On Creating Virtual Reality Stories And Interactive Experiences Martin Göbel 1 , Stephen Barrass 2 , Jeremy Eccles 1 , Gerhard Eckel 1 , Frank Hasenbrink 2 , Uli Lechner 4 , Sina Mostafawy 3 , Stefanie Toth 1 , Henrik Tramberend 1 , Petra Unnützer 1 1 GMD - German National Research Center for Information Technology, St. Augustin, Germany 2 CSIRO, Canberra, Australia 3 RMH - Agentur für Neue Medien, Cologne, Germany 4 Vertigo Systems, Cologne, Germany Abstract After 10 years of research in Virtual Environments, interactive real time Virtual Reality systems are now available that even support highly immersive, interactive presentations for large audiences. Following the single-user head mounted technology of the early days, multi channel stereo projection systems are now applied in nearly all application domains, complemented with spatial auditory rendering, and prepared for haptic and olfactory sensation. The paper discusses the application of interactive digital storytelling as a means for future education, entertainment, product presentation and event based marketing. We will introduce the process of creating, developing, installing and operating digital stories. We will also communicate experience from applying those stories in different public scenarios in the past 3 years. Several examples of story-type applications with different goals will be presented, and the suitability of VR displays will be discussed. GMD's Virtual Reality Framework for distributed applications, called AVANGO, is introduced, along with an outlook for storytelling in terms of both technology and content. Key words: Virtual Reality, projection systems, interaction, simulation 1. INTRODUCTION Virtual Reality has been considered an innovation in man machine communication, allowing the user to communicate more intuitively and directly through an interface that addresses all five human senses and understands human communication and interaction metaphors. Since the early days VR has been explored as an expressive tool to create realistic virtual worlds and to immerse humans in fascinating synthetic audio-visual experiences. Today, VR techniques are fairly well introduced in the design construction and production processes, and used to visualize complex CAD geometry or flow phenomena. Occasionally, VR installations can even be found in museums or other public places like trade shows and exhibitions. The extensive use of computer animation in recent Hollywood productions shows the extent to which computer graphics can contribute to storytelling. Enabling this technology to be real time and interactive would allow personal participation in the story— as an observer defining an individual view or as a participant activating alternative scenarios or having a unpredicted impact in the story. On the other side, desk top computer games today document the advances in real-time interactive scenarios but with compromises in addressing the human senses. In this paper we discuss storytelling by comparing the aims and needs. We introduce AVANGO, our Virtual Environment software framework, and its extensions for storytelling. The CyberStage, a CAVE-like display system, is also described and a number of recently developed audio-visual experiences for the CyberStage are presented. The stories range from a service oriented production for a particular company to exploratory self- experience installations. 2. INTERACTIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING Digital storytelling first of all refers to the technological aspect that content is provided and can be accessed in digital format. From there we define interactive digital storytelling as a form of "story" that can be explored in different directions. The reader/user can line up sequences from a very complex pool of story fragments and environments. He can create his own individual path through it—and the accompanying story from it. Immersive virtual environments are currently the most sophisticated medium for experiencing hybrid narrative content as described above. VR systems seem to be most interesting for the education and entertainment industry where the technology might offer a new way of perceiving, experiencing and handling content of any kind. While common desktop computer systems force users to adapt their working behavior to multipurpose input and output devices, like keyboard and monitor, modern virtual reality display systems adapt to the users traditional workspace to function as an interface to computer aided work. This is also interesting in the field of theatre and cinema, where planning, presentation and management of single productions requires a well integrated set of tools in order to save valuable resources without compromising creativity. Vice versa, the virtual space more and more becomes a medium for entertainment and culture of itself, but still lacks the necessary tools to author narrative virtual environments. Technically, real time presentation and simulation is required, where real time is defined as a system in which the user is not aware that a computer is processing his interaction and behavior. Real world phenomena have to be presented in a way that provides the illusion of realism. These are basic requirements for the runtime system, the control and operating software, and the algorithms for interpretation and simulation—a real challenge for machines and networks. To create a digital story today is very exhausting, as authoring tools for creative teams are not available. Despite the high technology the storyboards are still developed in the traditional way—imagination of creative people sketched as key scenes on paper. Animation, interaction, audible and visual effects are described verbally and written down. Colors and lighting effects are derived from the drawings. With this information, designers and modelers apply tools from computer International Conference Graphicon 2000, Moscow, Russia, http://www.graphicon.ru/