Writing3D

Summary

Project webpage: https://www.github.com/wphicks/Writing3D

Status: In development (Alpha release available)

License: GPLv3

Description

With the increasing availability of consumer-grade virtual reality (VR) hardware, there is also increasing interest in tools to lower the barrier to entry for creation of interactive VR content. Given this, Writing3D offers tools for creation of sophisticated VR experiences that will:

1. Offer non-technical users a point-of-entry into the world of VR
2. Allow technically-savvy users to more rapidly prototype VR projects
3. Facilitate easy extension of these prototypes into more complex VR applications
4. Provide a platform for teaching principles of VR development
5. Offer maximal portability across VR devices

With these goals in mind, Writing3D provides an open source Python library and associated GUI interface for VR content creation. Less technical users or those experimenting with VR for the first time can access all of Writing3D’s features through the GUI. More technical users, however, can directly access the underlying Python library to automate creation of more complex VR work. Finally, since Writing3D uses Blender (an open-source 3D modeling, animation, and game development platform) as its rendering engine, those users with extensive modeling experience can seamlessly import any Blender-compatible model into an interactive VR environment. This multi-tiered approach not only encourages users with a range of technical expertise to begin developing VR content but also provides a natural progression for those with less expertise to acquire new skills.

Writing3D also aims to foster inter-institutional conversations around VR art and literature by making it possible for the same project to run unmodified across as many VR devices as possible (including CAVEs at multiple institutions, Oculus headsets, and others). Furthermore, Writing3D projects can be saved to an archival, human-readable XML format to ensure that they remain accessible even with changing technologies.

For complete information about Writing3D and how to use it, check out the project homepage on Github.

History

In 2002, Robert Coover established the Cave Writing workshop as part of the Brown University program in literary arts. In this workshop (which continues today under the direction of John Cayley), students develop artistic and literary content for the Brown University Cave. Until recently, this workshop has been facilitated by custom software known as cwapp, which (much like Writing3D) allows students to create VR projects regardless of technical experience. With changing technologies, however, cwapp has become increasingly difficult to modify or even install across platforms. Furthermore, it must be recompiled and altered for each new VR hardware target.

Nevertheless, cwapp has allowed students and practicing artists to experiment with VR for over a decade, resulting in a large “canon” of work that demonstrates important principles of VR design. By using the same archival XML format that cwapp employed, Writing3D will make this canon accessible to researchers across institutions and allow future artists to continue to build on it.

Perhaps the most important lesson of the Cave Writing workshop is that VR requires fundamentally different considerations than any other media. By providing artists of all backgrounds tools to rapidly prototype and experiment with VR, cwapp (and now Writing3D) offer opportunities to discover techniques essential to the emerging craft of VR development. Just as widely-available personal video editing software sparked new innovation in cinema and the spread of accessible game-development frameworks led to the fertile indie game ecosystem, tools like Writing3D may help artists push the boundaries of VR design.