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describe the innovations created by industry.
As such, much of information systems research
lacks relevance (Benbasat & Zmud, 1999). This
should not be the case. We need to realize that we
are part of what Nobel-laureate Herb Simon calls
a “science of the artificial” (Simon, 1996), and
both the design and the creation of innovations
are crucial research activities.
The importance of doing design and implemen-
tation—in addition to natural science approaches
to studying information systems—has been argued
in the past (March & Smith, 1995), and a design
science is starting to emerge (Hevner et al., 2004).
The main difference between design science and
“plain-old” design is that the goal of design sci-
ence is to create new knowledge for a community,
whereas design as practiced in industry does not
necessarily create new knowledge.
We find ourselves in the midst of yet another
technological revolution—the multi-user virtual
environment (MUVE) or virtual worlds revolu-
tion—with the potential for radically new forms
of research (Bainbridge, 2007). Either we continue
studying post hoc the innovative virtual worlds
created by industry like Second Life, World of
Warcraft, and Guild Wars, to name a few; or we
create our own innovations.
The question is: given the seeming complexity
of virtual worlds, is it reasonable to expect infor-
mation systems researchers to create them? The
general perspective of this chapter is that, similar
to the web innovations mentioned earlier, there are
many virtual world innovations that information
systems researchers can build. Moreover, both the
technology and the instructional materials needed
to build virtual worlds have advanced to the point
where a single or a small number of individuals
can build one in a relatively short time span.
While the virtual worlds created by academia
may not have the awe-inspiring aesthetics found
in the virtual worlds that make up commercial
games such as World of Warcraft or Halo, one
should realize that most of the innovative social
networking websites also do not have fantastic
aesthetics when compared to the sites that a
trained artist can create. For researchers and
educators who create virtual worlds as part of a
design science, the objective is not an aestheti-
cally pleasing virtual world, but rather a virtual
world that leads to new knowledge, e.g., new
forms of social problem solving, or new forms of
communication across multiple media. Aesthetics
is secondary. Besides, often what looks to be a
fantastically complex virtual world is the result
of a skilled artist creating realistic texture maps,
a kind of digital wall paper that gets “wrapped”
onto the things in the virtual world.
The objective of this chapter is to demystify
the development of virtual worlds by describing
the fundamental skill set you must acquire to
self-develop a virtual world and to show you how
these skills are applied to create a virtual world.
The skills are: modeling, texture mapping, ani-
mation, and programming. This chapter focuses
on the two skills needed to start building virtual
worlds: modeling and texture mapping. Within
these skills are a core set of techniques that one
can use to start building basic virtual worlds. By
practicing and building on these techniques, you
can create more complex and aesthetically pleas-
ing virtual worlds.
Finally, aside from the practical applications
that result from learning the skills necessary to
develop virtual worlds, there are research oppor-
tunities as well. Currently, the best way to learn
the skills for creating virtual worlds is through the
trade books published by the makers of the soft-
ware packages and by professionals. For example,
Autodesk publishes books on basic modeling and
animation (Autodesk Maya Press, 2009), as well
as applying modeling and animation to game de-
velopment (Autodesk, 2009). Game professionals
publish books on specific skills like texture map-
ping (Ahearn, 2006), or designing levels for games
(Co, 2006). However, the techniques for creating
these models are based largely on experience
and the theoretical foundations underlying these
techniques are not explicit. Works by academics
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