While I myself don’t have many plans for creating virtual goods within a virtual world outside of a school environment, I would like to believe that, if I could, I would like to provide things that people will actually use and enjoy, and be able to build upon themselves. I don’t have anything in particular that I would want to create, I would just like to create something that can help others for anything that they need.
I have always loved the concept of being able to create things that people can become inspired by, and utilize, to create something for themselves or to use for other things. Things like this already happen, such as assets and meshes provided in Second Life, or images that are royalty free or licensed under Creative Commons to use freely with attribution towards the creator. These things can help inspire other people to create their own things, and to provide those things for other people to use, which can create a continuous cycle of creating, promoting, inspiring, and so-forth.
I think that, as much as it’s very nice—and sometimes even a necessity—to place things behind a paywall in order to make more money to pay bills, or to be able to buy food and other necessities, I think it’s equally important to be able to cater to those who can’t afford to buy assets. I believe that open resources can help provide assets and tools to those that are limited on money and resources, or for those who do not want to pay money to use it, and help smaller creators with getting themselves familiar with how everything works. It’s important to create things that everyone can use, even if that means giving up the monetary resource that you can make from it.
Reading through everyone else’s Immersive Engagement Proposal, I can find that there are connections between each of our proposals and how we are engaging with each other’s ideas to create something wonderful to present.
Since we are building upon the previous creations made from the past students who took this class, it is fairly easy to either take inspiration from what they have done to create something new, or create something of our own caliber that fits within the theme of the entire project. This also gives us a chance to interact with our fellow classmates to collaborate and bounce ideas off each other, which helps strengthen bonds and help others with coming up with ideas and ways to go about completing their projects.
With our classmates, I can see that we already have a sense of how our storytelling is going to work, and what we need to do in order to execute those ideas to fit within the narrative we are trying to tell. Even if our ideas seem to be completely different from one another, we are going to be able to combine them all in a way that can tell an interesting story for those who are able to witness it.
The Hero’s Journey is a project that has been worked on by previous Digital Storytelling students from previous years and is a continual project where new things are added each year to create a wonderful world. This is a project that caters to new students, as well as new for people who are considering entering the college world. There are a total of 12 steps. The step that I am working on, step 5 of the Hero’s Journey, is supposed to represent the part of the hero’s story where the hero takes their first step into the new world of their journey that they’ve embarked on.
It’s supposed to be engaging because, not only is this supposed to be viewed within a virtual world where you can interact with almost anything that catches your attention, but it was made to help encourage new and potential students to join and pursue their passions at the college, and to take that first big, and intimidating, step into the world of Peninsula College.
Audience and Market
The intended users for this are anyone who has an interest in Peninsula College, as well as new and even current students—whether they are technically savvy and can comprehend how things are working in this virtual world, or if they are just curious how this was made. There is hope that this project can appeal to them because of the integration of art and technology to create something that is truly amazing.
The usage of virtual worlds, information, and art integrated into one thing is not something that is new; many interactive and games catered to learning and teaching already exist—even things that exist within virtual worlds.
Medium, Platform, and Genre
The Hero’s Journey takes place in the virtual world of Second Life, which is a virtual world where anything can be created and used for other user’s personal—or, in this case, educative—purposes. SL has a function where people can communicate to others via instant messaging (IM), or even vocally. Each user remains anonymous unless they decide to share in their In Real Life (IRL) profile who they are outside of SL.
The strength of using Second Life for this project is that, unlike creating something physically, you are able to create almost anything that your heart desire—this includes replicas of things that you find in the real world, as well as things that do not exist at all. There are practically no limitations when it comes to creating something and customizing yourself within the space. The real limitations that I can think of is that people who aren’t tech savvy, or don’t work well with virtual spaces because of the nature of them would not find the process or nature of Second Life to be appealing to them. I also believe that, without the right technical and graphical components, as well as a lack of internet access, it can be hard for people to participate in Second Life.
Second Life is a 3-dimensional (3D) virtual world that can only be accessed through the usage of a computer or PC that can run the application. The genre of Second Life itself is virtual reality.
Narrative and Gaming Elements
The Hero’s Journey itself is a narrative that outlines events that could happen to the hero of the story; not every step is completed in the same order, and some can even be repeated. The objects that are found at each step, and surrounded everywhere as you walk along the path and other places of note, also contribute to the storytelling of the Hero’s Journey as they each have their own story, meaning, and interpretation attached to them.
The tone of this story is to be a sort of guide to people, and a way to showcase a journey that everyone goes through, even if each person’s circumstances are different, or don’t happen at the same time. It’s supposed to encourage others to identify themselves with where they are in their own journey, and to inspire themselves to seek out solutions to get them to the next step.
Some people can consider the Hero’s Journey as sort of a self-fulfilling game for themselves, with themselves as the main character of the story—aka, the Hero. Except, unlike other games, there is no real loss. The only thing you are capable of achieving is learning something new with each step, and the act of trying even if it fails at the end.
User’s Role and Point of View (POV)
The user sets themselves up as both the observer and the Hero—just as though they were playing a game of their own, but using themselves rather than a different character. They can consider this a first-person interaction through an observant lens.
Characters
The non-playable characters (NPC) are the animals and objects that are scattered throughout the Hero’s Journey that can be seen as the hero walks the path. Their purpose is to help enhance each step with their own stories and meaning behind them, to hopefully inspire the hero as well and make them ponder while they navigate.
Structure and Interface
Chronologically, in the Hero’s Journey, the starting point is at Step 1: The Ordinary World Before the Adventure Begins, and ends at Step 12: Becoming the Mentor and Return with Education Elixir. This is meant to be viewed from one point to the next until the user/hero makes it to the end; however, the user/hero can go back down the path and view each step and its location at any time. They will be able to navigate using their own character.
Each step is labeled, so it is unlikely that the user will get lost as they navigate the path and stop at each step. After they have viewed and visited each location and the objects it has to offer, they can progress on from there.
Storyworld and Sub-settings
The island that the Hero’s Journey is on in Second Life is called Etopia, which is an island inspire by the Pacific Northwest (as that is where the location of Peninsula College is located), and littered with forestry and animals found in the PNW. The path weaves towards different ecosystems and weather biomes that showcases the multi-faceted areas and locations that are set within the PNW. It can be challenging, creatively, to create a world with different types of seasons and ecosystems, as it takes time to create a diverse setting and make it all work with each other; however, I think because of that, it makes the entirety of the Hero’s Journey very interesting and intriguing to navigate through.
Our time period is present day, but with different genres mixed within—a mixed theme of science fiction, fantasy, and Neo-Pirate Steampunk.
User Engagement
I think being able to have interactive objects that contain things within each object will help with making people feel engaged as they explore our project and wander around. The goal of the project is to both gain something out of it—learning something new about the college or themselves, or about the virtual world—and to have had a good experience with engaging within the virtual space, whether or not they have experience in this type of space. It’s important, as storytellers, that our audience is able to identify something that they have discovered and carry that with them for whatever task they decide to pursue next; either that, or they are able to enjoy whatever they have read and watched.
I personally believe that is no need to add tension to this particular project. This is meant to be a learning experience, as well as a fun one, so there shouldn’t be any reason to create tension in a space that is supposed to be calming and fun. That means that there are no set rewards or penalties as well, aside from gaining experience and learning something new.
Overall Look and Sound
I am leaning towards the usage of text and imagery to tell the story, as I feel that it is easier for me to write as a way to visualize and tell my story rather than using imagery (though I do think that using imagery will help a lot in what I am trying to convey).
The overall look, I feel like, is supposed to be welcoming and whimsical, as well as eye catching with the bright objects, all at the same time.
Interactive Scavenger Hunt
Things that people can find in the scavenger hunt are the objects and animals that have been littered around Second Life, which can help with people teaming up together and possibly becoming acquainted with each other. While each team, or individual, finds each animal and object, they can have the opportunity to learn more about them and how they intersect with the Hero’s Journey.
Since Etopia is supposed to be a virtual and personified representation of the Peninsula College campus and its resources, each location is a representation of the buildings and locations found on campus.
Marketing of The Hero’s Journey
I think a few ways for our project to be marketed is on social media, as well as by advertisements throughout our college campus for those who go to class in person. From my knowledge, students are the most active on Facebook and Instagram, so I believe that those two areas are the best areas to market our project. Things such as flyers and maybe even an electronic banner/slideshow with our project marketed on there would be a nice way to advertise our project as well.
I believe that it would not hurt to have someone who is an expert at marketing and management help us advertise our project outward to others, as well as encourage the creators participating in this creation make efforts to advertise as well in some way shape or form.
J.E.D.I. Hub Overview
As part of the project of our Digital Storytelling World, we have been tasked with creating objects and choosing an animal to go with our Area of Study that’s found within the J.E.D.I. Hub. I have decided that my storytelling animal will be a Jellyfish. It is a little bit of an unconventional animal, as most of the animals that you will see on Etopia are either land or sky animals; however, I believe that there is a way to incorporate a sea creature to a storytelling world such as this. I plan to make sense of it as I create my story and the objects that I have to go with it.
Images used for the textures are credited to the users on Pixabay!
Just as we do in storytelling, we need to consider the ways that we can keep people engaged in what we are doing; things that keep people focused on the subject, as well as motivate them to participate willingly. What is going to keep someone engaged and invested in what they are being presented? What is going to help them be motivated to continue what they are doing?
RSA—the royal society for the encouragement of arts, manufacturers and commerce—is an organization that helps promote the act of bringing people together to find new ideas and solutions, as well as create opportunities for others to make the world a better place. They post videos on YouTube of different talks hosted by people from their organization—almost similar to TED Talks. Oftentimes, they create visual representations of their talks in the form of an animation where someone draws on a whiteboard and creates small drawings and graphics to aid the presenter on their topic. In a way, we can use this concept they practice as an example of how to motivate people with information, education, and mastery.
In one of their presentations, “RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us”, they use the concept of motivation and personal satisfaction to discuss this topic. Dan Pink, the presenter, talks about the reward system and what motivates people to do their job (in the workplace)—aka, salaries, and how monetary rewards might not have the outcome that someone expects. Pink tells us that, while high monetary rewards favor the ones whose job requires manual labor, those who work in an area with a high need of cognitive thinking actually tend to struggle and end up becoming demotivated the higher the monetary reward became. He concludes that the three main things that there are three main things that motivate people to perform better and gain personal satisfaction are as follows: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Autonomy to decide what we get to do and how we do it gives people that drive to do something without being told by someone how to do it until we ask about it. In interactive design, we can give people the autonomy to decide whether or not they want to interact with something that they see—this can also be said about video games and the autonomy that is being granted to you when you play.
Mastery is the act of doing something until you are near perfect, more commonly a skill that you have to learn or are wanting to learn for the sake of the satisfaction of having that skill. In combination with autonomy, we can develop a drive to continue doing the task until we are able to master it; and after mastering it, we can continue to use those skills for personal things, or to better your performance in the workplace. Through the autonomy we are given within certain parameters, we can home in our skill and learn to be better in how we design something and how we can present these projects to others.
Purpose is the starting point of anything that we do, even if the purpose is as simple as wanting to do something “just because”. If someone has a purpose, and is given the autonomy to create and master the art of creating and storytelling, then they are able to achieve anything they can, and help inspire others to do the same.
By giving yourself that drive, you can spread that sentiment to others, and help motivate them to achieve their own goals.
When a story is engaging, the audience themselves are also engaged into the story—they are able to retain information easier, and produce different theories to themselves about what could happen next. When there are visual or audible clues—hand gestures to guide the viewers and give context, followed by creating sound effects with your mouth or giving characters in your story different voices—it helps keep the audience engaged and willing to listen to what you are sharing. The same can be said about doing things in a virtual world; they follow the same sort of style of storytelling, in which the storyteller shows and tells the audience what they want them to know, and can create specific things that are related to the story to help keep the audience engaged.
While presenting a story visually is not my strongest suit, I would like to try and find a way to create something visually to aid my writing as a way to give the audience a better idea of what I’m trying to portray. I want to create stories that are fictional and entertaining to consume and have fun with, while containing ideas and conversations that can help others digest topics that may be hard to express and talk about in any other setting. I want to create things that people can relate to in some way, or find themselves at least gaining a new understanding of things.
I think movies and stories that I have read in general have inspired me to create stories that are both entertaining and informative in their own way. No specific story comes to mind, but I know that stories themselves are influential, and with that responsibility of being a storyteller, more than anything, I want to make sure people have a fun time with the stories that I create; and, hopefully, I can inspire others to do the same and have fun with their own story creating.
It is important, while designing something and adding text to it, that we keep in mind to make it accessible and easier to read, while also keeping the reader’s attention. In order to do so, we need to use colors that contrast well against each other, and we need to use fonts that make it easier for people to read.
Contrasting colors are colors that are easy to see and discern when put against each other, or even when they blend into a gradient. Typically, the contrast of two colors depend heavily on how opposing their values are, as well as the saturation of color. A general example of this would be black text against a white background (just like this text right now) – their values are polar opposites, and their saturation level works extremely well for differentiating text and background. Now, if the color of this text block would be white on yellow, then it would be a poor choice of color, as their values are very similar to each other, and it can be hard to read the text since there is no way to differentiate the text and background from one another.
Finding a text font that is easy to read is a vital thing to note when you’re adding text to a graphic, as people with dyslexia can find it difficult to read – sometimes people who don’t have dyslexia can find it hard to read! Sans serif fonts are fonts that are designed specifically with the intention of making easily readable text. For example: Arial is a sans serif font, compared to Times New Roman, which is a serif font with extra wind-dings at the edge of each lettering to give it a more fanciful look. Comic sans, for example, is a wonderful font to use (as often as many people slander it), as it is known to be a font that people find to be easier to read. It also helps if the font is in a bigger size, so that no one is straining their eyes to try and read the text even when they’re close to it (if billboards were to use small fonts for their signs, then no one would be able to understand what it was they were trying to advertise).
Overall, these specific design choices are important to factor in when creating something that can be easily accessible to everyone, not just people who struggle to read something less contrasting in colors, or who can’t read in serif fonts. If we make everything we create accessible, then it is something that anyone can use and consume with little issue.
Being able to create myself in an avatar maker was a nice experience! Anything that involves customizing a character is something that I’m more than willing to do and most likely will enjoy, and this involves creating myself in character creation as well. I ended up creating two versions of myself, one as realistically as possible (not including the art style that I used for it), and one as a fictional pirate version of myself.
One version of myself I created was from the website Avatar Maker, which is a free avatar making website with four different art styles to choose from!
There were many more options than I thought there were going to be, which was really nice to see; though, as someone used to having a multitude of options to choose from games and such (Baldur’s Gate 3 is an amazing example of how in depth character customization can get), I could not alter the features of the avatar more than just a few nudges here and there, as well as choose a different color palette to work with. This is not a bad thing, however—I think it is nice to have a limited palette of things to use to create something! The style that I chose to create my avatar in was the second one, which was the polygonal style. I like how stylistic it was, while also being just realistic enough for me to find choices that were semi-accurate to my own. In the end, I was able to create myself in a way that was satisfactory to me.
I had also used another website called Piratetar, which is an older site where you can create a pirate avatar of yourself, or any character! This was the fantastical fictional version of myself that I have created. This was a website that I used before to create a much different version of myself (seen below).
I gave myself a little bit of an update, and one with less dark clothing!
I had a fun time recreating another pirate version of myself! There were still many options to choose from, which gave me the opportunity to chose things to make the avatar look like me. This is definitely not what a usual pirate looks like, but I like to think that this is a modern take on a pirate? Or at least a pirate with unconventional style and looks. This avatar creator gave me the option to have a pet as well, which immediately makes this a wonderful avatar creation site.
I could get lost in the process of character customization, and especially when it provides you with many different options to choose from that allow you to go as extreme or as simplistic as you want. I’m grateful that these websites limit you with only a few options, as it forced me to think about basic facial definitions that give you enough information to show that this, objectively, is supposed to represent me because it looks like me. These were fun to create, and I hope that other people give these websites a chance, and are able to create a person of their own!
When I first read this book as a required reading for my multimedia web class, I skimmed through it, and I thought to myself, “this is literally just a book. We are reading a story as an assigned textbook.” I even almost skipped out on buying it because I wasn’t too sure that was the right book for the class. It most definitely was, and after reading through it, I can see why it was required reading. I am very glad that I got the chance to read the book and see how innovative the writing for it is.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) was a phenomenal read, and a story that was already relatable nearly 50 years early. Douglas Adams told a futuristic story about the future, and did so in a way that no other author probably could at the time that story was published. The elements within the story, and its relation to modern technology, provide us with something phenomenal that makes you wonder how Douglas Adams was able to create a story about technology, back when technology was a thing that many people overlooked when it was first being introduced.
To quote a character from the musical The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals: “Once confined to the world of science fiction, she is now science fact!” (He was referring to Amazon’s Alexa that acted as his virtual maiden). There have been many adaptations of the technology within the world of H2G2 that are used now in everyday lives; things such as Wikipedia websites that have a forum of information that can be accessed at any time they want (such as the in-story H2G2 that was written by Ford Perfect, and many others that came before him). Or an app that can translate words and sentences from a different language (like the Babbel Fish, without the intrusiveness that comes with using the Babbel Fish).
These things help make gathering information, and learning about them, much more accessible than it used to be. They are also constantly improving and becoming faster and smarter, which is both highly impressive and intimidating at the same time. On the other hand, they can also cause confusion, as there are so many things to keep track of and keep up with; sometimes it seems like things are new, but lack the charm of what came before them, and even seem worse. In the same vein, as I have attended my multimedia classes, and begin learning these new programs and try my best to keep up with all of these larger projects, one thing that has been taught to us, and hopefully something that can be taught everywhere else, is: Don’t Panic. Of course, that can be hard to do when the task is daunting and intimidating. But when we learn to path our way through the chaos, or maybe learn to take a step back and reassess ourselves and come back to it later, we’re able to achieve great things, and navigate ourselves better through a world that doesn’t want to wait. And hopefully, you too, can figure out where your towel is (I don’t believe I have yet, but that is a discovery that I must make for myself).
I grew up watching a lot of animation, and to this day, I still watch animation (though I don’t really watch many shows anymore…only if something really catches my eyes, and if I decide in the moment to start it and commit to it). I’ve been able to collect a couple of pieces of media that I enjoy lots and have captivated me and inspired me to be artistic, and creative, and to enhance my imagination even further.
As it stands, my favorite Japanese series is My Hero Academia, which has an anime adaptation of the manga, and that is definitely a piece of media that has inspired me to start creating again for myself (I don’t have much motivation or time anymore to create things outside of college anymore, but every time I consume something from this series, I feel myself getting inspired). The author, Kōhei Horikoshi, is a fantastic artist (and overworked, if I may be honest), and he creates such captivating panels and knows how to tell such an amazing story. I hold this series close to my heart, and it’s one that I won’t ever get tired of talking about.
As far as animation that have inspired me to pursue art a bit more…I would have to go with Arcane. The animation is absolutely gorgeous—the way it mixes 2D and 3D animation to create something spectacular blows me away. The writing is outstanding as well. But something that has captivated me so much about the show is how they design their characters. I aspire to be able to create characters like Arcane, and to be able to customize them in any way that I want to. Of course, my skill is not to their standard, and I am going to need a lot of time before I can create a standing character pose that doesn’t make them feel stiff; but character design, and character concept design is something that I want to try and do, even if it’s just a hobby that I do during my free time.
A warning to those who want to watch Arcane: this show contains lots of flashing lights, blood and violence, and other various things that happens throughout the show. I recommend going through the Does the Dog Die website, which gives a list of content warnings for users to list whether or not that specific thing is mentioned or happens in the show, and to give context for each episode. It will contain spoilers for some posts, but if someone has some triggers that they want to avoid, then I recommend this website for anyone who wants to look through it.
The world of storytelling is vast with many different genres of stories, as well as the different mediums that they come in. Film, specifically animation, can create impact in the same way that watching a movie with live actors could; or in the same way as reading words on paper, or on a screen, could. Not only is it effective in gaining the attention of the audience, but because of its eye-catching visuals, it gives people the chance to make things educational and inspirational.
Some short films, like “To This Day”, a poem written and performed by Shane Koyczan, showcases the artwork and animation skills of multiple artists that have collaborated with Koyczan to put together a gut-hitting, emotional performance. The impact of using the mind of many other artists to tell a story has created an inspiring film that could, hopefully, motivate us to be a little bit more kind to others, and to help those that are struggling.
“To This Day” by Shane Koyczan
Another example of a video that is impactful in its own way, and educative, is the video that comes from the TED Ed channel, “The unexpected math behind Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” – Natalya St. Clair”, uses animation (done by Avi Ofer) to emphasize the thesis of the video: how Van Gogh’s famous oil painting Starry Night, which was created during his time at a mental asylum (of which he self-admitted himself to) uses the unexplainable natural occurrence of turbulence. The usage of animation to emphasize the swirls within Van Gogh’s artwork is interesting, and might make some people want to research more about Van Gogh himself, or even about turbulence in nature…or of even turbulence in space, or even space itself (aka, go down a “rabbit hole” of learning about different things as you learn more and more information, and find references to others things that are somehow connected to each other).
“The unexpected math behind Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” – Natalya St. Clair from TED Ed
