Funny this comes up now, as I'm re-reading Brenda Laurel's _Computers as
Theatre_, and struggling with these definitions on my own. Right from the
beginning, she addresses this question of how to label the audience, and
what happens when the audience becomes participant in the virtual world. In
short, one of the things she points out is the obvious:
"People who are particpating in the representation aren't audience members
anymore. It's not that the audience joins the actors on the stage; it's that
they *become* actors -- and the notion of "passive" observers disappears."
I like the way she labels the population of the virtual world... "elements"
for the objects, scenery and so on; "agents", both human and automated that
populate the world; and, of those agents, "actors" (active participants) and
"audience" (passive observers). Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well this
stands today because of the way that that this and other industries use the
terms in a unrelated to our discussion (i.e., "agents").
So, for me, I've always looked at the visitor to my worlds as a "visitor"
and been comfortable with that term. I'm actually using the term
"interactors" right now to describe the automated characters in a piece I'm
working on, but they are pre-recorded, automated... sort of... they require
the visitor to become involved.
And BTW, for those who do not know me, I've been described as "the guy who
runs around like a chicken with his head cut off" at the VRML Symposia as AV
Chair. I'm Robert Saint John, Product Design Manager at Ligos and IDS. We
did the V-Realm Builder, though most of my VRML work is a personal endeavor
these days. I've been involved in VRML since summer of '95, did things like
booScary World, the Yahoo3D project, the Delta Banner Ad, the original VRML
Detector sniffer, articles and courses for ZDNet, vrml.sgi.com and VRMLSite,
and blah blah blah. My personal goal this year is to do less writing and
evangelism about VRML, and get back to doing some serious content! I've
started working on a personal project to add a new dimension (erg) to VRML
theatre, which I can hopefully show at SIGGRAPH. And I still want to re-do
my VRML Dr. Who TARDIS!
Greetings all, and thanks for this list!
Robert
--
Robert W. Saint John
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.earthlink.net/~rsaintj
