UCSC V-World Tour Update - Screenshots August 30, 1998


In this series of screenshots, I have highlighted the ways the team is approaching the project of custom designing and building the various colleges and the V-UCSC world as a whole. I will also outline the approach for orientation and link materials using our first mock ups. Doing what has never been done before carries with it a number of opportunities, challenges and surprises. The biggest surprise to all of us is the quality that is possible using the Active Worlds program. In many ways, it makes no sense for us to merely create facades as you see in vrml, why not make the most beautiful campus in America the most beautiful virtual campus in cyberspace?

The talents of our team seem to know no bounds. All team members have shown a tremendous commitment to a realistic and high quality rendering of the UCSC campus and extensive and exacting documentation. Better quality is the direction rather than quantity. In heeding each request, our virtual architects have stretched the bounds of what is commonly seen in AW and well beyond anything you would presently find in immersive environments of VRML or Viscape. AW is a different medium, you can see through the windows, you can look into the holes, behind doors. There is no facade in AW -- you simply cannot build something halfway because it will show. So we have begun truly building a place -- not a stage set or picture, a real place.

 

Ground Zero - The Cook House and Jitney Teleport Center

   In this first draft version of Sun's new V-UCSC pan, you can already see the real background of Santa Cruz (we still need to situate it more to the S-N rather than N-S). The new sign is now in V-UCSC world and we are rapidly putting in various landscape items in front of the Cook House and in ground zero.
     
  At this point, the ground behind is still being laid. The hills will meet the bottom of the pan and will be contoured with terrace peices to look more realistic.

 

    
  The first main teleport center (the bus stop) has teleports to all of the college centers in V-UCSC. Cowell is well underway in UCSC through the efforts of Chad and Al. Stevenson Footprint maps are up and all Stevenson items are uploaded onto the object server, ready for building. A Map and link center will soon contain a clickable large map of the campus (see orientation storyboard).

 

    

 

Using either the map or the bus stop to teleport to colleges, we find ourself in the quad area of Cowell, now already half built.

     
  Landscape items such as wisteria and ivy on the walls and trellises are being custom designed to give life to the college campuses. These as shown in the staging world will soon be added to the V-UCSC Cowell. Picnic tables have wood texture, flower pots look like those you find at UCSC, and look closely through the windows to the windows behind -- you can see into this world as if it is the real world!
     
  All buildings, not some, are able to be entered and used for orientation, classes, or as social spaces (all still to be determined). The dining area in the V-UCSC Cowell has beautiful detail in the ceiling and inside cupola window, making it an inviting place to meet.
     
  In Stevenson, still staging in Zg's world, the red wrought iron picnic tables and chairs are designed as close to the real items as possible using careful documentation. You can even see right through the tiny wholes in the filigree design!! This has never before been seen in AW or anywhere else!!!
     
  Looking up into Porter, staging in Zg world, you can see each deck area. But wait -- this is not a facade!!
     
 

 

Porter college's wood framed doors sport original texture, the stairs are made to look just like Porter's open modern stair style. The tinted long window style is smoothly and realistically made to look just like Porter.
     
 

Since all buildings are enterable, the interiors are just as detailed as the exteriors. Here is the second floor deck we just looked at. Now we are on the inside looking out!!
     


  Continue....to Orientation Presentation Storyboard

To Storyboard Menu