2017 State of Virtual Reality #1: Platforms & Content

This two-part article describes the state of virtual reality technology and research at the beginning of 2017. I'm writing it for a technical audience. For a more philosophical discussion for a general audience, see my Virtual Reality: The Actuality of Total Cinema talk video.

Peeking out from under a virtual reality display prototype

Just Add VR: Cameras

How can a game engine retrofit virtual reality in a near seamless way onto non-VR 3D content? How should a game engine's camera controller for a VR experience combine tracked data from the real world, player motion input, and simulation data?

Mike Mara using a G3D::VRApp game with physics

Virtual reality research isn't just about rendering algorithms and tracking devices. Software engineering for new kinds of input and output is always an important challenge.

This article describes the upcoming API and scene graph design for the G3D Innovation Engine's experimental VR library, focusing on camera design.

Obscure and Intelligent Science Fiction Films and Television

History and drama fetishize only slight variations of the one possible world that we already know. There are infinite worlds that could be. I want to explore those and enjoy doing so through science fiction.

Entertainment is its own justification, and I'm the first in line for many films that are "merely" entertaining. But as for any genre or setting, a sliver of science fiction goes far beyond popular art. The works that do this are worth simultaneous contemplation for their themes, admiration of their production techniques, and satisfaction of the emotional ride.

Strategies for Avoiding Motion Sickness in VR Development

Image from The Lawnmower Man of how not to
develop in VR if you want to avoid motion sickness.

Motion sickness occurs in virtual reality (VR) when an incorrectly-operating or poorly-designed experience creates inconsistent stimuli between your physical body motions and the visuals displayed in the head-mounted display (HMD).

Graphics and Games Lecture Videos

This blog post archives all of my video lectures on computational graphics, virtual reality, and film and media studies topics. I will add to the post as more talks are digitized. Links are to project pages. Following the SIGGRAPH system, I'm rating these "Advanced," "Intermediate," and "Beginner" based on how much knowledge each lecture assumes about games and graphics from the audience.

Advanced

Peering Through a Glass, Darkly at the Future of Real-Time Transparency

(SIGGRAPH 2016 Invited Talk)

Phenomenological Transparency

(I3D 2016 Research Paper)

Intermediate 

The Augmented Artist: Computation and Content Creation

(I3D 2013 Invited Talk)

Introductory

Virtual Reality: The Actuality of Total Cinema

(Williams 2016 Faculty Lecture Series)

Creating Games

(Williams 2016 Alumni Talk)

---

Morgan McGuire (@morgan3d) is a professor at Williams College, a researcher at NVIDIA, and a professional game developer. His most recent games are Project Rocket Golfing for iOS and Skylanders: Superchargers for consoles. He is the author of the Graphics Codex, an essential reference for computer graphics now available in iOS and Web Editions.

Her Story (Understanding Games #4)

This is the fourth article in a series documenting my Game Camp for Grownups at Williams College for introducing humanities faculty to the medium of video games. [Previous: #3: Inside]

"Her Story" (2015)
Designed by Sam Barlow
Starring Viva Seifert
For Windows, OS X, iOS, and Android

This is one of the most wildly unique games made in the past decade. "Her Story" presents mature themes in a truly nonlinear narrative, and does so relatively successfully. Its innovations include a search engine as the primary mechanic and the most effective use of video in any game to date.

McGuire House Rules for Space Cadets: Dice Duel

Image by Stephen McPherson

Space Cadets: Dice Duel is a team cooperative space ship combat game. Playing it feels like being on the bridge in Star Trek, but with laughter when things don't go your way.

You can think of it as either a hardcore party game or the world's most casual tabletop RPG. The main mechanic is team communication.

SC:DD is designed for 4-8 players, works for 2-12, and unlike most large games, actually gets better as the teams get larger. I've played with children as young as 7 years of age and hardcore adult gamers.

You can play SC:DD in about half an hour, and will probably want to play at least two sessions back to back. The game slows down a bit as you become more experienced because your defense will improve and duration is determined by successful attacks.

There is an excellent expansion called Die Fighter that I recommend for large groups or when your team has become a well-oiled machine.

Inside (Understanding Games #3)

This is the third article in a series documenting my Game Camp for Grownups at Williams College for introducing humanities faculty to the medium of video games. [Previous: #2:Monaco]

“Inside” (2016)  

"Inside"

Designed by J. Carlsen
Directed by A. Jensen
Developed and published by Playdead for Xbox One and Windows

Jensen and Carlsen’s previous game, “LIMBO,” was a spectacular combination of 2D platforming mechanics, puzzles, environmental storytelling, narrative, ambient audio, and 2D art.

Monaco (Understanding Games #2)

This is the second article in a series documenting my "Game Camp for Grownups" at Williams College introducing humanities faculty to the medium of video games. [Previous article in the series: #1 PAC-MAN DX]


Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine (2013)
Designed by A. Schatz and A. Nguyen
Developed by Pocketwatch Games
Published by Majesco Entertainment for Windows, OS X, Xbox 360, and Linux

Monaco is an indie video game that combines the elegance of the “PAC-MAN” game with the theme of the Ocean’s Eleven movie. It is best experienced with four players on a couch cooperating to execute heists...which invariably go wrong.

An early version of Monaco won the 2010 GDC Independent Games Festival  Excellence in Design and Seumas McNally Grand Prize awards. The McNally award for independent games is comparable to the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for independent film.

PAC-MAN DX (Understanding Games #1)

This is the first in a series of articles describing my 2016 "Game Camp for Grownups" for introducing the medium of video games to colleagues in the humanities at Williams College.

“PAC-MAN Championship Edition DX+” (2010)
Directed by T. Iguchi, T. Iura, and R. Yabuchi
Developed by Mine Loader Software
Published by Namco Bandai for Xbox, Playstation, Windows, iOS, and Android

Widely considered a perfectly-designed game, “PAC-MAN DX” reinvents the maze-traversal legacy of PAC-MAN titles with modern advances for a gentle learning curve that still rewards hardcore play. The occasional tedium and frustration of the original are gone, and the graphics and audio have been updated to modern standards while retaining the cheer and minimalism that defined classic arcade style.

Play one of the versions of the game that uses a controller, not the iOS version with the touch screen controls. I presented the game on Windows using Xbox 360 controllers. (iOS with an external controller is fine if it supports one, but iOS controllers are rare.)

Annecy 2016

Annecy is picture-perfect

The Annecy International Animated Film Festival is the oldest and largest regular animation festival.

The program spans the gamut from blockbuster 3D films to avant garde indie experiments. This is where emerging animators and upcoming hot new films often first debut---it is a glimpse into both the near future of film and to many great ideas that never emerge commercially.

McGuire House Rules for Coup

Coup is a new indie card game for 2-6 players. It enjoyed a successful Kickstarter and was the darling of PAX 2016.

I describe it to hardcore board gamers as "Citadels meets Love Letter and played in five minutes", to casual gamers as "this is what poker would be, if it was fun," and to poker players as "a bluffing board game you'll love."

McGuire House Rules for Love Letter

Love Letter is a simple card game for 2-4 players that takes about five minutes per round. I prefer it with at least three players. It is a great game to play with children as young as seven years, or with adults when waiting for something or between heavier games. You can even play it standing by simply holding the discards in one player's off hand and the draw pile in another's off hand.

There are many versions of the game. We prefer the American standard "Princess" version because the nonviolent theme of courtly love and intrigue and fact that over half of the characters depicted are female makes it a refreshing change from the violent/male themes of many games. However, we introduce house rules based on other versions to improve the balance. We also use the version that comes in the velvet bag instead of a box.

An Hour of Code in 3rd Grade

Safari Match open source game
using codeheart.js

I introduced twenty 3rd graders to programming in a special 75-minute session, using computer art and video games as motivation.

We began with physical activities. We then moved to a pen and paper exercise and then to programming in TurtleScript. Finally, we talked about some of the big ideas in computer science and saw some examples of games in codeheart.js that my college students wrote in their first semester of programming.

Game Camp for Grownups

Axiom Verge

A group of academic colleagues charged me with creating a series of video gaming sessions. Their goal is to understand the merit of games as cultural artifacts, and of game design and analysis as academic fields.

I'm treating this project as you might if someone asked for a master class about any area of study or hobby, such as "what's the deal with 19th century novels?" or "why are you so into cooking?"

My role is a mixture of evangelist, educator, ... and someone trying to justify my discipline to friends working with more traditional media.

Pixel Art Tech Tips

[Programmer!] pixel art from my recent
game jam projects. The portrait is derived
from licensed art by Oryx

This article describes art tools and programming techniques I use for creating indie games with pixel art for game jams.

Pixel art, also sometimes known as "8-bit" and "16-bit" art, is digital art drawn at a scale where individual pixels are visible. It combines classical art techniques from mosaics and textiles with digital conventions and golden-age gaming aesthetics.

Computational Graphics Pronunciation Guide

It is hard to know the accepted English pronunciation of technical terms that you've only read, or are either unfamiliar with the language from which they come or are not a native English speaker. (And I have a lot of sympathy--I've been working with minimal success for years on my own pronunciation and accent in languages that are new to me.)

I'm a native American English speaker and had the benefit of several mentors with impeccable academic grammar and pronunciation. I'm passing on what I've learned in this guide to terms with challenging pronunciations that appear in graphics publications or are frequently spoken in academic talks.

OpenGL Sample Code (including VR samples)

This article describes my minimal reference code for modern GPU-enabled real-time 3D graphics, which is both a sample program and a self-contained tutorial.

This code is useful for programmers working with a new device (such as a virtual reality head mounted display: VR HMD) for the first time, or for programmers working with hardware graphics at all for the first time. I also use it as a testbed for eliminating large libraries when creating minimal reproducible cases for bug reports.

The program runs under Windows, Linux, and OS X. I include a Visual Studio 2015 project file. If you enable VR rendering, it supports Oculus Rift, DK2, HTC Vive (Valve's HMD, in developer kit, "Pre", and consumer editions).

The Joy of Animation: An Undergraduate 2D Computer Animation Syllabus

From https://github.com/genekogan/FlockingBoids

I'm exploring the idea of teaching a new, mid-level course on animation in the Williams College Computer Science department. I was pleasantly surprised by just how excited my students were about animation topics in other computational graphics courses, and think it could stand alone.

McGuire House Rules for Carcassonne South Seas

Carcassonne: South Seas

Carcassonne: South Seas by ZMan games is a tile-placement game for 2-5 players. I find that it takes 20-60 minutes depending on the number of players when using our house rules below for faster play and setup/cleanup, and works well for ages five and up.