The Cuthbert Hall project (2001-2003) investigated questions of spatial design and ciematic mediation in real-time 3D environments. We created the courtyard of the virtual Cambridge College Cuthbert Hall. This virtual college is conceptually defined in reference to a traditional Cambridge College, quoting architectural characteristics as well as events that can be (or could have been) encountered in such a college environment.
Spatially, the RT 3D VE is centred on an open courtyard that provides the virtual stage for a variety of narrative scenes spread throughout the environment. These scenes can be explored by an interactor, who controls an avatar via the mouse and keyboard. While the spatial structure remains constant, the various narrative scenes add narrative context to the space, making it meaningful for a visitor, who can discover a range of dramatic events illuminating the life and history of the college. Visible and invisible simple agents that operate together with the user-avatar on the virtual stage provide and structure these narrative elements.
Mediation techniques from established fields (such as cinema, television, and sound design) were adapted for the dramatisation of these scenes and the design of the agent-behaviour to provide an effective presentation of the RT 3D VE to the interactor. The level of interactive access of the user during such a scene varied from none to partial or no restriction of free spatial navigation.
The underlying narrative pattern of the Cuthbert Hall RT 3D VE is based on symbolic activities - historic, social, and scientific including 'Bumps' (rowing boat races), 'May Balls' (celebrating the end of examinations), or scholarly debates. It is arranged in a conditional and spatial way. Any experience of the various events (up to 16 different events can be triggered by the user) depends on the spatial layout of the college (e.g. accessibility of a certain place), the means of mediation (e.g. the sound mix and camera-work), and the visitor interaction with the VE (e.g. which events have been triggered so far).
The Cuthbert Hall environment is implemented as accessible low-cost onscreen RT 3D representation, running on consumer PCs and using game-engine technology. For the first prototype, Criterion provided their 3D engine Renderware, while Funatics Game Development provided the basic game engine, based on their computer game Zanzarah. Later instalments of Cuthbert Hall used the Virtools development environment and code by Michael Nitsche and Stanislav Roudavski. The project was developed at the Digital Studios and CARET and presented to a wider audience through conferences (International Participatory Design Conference, Malmö 2002; Conference for Technologies for Interactive Storytelling and Entertainment, Darmstadt 2003), events (NMK Synthesising Reality Event at BAFTA, London 2002; Research/ Practice/ Practice/ Research Symposium, Cambridge 2003), and publications.
The project was a collaboration between Michael Nitsche and Stanislav Roudavski and received assistance from Jonanathan Mackenzie (programming) and Karina Gretere (sound design).
