As can be seen in all of my previous blog posts, I was first struggling a bit with finding a topic for my research and then started diving into Character Animation and the animation industry. Throughout the time since my last blog post I had that topic in the back of my mind and was still struggling when trying to think of ways I could take this topic further to make up a full masters thesis with my current and future knowledge. Whenever I thought about it I was quickly overwhelmed by the possibilities, until recently I was sitting at work and realized that I could just pivot to the topic I was working with at that moment: Virtual Reality.
Virtual Reality in what context?
During the past two years of me working at mindconsole1 I had the opportunity to come in contact with very different approaches to virtual reality and how it can be used in various contexts. The main area I found myself developing into was the gamification of real world tasks, mainly larger scale operations, ranging from a treecutting learning environment2 for the bfw3 all the way to a digital reconstruction of a part of berlin4 for the Berlin Fire Department5.
During these projects I worked on the 3d construction of said environments, developing of functionalities and general project management. That is precisely why I decided that this type of work would be the perfect foundation for my master’s thesis.
Further directions
Having this theoretical and practical knowledge as part of the thesis I would also like to branch out and take it further than that. What exactly that is going to look like will be decided in the future (and the next few blog posts), but overall I would like to analyse the topic in regards to the psychology aspect of such virtual training environments and possibly the way gamification can help shape important real life training digitally.
Sources
5. Berliner Feuerwehr. “Willkommen bei der Berliner Feuerwehr”. Berliner Feuerwehr, Accessed November 15, 2023. https://www.berliner-feuerwehr.de/.
3. bfw. “Home – FAST Traunkirchen.” FAST Traunkirchen, Accessed November 15, 2023.
https://fasttraunkirchen.at/.
2. Goebel, Tina. “Virtual-Reality-Training Macht Forstarbeit Sicherer.” science.ORF.at, October 7, 2023. https://science.orf.at/stories/3221561/.
1. mindconsole. “Work.” MINDCONSOLE, Accessed November 15, 2023. https://mindconsole.net/.
4. mindconsole. “BERLIN U5 STATIONS XVR ENVIRONMENT.” MINDCONSOLE, Accessed November 15, 2023. https://mindconsole.net/project/berlin-u5-stations-environment.
Images
6. Goebel, Tina. “Virtual-Reality-Training Macht Forstarbeit Sicherer.” science.ORF.at, October 7, 2023. https://science.orf.at/stories/3221561/.
7. mindconsole. “BERLIN U5 STATIONS XVR ENVIRONMENT.” MINDCONSOLE, Accessed November 15, 2023. https://mindconsole.net/project/berlin-u5-stations-environment.
