Class 11 Roll Call

Class 12 Videos and Readings

The Polygon from The Guerrilla CG Project on Vimeo.

Course Evaluation

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Class 12 -- Item 1, post to forum

Class 11 2 D - World of Warcraft: My Addication

Professor Aaron E. Walsh notes: This was written by "John" in July 2007. John was a student of mine. He was in my Discovering Computer Graphics course at Boston College (http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc), and was much more advanced than the other students. When I asked why he was taking this class, when he clearly had enough experience to take one of my more advanced classes, he explained that he had no choice: he had failed out of school, and was starting over. After we talked  more as the semester went he explained why. I asked him to write it down for future students. Here’s what he wrote in one sitting about why he was “starting over”:

World of Warcraft (WoW): My Addiction

I've played various MMORPG games over the years, some being fairly addicting, some not even catching my interest, but one stands out above the rest as the most addicting and life consuming thing I've ever encountered in my life. You might have guessed it already, but that game is World of Warcraft, a game that I would recommend everyone stays away from.

Like most addictions, it didn't start out that way. It was just harmless fun; I'd log on for a few hours every day and level my character, talk to some friends I had on the game... it was nothing that took me away from other things. I was in high school at the time, and was still managing to get on with my work at first, even though that was a struggle in itself sometimes, and I kept in touch with my friends and saw them regularly.

At first I was surprised at how little interest I had in playing the game for long stints, as I had heard some things about how enticing and gripping the game was, and the first few months were fine, until I started to get near the level cap. Approaching the maximum level I began to play the game more and more, as reaching the end game content opened up a whole new world. I became involved with a hardcore raiding guild, competing to be the best guild on the server, and it all went from there.

The first thing that changed was that I now had raiding times to meet every weekday evening in addition to the gold farming I had to do during the day in order to be able to afford all the potions
and items I needed to raid, and somehow, my guilds progression through the bosses in the game became the most important thing to me in my life, and I slowly started to phase out my friends. At this point I was still going to school, so between the school day and the game, I had no time for anything else.

Contrary to what people might think, I didn't lack a social life at all, even without seeing or talking to any of my friends from school. In fact, it was quite the opposite, I had a whole new group
of friends... in World of Warcraft. Now I didn't even have to leave my room to hang out with my friends, I could just pop on my headset and hang out with them in the game.

Now, to rewind a bit, I remember when I was creeping up on the level cap, and my parents were beginning to get concerned with how much I was playing the game, I kept telling them that it would be all over soon. Heck, even I thought it would! Little did I know, the game would be even more demanding of me after that.

I wanted to be the best, I wanted to have the best items, I wanted to have the most gold. I wanted to be popular with the people on my server, I wanted to be known. I wanted to top the damage meters on every single fight. I don't know why, I can't explain it, but the game was just the most important thing to me, I wanted to do nothing else. I wanted to play every single day all day and night and would do whatever I could to keep myself awake and at the computer. Whatever it took, energy drinks, amphetamines, I would keep myself awake for hours on end, not getting any exercise and rarely leaving the house.

The more and more I played, the more and more things I felt compelled to spend my time doing inside the game. It seems that they create the game in such a way that even though there technically is a way to have the ultimate everything and clear all the bosses etc.. etc...... By the time you get close they add more content to the game to keep you going, its a never ending story. I would pick up my prescription for amphetamines just so I could stay up all night farming items to sell for gold, I wanted to have the best enchantments and to get all the rare random world drops... and so much more. I completely stopped going to school, completely stopped seeing my friends.... and the most worrying fact was that I didn't really care. It just stole my heart and mind from everything else, gave me a false sense that everything was okay and that I wasn't ruining the rest of my life. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't stopped, I had stopped going to school and cut off social contact with everyone but the people I knew in the game, it was like a world within itself. I didn't even want to stop until I had a taste of life without it, a taste that was forced, however. If I hadn't been forced to live somewhere without a computer I don't know what would have happened.

Class 11 2 C - Review Summarization

Virtual reality and higher education: Another perspective

This article is an interview between Aaron Walsh (hey, I know him!)  and Ian lamont.  The interview begins by discussing "Walsh's" early days of power glove and stereo optics.  It then moves to discuss Aaron's current classes at BC and then on to the discussion of why Second Life was not a viable option in 2003 when the standard for the IE platform was being discussed.  To follow is a discussion of immersive illness and the problems that ultra realistic environments, learning or not, may pose in the future.  We simply don't know enough yet, but it is going to be a "grand" challenge to overcome those problems that do arise.  Finally there's a discussion about Walsh's recent award and a discussion of the nascent IE technology-- just crawling, as it were.  The discussion ends on the note that with an open standard that is easy to use,will help Immersive Education's appeal and ease of adoption.  

Class 11 2 B

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Class 11 Video Game Addiction Videos

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Class 11 Script Screenshots

Being a programmer, I first tried to do the scripting myself.  But then I acquiesced to others who were able to get the scripts online.  Ultimately, that was the smarter choice, as I didn't really have time to learn the scripting language here.

-Rich

Class 10 VRML Faces

Here are my VRML faces:

Roll Call Class 9

Class 9 WOW Level up

I leveled up :

LEVEL 4 WARRIOR:

Class 8 Roll Call

Roll Call 1 from Class 8:

CLass 10 Face Gen Modeler Assignment

Here are my modeler shots:

Class 10 Morph Face

Here are my morphed face screenshots

Class 8 - Research Google Doc

Here I am in:

Class 8 Tots TV Casual Games

The first game I played was echogenesis.  This was an interesting game, that was really more like and environment than a game.  By interacting with the animals in each "envirnoment" you could have them perform various actions.  You could also move in and out of the different environments at certain times.  I had to actually hold down the mouse while entering another env., which I didn't really get at first.  I must be getting old.

Second game was 3D ping pong.   This proved to be a little difficult to get used to.  The controls were a little too jumpy and it was difficult to judge at what height to keep the racket in order to hit the ball.  Finally I was able to get some good volleys in, but I never really got close to getting a point in on the computer.

Third game was bouncie guys.  This seemed more like a physics proof of concept to me.  You could swing around one of the guys and hit the other bouncies.  It was pretty fun, if seemingly pointless.  I could see how a child would become interested in it.  At the very least it would teach them a bit about Newtonian physics.

Fourth game was a playing in the leaves type game.  You are some kind of creature, maybe a cat, holding a blanket helping random creatures fall into a pile of leaves.  Your job is to make sure they make it to the pile and don't get hurt.  Sadly, I sort of enjoyed this game and got pretty good at it.

Fifth game was an adventure style game a la machinarium.  You directed an elf around in the world and he had to get Santa's hat, then he had to get outside the workshop, etc.  It was good for a child.

The final game was a coloring book style game.  User can select from set palette of colors or choose their own.  I colored tweedledee and tweedledum.  I took this more seriously than I had a right to.  This should keep kids busy forever.