Building Virtual Worlds

Building Virtual Worlds is a course created by Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, where students work in interdisciplinary teams to create interactive worlds every two weeks.

http://bvw.etc.cmu.edu/

Students use 3D modeling software (Maya/3Ds Max), painting software (Photoshop), sound editing software (Adobe Audition & Pro Tools), and Panda3D, a programming library originally developed by Walt Disney Imagineering's Virtual Reality studio, to display our virtual reality worlds. The course uses unique platforms such as the Head-Mounted Display and Trackers, the Jam-O-Drum, the Playmotion, camera-based audience interaction techniques, Quasi the robot, and others.

I was taking 3D Modeler and Animator role and had built five virtual worlds by the end of last semester, all of which are video games based on different platforms.

At last, two of my worlds were selected to the FINAL BVW SHOW by the jury, they are presented here.

Visual Story

Visual Story is a class where students are split into teams of 4 - 5 at the begining of the semester. The teams remain the same for the entire duration of the course. Teams were also assigned a team name and the name assigned to my team was 'Marvel'.

1. Music Video Round - Fireflies by Owl City

This was our final assignment and all the teams were asked to make a music video for any song of our choice.

2. Little Big Planet - Game Commercial

In this assignment, all the teams were asked to make a commercial for a game. The storyboards and other materials for the game was also provided.

3. Story with constraints

Teams were given constraints such as Location - Cafe , Theme - Insecurity, Object - Book, Color - Orange, and were asked to tell a story using the constraints in some way.

4. Team Introduction

This was our first assignment and we were asked to introduce our team in the form of a one minute video.