Building Interactive Worlds in 3D: Virtual Sets and Pre-visualization for Games, Film & the Web

Chapter 1 - A short history of computer simulations History of interactive 3D, from early flight simulaters during World War 2 to state of the art low cost virtual sets. - Inverview: Ken Perlin, Director of CAT/NYU, special effects supervisor for Tron, Disney. Cahpter 2 3D basic kit - Solutions to practical and conceptual problems - Modeling and texturing for interactive 3D - Alpha channels and transparencies - Photorealistic real-time 3D rendering on a PC or on a Mac - Project:designing a skybox - Interview: Benjy Bernhard about creating virtual sets for the AMNH's Planetarium Chapter 3 Adding interactivity - Director - Virtools - Reusable behaviors - Scripting interactions - Simulating natural laws or physics in a virtual set - Controlling interactions with input devices: dragging 3D objects - Project: 3D artist, Tamiko Thiel, about museum installations Chapter 4 Animation basics - Keyframed animation: simple animation in Maya and Lightwave - Morphing - Animated textures - Exporting animated 3D models - Character animation: bones and biped - Exporting animate dcharacters - Scripted animation in Lingo - Advanced interactive animation - Capturing real-time motion - Project: Interactive showcase for virtual actors - Interview: dancer-animator, Liza Herlinger-Thompson, Troika Ranch, about character animation Chapter 5 Interactive Lighting - Natural lighting - Indoor lighting - Distant light - Spot light - Point light - Building a virtual light studio: a virtual set for TV - Adding interactivity - Testing the virtual light studio on a movie set - Advanced interactive lighting: particle animation, special effects and volumetrics - Project: Interactive lighting of a character isnide a virtual set - Interview: interactive 3D artist, Florent Aziosmanoff about lighting for virtual sets Chapter 6 Virtual Cameras - Virtual cameras adapted from Hitchkok and Stanley Kubrick's movies - Steadycams - Movie previsualization - Parent-child scripting and targets - Controlling virtual cameras - Advanced interactivity for virtual cameras: artificial intelligence, portals - Tutorial: 3D interactive adaptation from a scene from "Night Hawks" from E. Hopper - Interview: director of photography, Kaminski, AI, Minority Report, discusses using virtual sets for movies Chapter 7 3D sound - Introduction to immersive experiences - Synchronization of display and sound - Spatialized sound - Controlling several sound streams - Real-time 3D sound - Sound envelopes - Tutorial: sound mixer - Interview: 3D Sound inventor and engineer, Bo Gehring, discusses spatialized sound for virtual sets Chapter 8 User interface and input devices - Linear and non-linear story telling - User testing - Testing playback performance - Building input devices: serial inputs - Midi inputs - Interactive phones - PDAs - Project: Designing a new interactive camera: the "cocktail camera" - Interview: Interactive designer, Bill Tomlinson, Synthetic Character Group, MIT MediaLab about input devices for virtual sets Chapter 9 Following a terrain with a remote controlled car - Modeling and texturing a terain - Modeling the car and obstacles - Collision against the terrain - Collision between a character and walls and other collisions - Adding physics: springs - Other methods: ray calculations - Project: an online 3D game - Interview: game designer, Sokal, creator of Syberiade, about virtual sets for game design Chapter 10 Communication environments - Communication from and to the virtual set - Introduction to multiplayer 3D games - Serial communication - Web communication - Interactive phone communication - Example of online multiplayer 3D game - Project: a robot talks to a virtual set - Interview: bio-robotic specialist Robert Full, Director of the Polypedal Lab, Bugs Life, Disney and Pixar, about using virtual sets to stimulate robots inspired by insects. Chapter 11 Advanced interactive 3D characters - Advanced character animation: blending motions - Cloning motions - Crowd control - Path finding and terrain analysis - Project: characters from a movie set are controlled by cellular phones - Interview: virtual sets designer, Colin Green, from Pixel Liberation Front, The Matrix, Panic Room, discusses movie previsualization for virtual sets Chapter 12 Artificial intelligence and gameplay for virtual sets - Introduction to AI - Decision making and self-determination - Managing crowd in an open space - Integrating AI in a game with AI - Project: virtual agora in the antique city of Aphrodisias - Interview: 3D interavtive designer, Zach Rosen, about using AI inside virtual sets Chapter 13 Multi-user server and database - Database administration - Connection to database - Saving and loading - Managing characters in multi-player environment - Chat in 3D world - Project: Multi player virtual movie set - Interview: CEO of SIA-TV, Adrian Simonovitch, about database driven virtual sets for interactive TV games