dmi: ADMC 2020 Impact the Future by Design
Creative Social VR Practices in Connected Environments:
The 5G Lift for Retails in Digital Urban Context Heejung Kwon, Ph.D. Information & Interaction Design, Underwood International College, Yonsei University
Andrew Hudson-Smith, Professor of Digital Urban Systems The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL
Time : Thursday, 06 August 2020, 10 -11 am (EDT) Track 2 Session 1
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Introduction • Social VR, the new digital ecology − “What is home?” − Research Questions • First, how will the interaction between ecological conditions, and human cognitions shape the requirements of emerging experience architectures? • Second, what digital instruments will facilitate and enhance the distributed collaborations among users? • Lastly, what model will explain the dynamics between the normative evolvement, and digital instruments as social infrastructures? dmi: ADMC 2020
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Theoretical Background • Social Commercial Features (Kolesnichenko, 2019) 1) Embodied Locomotion (teleportation, flying, jumping, walking) 2) Avatar Aesthetics (visual and behavioural fidelity, avatar selection, appearances, customization) 3) Personal Space (avatar personal bubbles) 4) Social Mechanics (friending, emoting, muting, blocking, etc.) 5) Avatar’s Relation to Virtual Identity (such as personalization affordances of avatars) dmi: ADMC 2020
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High Level Analysis of Avatar Affordance in Social VR Application (Kolesnichenko et al, 2019) Facebook Spaces
Mozilla Hubs
High Fidelity
Rec Room
AltspaceVR
Anyland
VRChat
Embodied Locomotion: Teleportation
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Other Navigation Mechanics
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Create Custom Worlds
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Default Avatar Selection
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In-world Avatar Customization
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Import Avatar
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Share Custom Avatar
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Humanoid Avatars
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Non-humanoid Avatars
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Photo-generated Personal Avatar
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Built-in Facial Expressions
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Emoting System
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Personal Space Mechanics
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Embodied Social Mechanics
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Unique Affordances
Image Recognition
Import Media File in VR
Platform Creation Tools
Group Travel
Cross-platform Support
In-world Creation Tools
Import Custom Avatar
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Theoretical Background • Social Play (Isbister, 2010) − Contextual Factors − Motivational Factors − Conceptual and Theoretical Grounding • Social Learning • Emotional Contagion • Physical Feedback Loop dmi: ADMC 2020
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Theoretical Background • Prosocial Interaction (McVeigh-Schultz, 2018) − In VR worlds, user experience interests escalates emotional and social aspects of everyday usages. − UX research concerns focus on how embodied digital spaces amplify emotional experiences, and how it changes people’s interactions even more. − People tend to be more friendly, or sometimes more aggressive, or sometimes extremely raged. − What is “being social” in virtual world? Or how pro-social behaviours affect the interactions in virtual worlds? dmi: ADMC 2020
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Recursive Identities • Social VR Retail Model − An avatar is a pivotal substance that proposes and operates social relationships (Kolesnichenko, 2019) − Component-based Social VR avatar commerce is a unit architecture that builds up meta-social VR worlds, which is equivalent to what city is for society. − Figure 1 shows the Sansar project inworld merchant system UI. Sansar project corporate system only mediates the distribution of user-created fashion items in the cross-channel of inworld and web interfaces. dmi: ADMC 2020
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Recursive Identities
Figure 2. The Aneja’s recursive avatar creation research(2019) presented two pipelines for retargeting an expression from human to the avatar. A) Expression Synthesis via Action Units Controls. Its pipeline takes a human video as an input, recognizes 12 FACS Action Units from the user’s detected face and synthesizes the same expression on the avatar’s face. B) Expression Synthesis via Bone Position Controls. Its pipeline takes a human video as an input, detects the user’s face, generates 3D parameters on the primary character ’Ray’ through a 3D-CNN and synthesizes the same expression on the avatar’s face.
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Recursive Spaces
Figure 3. Hierarchical Recursion Generating Fractal Self-Similarity: Top-Down (left) to Bottom-Up (right) (Batty & Hudson-Smith, 2007) dmi: ADMC 2020
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Recursive Spaces
Figure 4. VRChat Home Kit: A shell of recursive world dmi: ADMC 2020
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Recursive Spaces
Figure 5. VRChat Recursive instances that unlimitedly copy the original world dmi: ADMC 2020
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Research Method • Artefact Analysis and Model − Artefact Models in 3D worlds − The 3 Tier model of participants, application artefacts, and controller suggested how we should standardise the design artefacts analysis targets in VR environments. dmi: ADMC 2020
Figure 6. Principal VW layout with space 'dimensions' and application 'artefacts' (Christiansson, 2001) Impact the Future by Design
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Data Collection & Analysis Table 2. Social VR Components Category
Creation
Social
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Features
Functions
Avatar Customization
Identity Creation
Store
Exchanges
Digital Currency
Pro-social Market
World Building
Environment Creation
Events
VR Meetup
Discord Connection
Tutorial/Technical Help
Who’s online
Connectivity
Who’s near me
Voice Interaction
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Data Collection & Analysis
Figure 7. Recursively Embedding the Virtual City (Batty & Hudson-Smith, 2007)
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Results & Conclusions Table 3. Cross-channel Artefacts of Social Play Channel Social VR Inworld
Discord
Web
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Artefact Avatar Customization Shopping Interface Currency Market 3D Building Emote Controller Communication (Voice/Chat) Avatar Locomotion Team Features Communication with Service Providers Event Help/Tutorial
Action World Quest
Code #Creation #Internal
World Quest Support Peer Leaning Wider Connection
#Information #External #Community Hub
Administration/Profile Shopping Event Help/Tutorial Downloads Program Updates
Shopping Learning Administration
#Backend #Trade
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Social VR Cross-Channel Cloud Model Locomotion
Aggregation
Avatar
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Future Studies • The Architecture of Digital Labyrinth − Spatial cognition and human perception in connected environments of twin world − HCI models for AI: Autonomous systems and human creativity
• More Research Questions − What will be a locus of attention when we are collectively migrating digital spaces that are embodied to contain and transit multi-layered experiences of human and artificial intelligences? − How will the shell of 5G network spaces transform markets, and their values?
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For More Information https://www.facebook.com/IoT.UX/
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