Michael Nitsche (director)

We conduct research in developing, understanding and advancing a new computer-based 3D animation production technique known as machinima. Under the umbrella of the Machinima Project at Georgia Tech we assemble many of the projects below in this interdisciplinary initiative that is hosted in the GVU center.

Evan Mandel/ Michael Nitsche (faculty)

Continuing our work on camera control, this projects aims to provide a simple live editing interface for camera control in the 3D real-time world of the UT2K4 game engine. Editors can select their “target” and from a range of pre-defined cameras to access a wide range of virtual cameras active in the scene. Supported by: Turner Broadcasting

Jay Bolter (faculty) / Blair MacIntyre (faculty) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)/ Kathryn Farley (Postdoc)

We connect an Augmented Reality interface to the massive multiplayer online world of Second Life and created a new mixed media platform for machinima and virtual performance as well as online meeting. Physical and virtual world blend into each other. A collaboration with the Augmented Environments Laboratory.

Ali Mazalek (faculty) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

The TUI-3D puppet demonstrates how a puppet interface can control a character in Unreal in real-time, to combine 3D interactive performance spaces with intuitive control mechanisms enabled by tangible interface techniques. A collaboration with the SynLab.

Celia Pearce (faculty)/ Michael Nitsche (faculty)/ Janet Murray (faculty)

The goal of this project is to create scenarios that challenge the maximum capability of current wireless systems so that we can develop services and technologies that go beyond today’s capabilities, toward a next-generation high-bandwidth user experience. A collaboration with the eTV and EGG groups.

Supported by: Alcatel-Lucent

Katie Fletcher (MA thesis) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

An examination of the imaginary places of the underworld to identify the poetics of underworld and understand how they function in digital environments, placing special focus on spatial construction of meaning, narrative, liminality, and embodiment. 

Michael Nitsche (faculty) / Michael Biggs / Ogechi Nnadi

Charbitat maps player behavior on procedural 3D game space. The player creates a game world while playing in it. Every player generates a unique 3D world based on the way that the game is played. This term we work on camera behavior and tracking navigation in procedural space.

Michael Nitsche (faculty) / Courtland Goodson (based on Mike Lee's work)

Playvis is a program used in conjunction with Unreal Tournament 2004 to create simple pre-visualization sequences. Playvis uses both a Java program and the Unreal Tournament 2004 plug-in to create a quick and dirty editing "suite" that handles camera movement in a 3-d virtual environment.

Michael Nitsche (faculty) / John White

In-game-cameras present the game as it is being played. These cameras have to cater for the interactions at work during gameplay. This poses new questions to the presentation form: how cinematic can the game become before it turns uplayable?

Joaquin Estrada/ Derek Kinney / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

We are striving to make a film editing system that allows nearly anyone to create a video elucidating their views on current world issues. To increase simplicity and to allow the user more freedom than is normally afforded during video editing, the aim is to remove the tethers of a traditional mouse and keyboard.

Will Hankinson (MA project) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

Platform and game-independent system for input recording and editing which avoids the demo as the primary unit for machinima. The system allows for all of the various pieces of a given machinima scene to be recorded separately and pieced together in an offline input-mixer.

Michael Nitsche (faculty) / Devin Hunt / Alex West

Puppet Show uses an external Java program to feed visual input from a webcam onto the character animation of customized Unreal game avatars. It adds computer vision as another input device for physical puppeteering of the virtual game characters. We argue that this exemplifies an interface trend towards more expressive input options that support a higher level of expression in video game.

Matthias Shapiro (MA project) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

A camera control system for non-programmers to create cinematic sequences in a 3D real-time environment with a focus on pre-visualization. You need the Virtools Player to use the site.

Melissa Paige Taylor (MA project) / Michael Nitsche (faculty)

The goal of this project is to create a screen-based, three-dimensional real time virtual environment (3DRTVE) that can be used as a pedagogical tool. Within this 3DRTVE, a user is able to gain knowledge about and participate in a simulation of the Buddhist Kalachakra mandala ritual within the context of virtual historic and sacred Buddhist sites. As s/he does so, the user gets a sense of the ceremonial process, as well as engages in an event that is simultaneously informative and meditative.You need the Virtools Player to use the site.