Critique of OZ Virtual

Edited by: Mike Scheffelin

Oz is a 3d VRML world with only one world to explore. It has several spaces which are accessed from a central courtyard . The courtyard -Ozone- is entered from the "Dockingbay" which is the main entry to the world. The graphics of this world are well done with a lot of detail. The interior walls of the dockingbay have a lot of architectural details. The floor and walls had patterned textures. There are several buildings and structures in the courtyard which serve as entrances to other rooms. The buildings are designed with different themes. One resembles the outside of a European opera house or government building.

There is a lot of movement in many of the spaces. The dockingbay has a rotating robot-looking kiosk. If you approach this figure, you begin to hear a sound seemingly coming from it. You cannot click on this form or explore any of its attributes. If you try to bump into it you glance off its side and continue past it. There is only one exit from this space that leads to the courtyard. The courtyard has several animated objects. Three orbiting spheres that has a laughing sound, each with a different voice, and a couple of rotating emblems- the letter T inside a circle.The ground of the courtyard is the same color as the sky, graduated dark to light blue. There are paths on the ground leading to each structure on the outskirts of the circular courtyard. In the center of the courtyard is a statue. As you approach the statue you begin to hear drumbs of a marching band with voices. The music changes its direction as if the band were passing you by.

In front of one building is a marque labeled, "Ozone". Nothing else can be read from this marque and it cannot be clicked on for further investigation. If you double-click on the marque it takes you to map of the Ozone transporter. Here is a diagram of the courtyard space.

	The interface consists of two windows. One is for navigating the spaces and the other is for chatting. It is necessary to click in the chat window, then a couple of other icons to initiate a chat. Both windows stay open and remain in their last state when going to another window.The upper right corner of the navigation window has a maximize, minimize and exit button and the upper left corner has a button which blacks out the unused portion of the Windows desktop. The navigation window also has a menu bar with "File", "Destinations", "Communications" and "Help" selections. File allows you to set up your network connection and also connect to another URL. The Destinations selection takes you to the courtyard map. Communication allows selection and customization of your avatar motions, facial expressions and user information. The Help selection gives information about using the interface and moving the avatar. On the right side of the menu bar are some additional controls for moving the scene to the previous or next view, stopping the loading of a scene or reloading a scene. There are four buttons at the bottom of the navigation window for additional setup of navigation, audio, display and multi-user. There are also controls for changing the speed of operation, turning off/on a light to view objects, viewing your avatar and changing the viewing perspective of the avatar. The interface was easy to use and came in handy when exploring. However, the use of many of the tools were not apparent unless you tried them out to see what they would do.

Movement is very fast in the scenes of this world. Both the mouse and keyboard can be used to move the avatar in any direction, including flying. The shift key can be used to speed up movement. Collision detection and gravity are optional. When you run into an object such as a wall, instead of stopping you glance off at an angle and slide along its surface or around it and continue forward.

One of the nicer features of this world is the music and sounds in many of the rooms. As you move around in a room the perspective of the sound changes. Many of the rooms have a common theme of a dance hall. The music increases in volume as you approach the center of the dance floor.

I could not get any interaction with another avatar. Only twice did I find anyone in any of the spaces. Each time I tried to initiate conversation by tying in the chat window, but got no answer. The chat window has an option for private chat that I tried but again got no answer. I could not tell if the other people were just ignoring me or could not see the incoming chat. I could not see any text from their avatars.