Skyler Gunnoe

            Interactive Entertainment

Essay

Future

            The Simulation Projects going on were very interesting when we had the tour. What intrigued me was the room with the ghost experience going on. It was full of objects and mechanisms that fooled the mind. One was a light trick with a lamb over a photo album projecting motion picture into it so it looked like the pictures were moving. Then when you laid in the bed you see and hear memories of a little girl to give the effect that you had the little girl’s memories. It was a new experience in interactive entertainment. I believe if that is improved it could be a very big step forward in entertainment.

            The next project we saw was the green kitchen. It was basically cover in green screen except a few things which were not. There were glasses that projected a kitchen digitally into the lens. It was a set up of this guy’s house and he suffered from memory loss. It was cool to see the technology that could help this person regain his memory. The view items not in the green screen were there so he could use them. I thought this idea was brilliant it showed a great example on how helpful technology can be toward another person. It also showed me a new side to three dimensional environments and how close we are to constructed technology for entertainment purposes.

            Another exhibit or project we saw was the vest which sent shocks through your body. Basically a vest that had a bunch of buzzers on it and when you got shot one shocked you on that area. It was used to help marines train for combat situations.  They basically create a map of the place were they will be at and have them navigate it while enemies are shooting. It helps them get familiar with environment so when they are in combat they have a lower chance of being shot or killed. What I found interesting is that to make it more realistic for the soldiers a company developed a bubble or human hamster ball which moved when the soldier moved. The simulation machines their only allowed someone to walk in place and the higher you stepped the faster you ran. This kind took away the effect that you might really be their and it hurt the experience.

            The last place we visited was the trucker simulation and state trooper simulation. Unfortunately when we got there someone had broken the good trucker simulation so all we had was the state trooper one to play. They used these systems to test either truckers or cops. The T-Bone game was used to have police officers practice t-boning speeding cars resisting arrest. It seemed like a pretty fun game in fact we tried t-boning a car once then the rest of the time we just tried to run into motorcycles and mountains.

            The whole future experience really opened my eyes on the fact that there is a big business for simulation technology especially in the entertainment world. If you think about the ghost experience that is the wave of the interactive future. I wish I could be a part of that movement. The creativity along with that technology could spawn a new era for entertainment as we know it.