Uses of Immersive Environments

What would people want to do within their immersive digital worlds?

This page is an idea dump for examples of things one might think of doing with a digital world of their own.

This list will be filled up over time with ideas for possible things to do or that should be done with virtual worlds. The list will help with designing tools that perform these tasks and allow users to sculpt their dreams.

Email in things you'd like to be able to do or see in a digitally created experience. Try to think of some useful things as opposed to barrages of all the controvertial and gross ones I can imagine already. Interesting ones will make it up here. Each case will allow developers to think of better ways to widen scope for functionality and build cleaner designs, while providing ideas and inspiration for the reader as an environment designer.

We could start by building a system that allows people to build and interact with familiar, everyday things that they see around them. Once we have developed that functionality, chances are we will have enabled lots of fanciful construction as well.

UNSORTED IDEAS

Complete Applications

Chat Rooms
Small arcade games
Flight Simulators
Driving Simulators
Property Walkthroughs
Business Visualizations
Scientific Visualizations
Multi-Monitor games
MMOGs
Machinima
Global Navigation
Interactive Educational Presentations
VR Chatrooms
Digital Content Creation Tools
Distributed CAD Systems
Interactive Advertisements
Multimedia Kiosk Systems
Internet Cafe Management Tools
Internet Visualization Programs

Tasks and Actions

Here is a list of tasks and actions one could do or achieve in a virtual world.

Add a squirrel to a tree
Add a water resevoir to a hilltop
Add a town to a desert plain
Add a tree to a highway intersection
Add more clouds in the northern sky
Build a hill with a cliff on the east side
Build roads to the 3 highest points of the hill
Change the manhole cover design on an urban road
Change the time to 16:00 to see the lighting effects on a building storefront
Clear a patch of bushes near a river
Download a nuclear powerplant and put it near your house.
Force a certain moss to grow near a specific species of tree
Increase the dirtiness of a river
Remove a disagreeable session member from your environment
Make sure certain trees only grow in valleys
Make the fog denser
Place a space station in orbit around a planet
Run a river down a valley to see how it affects plant growth and geography
View a log of actions performed by each user
Change the color of the sky
Edit the amount of glare from the sun
Add some rolling mist
Create varying weather patterns
Change the look of raindrops
Modify the length of the day
Add cave paintings to boulders
Change the grain of the sand on the beach
Paint the water in a lagoon more blue
Add reeds to a river bank
Add rock pools to a mountain stream
Change the amount of spray given off by waves
Add some mangrove swamps to a coastline
Remove the boulders from a hillside
Add some lushness to valleys
Damage forests with forest fire
Display a rainbow over a town
Add epiphytes to trees
Thicken the ice on a glacier
Add icebergs to an ocean
Add hyacinth to rivers
Place moss on large tree roots
Plant grass at the base of tree stumps
Fill a pond with mud
Add sun rays to a forest clearing
Add dappled light to a cave entrance
Trigger a lightning storm
Add flowers to a wide plain
Put silt in a river estuary
Add some fresh morning wetness to foliage
Create a blackwater river
Add steam rising off rivers in the jungle
Surround a village with a forest
Make one area look like another
Drift plant growth
Place mushrooms under a bush
Wrap a python around a tree
Add grubs to a dead log
Build a jetty
Build a power line
Add a description to a region
Create a political boundary

SORTED IDEAS

Actions

Actions can take the form ("verb" "noun" "options") where verb is the action name itself, noun is the name of the object upon which to act, and options can provide some variety about how to go about the action.

"Commands" act on a selection, while "Tools" override normal user interaction and ask for further input, which can then be applied.

Actions can be:

Immediate
Abstract

Immediate Actions

Create
Destroy
Delete
Select
Deselect
Drop
Move
Rotate
Twist
Shear
Bend
Fill
Empty
Show
Hide
Smooth
Roughen
Explode
Dig
Shoot
Freeze
Burn

Abstract Actions

Think
Compose
Integrate
Worry

Action Scope

All
Area

Terrain

Flatten an entire area
Flatten a localised area
Randomise the toplogy of an area
Erode an area
Create a small hill
Create a despression
Create a cutting through a rocky hillside
Build a mountain range
Slice a crack in the ground
Exfoliate an area
Stamp potholes
Make a dry stream bed
Make a delta
Make badlands
Cut an incised meander
Smooth the terrain
Roughen the terrain
Make a trench
Build a path or road
Grade a path
Build a pyramid of sand
Build a foundation
Create a tall cliff
Collect a sand-dune
Fill a depression with quicksand
Fill a valley with a lake

Localising an effect

Circle: Manipulate a circular area
Rectangle: Change a rectangular area
Square: Work on a square area
Linear: Create an effect along a line
Value: Change the amount of something
Falloff: Change the falloff on an effect

Natural Processes

Geomorphology
Igneous processes
Fluvial processes
Atmospheric processes

or:

Terrain
Water
Atmosphere

Build/Create:

Mountain
Valley
Hill
Volcano
Cliff
Path/Road
River

Dig/Excavate:

Hole
Depression
Cutting
Trench
Foundation
Grade

Weather/Erode

Rain erode
Wind erode
Shoreline erode
Riverbank erode
Exfoliate
Crack
Gacial Striation

Planting

Trees
Bushes
Hedges
Vines
Creepers
Undergrowth
Roots
Grass
Flowers
Seeds

Plant age options

Sapling
Immature
Adult

Laying

Debris
Dead Twigs
Dead Logs
Pine Cones
Pine Needles
Nest
Moss

Tree/Plant Felling

Selection
Everything

Real-world effectors

Data from external sources can power change and interactivity in virtual worlds:

Measuring the heartbeat of the user
The rising of the petrol price
RSS news feeds
Blog entries