Story environment

A story environment is a physical, adaptive 3D, augmented reality or virtual space that become host to narratives. Distinct from "Story Worlds" these environments, which may have quite different narrative themes, can be in close proximity and even overlapping. The stories range from at one end of the spectrum inhabitant created and shared through to the heavily scripted at the other. There are potentially five levels:

;Level 1 - Shared:Inhabitants create their own stories and shared mythology in a non specific narrative space.;Level 2 - Seeded:Catalyst writer/actor role plays and brings others into their story world in a generic narrative space;Level 3 - Influenced
#Static - The environment is rich but only communicates in a visual static way
#Living - The environment speaks to the participant, a monologue, pushes story at the participant eg; ghosts, residual lives, placed signage etc:
#Dynamic - The participant has a dialogue with the environment which responds to most things they do. E.g.: objects and bots respond to chat;Level 4 - Character:Environments that are richly rendered with strong back-stories and require the participant to improvise around a range character definitions with others who are also role playing. :#Improvised - human:#Non-player characters are key role players

;Level 5 - Scripted:The most passive where the participant inhabits a scripted part using two methods depending on the technology :#Automatically animating the participant and talking for the participant with others (automated) in group scenes:#The participant delivers a pre-set script as actor

External links

*Laboratory for Advanced Media Production [http://www.lamp.edu.au/wiki/index.php?title=EMERGING_MEDIA_TERMS Definitions]
*IBM [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&id=1011421 Physically Interactive Story Environments]
* [http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~murray/hoh/tablecontents.html Hamlet on the Holodeck]