Virtually Nighthawks
The goal of "Virtually Nighthawks" was to create a hybrid space in which real life people and virtual reality avatars could interact directly with one another. It was shown at UWM's Arts+Tech Night on December 15th, 2010. The Second Life component was housed at UWM's sim. Nathaniel Stern and David Witzling were my instructors for this project.
The diner consisted of two halves. In the Second Life half, avatars could sit at the counter of a full size mock-up of the diner from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and across from them was a viewport that streamed video and audio into Second Life from the other half.
That half was a full size wooden counter I had constructed in the physical gallery space. Patrons to the art show could stand at this counter and could see projected on the wall across from them, an analogous view of where they would be standing in the Second Life diner. Audio piped in both directions allowed for real-time voice chat.
In effect, a social environment was generated where flesh-and-blood people interacted directly with digit-and-pixel avatars.
The diner consisted of two halves. In the Second Life half, avatars could sit at the counter of a full size mock-up of the diner from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, and across from them was a viewport that streamed video and audio into Second Life from the other half.
That half was a full size wooden counter I had constructed in the physical gallery space. Patrons to the art show could stand at this counter and could see projected on the wall across from them, an analogous view of where they would be standing in the Second Life diner. Audio piped in both directions allowed for real-time voice chat.
In effect, a social environment was generated where flesh-and-blood people interacted directly with digit-and-pixel avatars.
Working on the model of the diner's counter in Second Life. I built it from virtual 2x4s and plywood, then used the Second Life model as blueprints for the counter I built out of actual wood in real life.
The original proof of concept model. The white wall represents the wall of the physical gallery -- everything north of that will exist only in Second Life. The green triangle represents the projector's image piped in from Second Life, while the blue triangle represents the field of view for the camera carrying the gallery view into Second Life for the avatars to see.
Side view of the proof of concept model. This is the original plan for what people would see in the physical gallery.
What the patrons in the Second Life diner see. Unfortunately this was taken during testing when the gallery was empty.
What patrons of Arts+Tech Night saw. The laptop on the left is running the Second Life account of my professor, Nathaniel Stern, whose avatar is on the screen to the right. So at one point he was occupying both the real life space and the virtual space simultaneously!
