Registration

Participants interested in this workshop should be registered at the ICIDS 2009 conference. Additionally, the participants should register to the workshop by sending an email to:

b r o m [ at ] ksvi –dot- mff –d o t- cuni [d o t] cz

with the subject [ICIDS2009] by 9th December 2009 (ie. the first day of the conference).

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Participants are kindly asked to answer the following questionnaire in that email. Based on these answers, the discussion will be structured.

Besides, participants are encouraged to install Pogamut on their notebooks in advance to be able to follow the examples given during the tutorial (but this is not mandatory).

1. Are you teaching a VS or a VC related course on a high-school or at a university? If this is the case, which course/s do you teach? Are these courses purely theoretical, or do they also include a practical seminar/s? In case of a practical seminar/s, in which tools do students practise their skills?
2. Do you think your course/s can be improved? For instance, if you have better software tools, more money, more assistants, broader knowledge, etc… Please indicate on the following scale and suggest the improvements you have in mind:
   • 1 – definitely yes, my course/s is/are really bad
   • 3 – probably yes
   • 5 – definitely no, I have the best course/s you can imagine, it covers everything the students would ever need
3. Virtual storytelling does not equal virtual characters and interactive storytelling does equal virtual storytelling, though there is a large overlap:
   1. What is the “common knowledge” a VS student should acquire during his/her studies?
   2. Is there a need for any curriculum at all?
   3. Should every VS student know how to develop autonomous virtual characters, or not? Why?
   4. What are the other “must know” skills a VS student should have, if any? For instance, should every VS student be capable of writing a novel?
   5. Given the list of “must know” skills, what are the tools in which students should practice these skills?
4. Do we need any pedagogical theory underpinning VS education?
5. I find this questionnaire and the whole discussion and the questions it aims to answer (please, indicate on the following scale):
   • 1 – really silly
   • 3 – well, it seems to be interesting, but we shall see…
   • 5 – exciting

In general, the tutorial is oriented on audience without previous knowledge of how to control virtual characters and programming knowledge. By default, it is not assumed that the audience will program their characters during the tutorial. However, advanced attendees, such as computer science students and experienced researchers, are encouraged to install Pogamut on their notebooks (Windows) in advance and follow the examples given during the tutorial. The help is provided via on-line forums.

During the tutorial, Pogamut 3 version will be used (although in October 2009, the version 2.4.1 is likely more stable than 3, this will hopefully change till December ). Additionally, around the end of November, the Emohawk extension will be made available to download. Registered participants will be notified when this happens.