Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Introduction to Virtual Worlds
and Designing for Them
Education is not the illing of a pail, but the lighting of a ire.
—William Butler Yeats
1.1 WELCOME TO THE INFINITE VISUALIZATION TOOL, A VIRTUAL WORLD
Like the universe with its glittering galaxies loating over our heads on a summer night, cyberspace continues
to expand, full of people like you creating worlds for exploration, entertainment, and learning. Within this
three-dimensional manifestation of our collective imagination, you will ind new ways of understanding time
and space. Terrestrial and temporal identiiers become insigniicant as you work with people from around the
world. Unlike any visualization tool that precedes it, a virtual world in cyberspace provides you with a place
where your creative concepts can be shared as a 3D form with the world, in any scale, at any time. Let your
mind unfold to the possibilities of how a virtual platform works, and you will be rewarded with a new under-
standing of design and the human perception of it. Almost 2.5Â billion people are in cyberspace worldwide [1],
and according to KZero, the number of registered virtual world accounts has broken 1 billion [2]. Obviously,
virtual worlds are here to stay, and they need people who will design and create content for them. If you are
interested in becoming a virtual world designer, the virtual worlds that run on user-generated content (UGC),
like the open grids created with OpenSim (OpenSimulator; http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Grid_List) or pri-
vate membership grids like Second Life (http://secondlife.com/), are good places to start. Mesh model based
content created for those worlds can also be used on game development platforms like Unity.
1.2 A SHORT HISTORY OF VIRTUAL WORLDS
Figure 1.1 is an illustrated timeline showing an overview of virtual world concepts and how the evolution of
presentational devices has created the possibility of immersive virtual environments. This process started
long ago, in our ancient world.
1.2.1 V
isual
T
heory
and
C
reaTion
of
The
f
irsT
i
llusions
Let's jump into an imaginary time machine and look at how historical concepts in philosophy and observa-
tions on perception can inform us about virtual reality and the virtual worlds it contains. What is it about
perception and illusion that fascinates us? Perhaps when early humans noticed the effects of a lickering
campire on the painted animals that decorated their cave walls, they began to see a story in their minds.
This imaginary story was brought into being by their primitive projection technology: irelight. As civiliza-
tion developed, perceptions of reality and the attempt to describe it gave rise to philosophy, which gave rise
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