to implement. One of his first objectives was to change the object mode of activation, using the user gaze instead of his hand. His second objective was to experiment with different sets of alternative behaviour.

Alterne CaveUT 2.0 and Unreal Script Manipulation:

One of the most important objectives for Mark was to achieve object movement activation thought the head tracking, no longer with a virtual hand attached to the wand tracker. The team then added another option to the Alterne Cave UT system to allow this kind of interaction . Afterwards, they implemented an object activation system that allows setting the radius and degree of activation from the user point of view, in fact an invisible object moving along the direction pointed. If the object collides (activation radius) then the object is activated.

Unreal Editor Manipulation

Mark has also been introduced to the object creation and animation setting through the Unreal Editor interface. Thus, he has modified the animation speed of the object to obtain a more exaggerated/ violent animation, closer to his notion of object “escaping�. For instance, the Teesside team assisted him to accelerate the consumption animation of an image like the candle to re-create this feeling of object voluntary disappearing.

Artist's Conclusion after the final experimentation in the SAS Cube

Mark Palmer:
“The day also provided an opportunity to come to terms with the ‘middleware’/‘authoring’ environment being developed by the UoT team. Whereas previous discussions had tended to focus upon issues to do with Gyre and Gimble, this was the first exposure I had to the proposed system and the ways in which it might be used. This provided me with a far greater opportunity to come to terms with the aims of the project from the UoT perspective. The system looks to be a welcome, robust and inexpensive way to author work away from the assumed expectation of imitating reality often associated with virtual systems. I’m sure that it will provide a very productive and useful way to introduce students working within art and design to developing interactive immersive/environmental work“

Comments by the team at Teesside:

"Our session with Mark Palmer has been an intensive and productive workshop that has lead to the development and improvement of new tools. Over one session, Mark Palmer has actively participated to a deep re-modelling of his brief demonstrating the flexibility of our platform and its usability."