Plan Draft

Experiment title: Digital Art Thief (Possibly subject to change)

Scenario: An artwork was stolen in a gallery. The people present have been delegated to search out the culprit

Experiment Mechanics: Clues might be found in the artwork or environment. This encourages participants to look around, get interacted with others, and pay attention to what's going on in the environment. Audience dynamics is the main focus in this experiment. Clues will point to a particular member, and a reward will be given to the person/people who succeed.

SL Location: To be announced.

Roles in the event: (Member names hidden to exclude bias)

Crazy person: A crazy person who thinks he’s an angel. He randomly disperses clues, red herrings and general nonsense. However, he does not answer questions

Detective: Doing documentation and aiding in the investigation, but her information is not complete. She will answer questions, but since she doesn’t know everything yet, her information is not guarnteed to be accurate.

Regular person: Everyone else. Visitors who have been drafted to find the thief before s/he escapes the gallery.

Gallery owner: The only person affirmatively above suspcion. She asks for people's speculations on the thief’s identity during the last 20 minutes.

Roles in the project:

Sam: Gallery director who is mainly in charged with other artists and makes final art decisions.

Chris: Creative writer who is mainly in charged with the storyline/crime scene settings.

Matt: 3D architect who is mainly in charged with 3D models and layout of the environment.

Zoe: Event organizer who is mainly in charged with planning/communication/documentation/survey.

Assets provided: Gallery building, arts, clothes for participants (integral to solving the crime).

Participant preparation: Nothing really, but they will need to read the instructions before they investigate, which will be a notice, placing on the wall where the piece of artwork is missing.

Feedback survey: To be announced.

Standard detail feedback forms: OK!

Production plan: Brainstorm story/plot lines for this mystery and design the game. Design and create survey. Decide on the style, theme, and branding of the gallery and all artwork. Decide on location of the event. Design structure, construction of the environment. Building, Implementing, and modeling. Test environment and potential problems that might encounter. Rehearsal. Finalize survey and deliverables.

Experiment review report/presentation: OK!

End it: The gallery owner will come in to the gallery for the last 20 minuets, and people can go tell the owner who they think is the thief. If someone gets it right, the show will end.

Revised Plotline

Premise:

A brand new art museum has opened in Second Life, generating much excitement. For promotional purposes, a famous art museum has loaned its finest work for temporary display during the grand gala event. However, disaster struck in the night. An Art Thief has broken into the museum, defaced many paintings and finally stolen the priceless loaned picture for his or her own.

Everyone who attended the event has become a suspect. Since following standard forensic proceedure would make FAR too much sense, it’s up to the visitors to clear their names by finding the true mastermind.

Characters:

· Matt the Guard: One of the few people genuinely above suspicion. He will answer questions and make announcements, but there are limits to his knowledge – after all, if he knew the answer, we wouldn’t have a mystery, would we?

· Christopher/Sariel: A crazy person who, apparently, thinks he’s the angel Sariel. Although he claims to speak for ‘heaven’s will’, it’s impossible to say whether the information he disperses is true or false.

· Zoe the Detective: Slow and steady, this cop is participating with the investigation. Zoe will make periodic observations to keep the plot moving.

· The Thief: A frustrated person who hates the art gallery for some reason. Whoever s/he is, s/he is one of you. Find the answer quickly – time is running out!

Plot Flow:

· The ‘suspects’ (the participants) are gathered into one central area. The plot is explained, the NPCs (us) dispersed, and everyone mills around.

· There will be multiple “wings” for the museum, each with its own clue or clues. Once obtained, these implicate the thief.

· The secutity guard will offer general info and advice. His role is to ground the participants in the setting.

· The ‘angel’ spouts random nonsense and jibbers incohenerently. However, some of the advice he offers is useful. He is there to give people a nudge.

· At the halfway point, the detective may ‘discover’ something that will drive the plot forward. Her role is to be a safety net – she will be there in the middle to remind everyone what they’re supposed to be doing and to issue a progress report. She will also provide any missing clues at the end, but she will not actually deduce the thief’s identity.

· The thief’s avatar will remain the same. His purpose is to be inconspicuous. He, like the others, will mill around, converse and join in the fun; however, he will not actually solve any of the puzzles or contribute meaningfully. Perhaps he should even try to obscure some of the clues, or present a false hypothesis. Obviously this last bit isn’t really necessary and should be done sparingly – methinks the ‘innocent bystander’ doth protest to much, mebbe?

· At the end, everyone will be brought into the central room again and the class will decide as a whole who the thief is.

o Perhaps a prize will be issued?

Clues:

· There will be a large number of objects that are ‘touchable’ and display some kind of message. However, only a few of these contain an actual clue. It will either be something that refers to the player’s avatar (e.g. a ‘scrap of black cloth’), or possibly some kind of ‘puzzle’ left by the thief himself. (Attention whore that he is.) These might be ciphers, word puzzles, etc. Possibly even something more interactive, which I will leave to our resident scripter to decide.

· Every clue should have some kind of reference to the thief, but should also keep implications vague. Perhaps a few false clues that subtly contradict themselves?

· This cannot be as convoluted as an Agatha Christie novel for obvious reasons – the ‘cast’ is too big, the timeframe too small, and the task too straightforward. As such, the flow should at its most fundamental, follow thus:

o Infodump > Disperse > Gather Clues > Gather > Identify Thief

Plotline Rough (From Last Week)

Plotline Breakdown:

Plot 1:

- A masterpiece is stolen from the art gallery

- 4 Suspects (Us)

- Our Classmates are the detectives

- Clues and red-herrings are placed throughout the gallery, especially in the pictures. These include fingerprints, dropped items and puzzles carefully hidden, and appear as collectable items.

- These eventually reveals one of us as the thief

§ In this, the challenge is the scavenger hunt. Finding the clues is the challenge

Plot 2:

- A major work is plagiarized

- There are 4 suspects (us)

- Our Classmates are the detectives

- Vandalized artwork around the gallery points the way. The clues are visual.

- At the end, the suspects are gathered and a perp is announced.

- The party found guilty will either be confirmed or denied by us.

§ In this, there is room for error. The challenge is in the deduction from the evidence.

Plot 3:

- A masterpiece is stolen from the art gallery

- 4 Suspects (Us)

- Our Classmates are the detectives

- The thief is an artiste him/herself, and as such places puzzles everywhere with clues being the reward.

- After the class solves the puzzles, the clues point to a classmate.

§ In this, the emphasis lies in the puzzles. Once we solve them, the answer is easy.

Ideas:

- Will the clues point directly to one of our names? Our avatars? Or our characters

o If the clues point to our avatars, will we modify our avatars for this assignment?

o Should we also role-play – that is, should we pretend to be what we are, or do we be The Butler, The Caretaker, The Heir, etc?

- Will the class work as a team, or as individuals?

o Will it be a race?

o Will there be a prize to the one who figures it out first?

- Should I bring in some logic puzzles to use as templates?

Concerns:

- It would be difficult to model the experience on a detective story, since we have so many detectives, and the lack of time combined with the lack of resources will undoubtedly put a strain on it all.

- Also, will this require some kind of rehearsal?

o How much of this should be a part of the environment of the area itself, and how much in the performance?

Using Alpha Channels

Naturally, Second Life has the basics covered when it comes to the requisites of clothing - shirt, shoes, pants, socks, underclothes, skirts and jackets. However, anyone with a flair for customization will immediately notice that this doesn't include much room for accessories (say, necklaces, bracelets, scarves, etc.). One could, theoretically, solve this by creating a 3D object and manuvering it carefully into place, but Second Life, thankfully, has a more efficient way of adding something that is not a basic article of clothing to the user's avatar.

Ordinarily, applying a created piece of clothing to the body forces you, with limited ability to shorten or lengthen the extremities, to make a solid piece. However, if you use Alpha Channels, you can make a layer's contents partially transparent.

Case-in-point, consider the sash I created and demonstrated in class. Let me re-create it for you here:


Step One - Grab That Template

Select a template. You can find these online, but try to get a PSD file since these give you the most control.

In this case, since I'm making a sash, I chose an upper-body template.

Step Two - Make Some Clothes
The next step is to create the texture for the clothing layer.

Note that this will probably take several tries to get something half-way convincing, so be prepared to repeat the next few steps MANY times as you revise your piece of clothing.

Step Three - Alpha Channel
Create a new Alpha Channel.

This will act as a mask, so simply "mask out" the parts you want to be invisible, i.e. anything that ISN'T the clothing itself. (Note: If either your mask or your texture goes outside the bounds of the diagram, don't worry - Second Life automatically crops off anything that isn't on the body grid.)

Step Four - Export Your Pattern

Now, select Save As from the File menu. Choose a name and choose Targa format. (.tga). Make sure the Alpha Channel box is checked.

When the following dialogue opens, select the following setting:

(Note that if you did NOT use an Alpha Channel, select 24 bits/pixel instead).

Click OK.

Step Five - Bringing It Home

Open Second Life and login. Select Build>Upload>Image. (Make sure you have at least L$10).

Verify that it's the file you want and click OK. You will be charged L$10 and the file will be added to your Texture inventory.

Step Six - Applying the Texture

Next, go to your Appearance menu an edit your current outfit. Mouse over whichever type of article of clothing your design best fits (bearing in mind the "hierarchy"), right-click it and select "Create New [whatever]". (In this case, I chose a jacket, as it is outermost on the upper body.)

Name the new object, then select the upper (and/or Lower) texture box to import from.

In your inventory, select the recently imported texture(s). Click OK.

Step Seven - Finishing Up

Now it's time to remove the kinks. First, double-check all the settings to make sure that no more and no less of your clothing is shown - in this case, an open "jacket" would leave a huge gap in my sash. Then, if you chose to keep your texture grayscale, you can edit its color using the color menu:

Once everything's finished, select Save. Congrats - you now have a new piece of clothing!