Designing Adaptive Virtual Worlds

Reviews / Votes

Open Reviews "Virtual worlds - computer-based simulated environments, which host the space and activities of mixed societies of humans and agents, are essential part of contemporary globalised world. Designing such environments, whether for educational, entertainment or business purposes, is a costly exercise. "Designing Adaptive Virtual Worlds" offers innovative and coherent design methodology and respective computational techniques to implement it. The concept of the "place metaphor", introduced by the book is central to the continuous adaptation of functional consistency and aesthetic appeal of the design to the needs of the inhabitants of the virtual world. The knowledge and know-how, coming from two leading researchers in the field, makes the book an important must-have resource for developers and designers of community supporting virtual worlds, multi-user games, next generation MOOCs, educational and business environments."Professor Simeon Simoff, School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. "Designing Adaptive Virtual Worlds is concerned with the design of virtual worlds as well as with the process of design in virtual worlds. The design method proposed by the authors is based on the use of design rules - more specifically shape grammar rules, a formalism that has been applied to a variety of situations and with many different purposes, but mostly in the physical world. By encoding architectural principles in the form of rules, it is possible to generate a variety of virtual places that share the same qualities, but at the same time are different. This is a useful method for generating more diverse virtual worlds and also a great exercise for learning about design."Professor Gabriela Celani, Associate Professor at School of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Design at Universidade Estadual of Campinas, Brazil. "Designing Adaptive Virtual Worlds is a new book that provides a comprehensive introduction and a body of insights to an emerging technology of enormous potential. The work provides an expansive source of novel ideas on how to develop strategies in the design of virtual worlds for professions such as business, education and entertainment that are professionally engaged in the development of virtual environments. Important contribution of the book is the extension of our knowledge about the design of places in 3D virtual worlds. Ning Gu and Mary Lou Maher introduce and present for the first time an approach to the style-making of interactive virtual worlds through the medium of design grammars. Exploring the functional type of the gallery, they demonstrate how, for example, the virtual gallery can respond simultaneously to the stylistic character of the art and exhibition space, while also responding to the needs of the virtual visitors. In the context of demonstrating the adaptability and variability of this method, they present how style can be adapted to respond to the changing needs of avatars in different types of virtual worlds. Methods developed in Designing Adaptive Virtual Worlds are based on the implementation of shape grammar rules. Rules have been widely recognized as a generative model of design and are here applied to virtual worlds. By encoding architectural principles in virtual design, these methods demonstrate how diverse virtual places can be generated and implemented through rule-based design. Gu and Maher further demonstrate how digital platforms such as Second Life, OpenSim and Active Worlds can be used in the design of virtual worlds as well as in the modeling of processes in virtual worlds. The design of interactive virtual worlds is one of the emerging challenges for mediated experience of the world. This new volume provides a bountiful and incisive theoretical and implementational contribution to the foundations of this field."Professor Rivka Oxman, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, Israel.