INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING ABOUT ISA BEY’S ENDOWMENT

Selma Rizvi ć, Aida SadžakFaculty of Electrical Engineering Sarajevo, University of Sarajevo

Sarajevo, Bosnia and HerzegovinaMohamed El Zayat

Faculty of Information Technologies, University Džemal BijedićMostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Borut Žalik, Bojan Rupnik, Niko Luka č

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceUniversity of Maribor, Maribor. Slovenia

Sarajevo Graphics Group

• first project– virtual presentation of stećak from Donja Zgošća

• last 10 years– virtual presentations of cultural heritage– virtual museums

• since 2011 member of EU FP7 V-MusT.net consortium• research areas

– computer graphics, computer animation, virtual reality, multimedia, interactive digital storytelling, augmented reality

Motivation

• Isa bey Ishakovic – founder of Sarajevo

• Endowment document from 1462– tekke– musafirhana (accommodation)– imaret (soup kitchen)– water mills

• first objects mentioned in written documents about Sarajevo

• do not exist any more• GOAL: to bring them back to collective memory

Project

• virtual reconstruction of tekke building (2009)• virtual presentation of zikr ritual (2011)• interactive computer animation of zikr ritual (2012)• virtual presentation of the whole complex using

interactive digital storytelling (2013)

Interactive digital storytelling

• becoming very popular in virtual cultural heritage applications

• scientific research looking for the most appropriate form

• ? how to enable user to interact with the story without losing information

• ? how to achieve immersion of the user in virtual environment

Interactive digital storytelling

• our concepts:– story guided virtual museum (Sarajevo

survival tools)• digital story is guiding the user through the

virtual exhibition of objects created by Sarajevo citizens during the siege 1992-1996

– virtual museum with audio stories (VM of Bosniak Institute)

• the user is guided through virtual museum by audio stories

Interactive digital storytelling

• our concepts:– interactive computer animation (Zikr ritual

in Isa Bey tekke*)• the user is placed inside the animated

environment• storytelling is divided in the main story and

substories• substories are movies activated on mouse click

to higlighted objects in interactive virtual environment

* M. Huseinovic, R. Turcinhodzic, S. Rizvic, Interactive animated storytelling in presenting intangible culturalheritage, Central European Seminar on Computer Graphics, Bratislava, Slovakia 2013

Interactive computer animation

Interactive digital storytelling

• our concepts:– combined interactive computer animation

(Isa bey's endowment)• exterior: virtual environment with audio

narration– stories divided into main story and substories– substories activated when the user approaches the

info sign– after listening to substory, the main story resumes

• interior: interactive computer animation of zikr ritual

Interactive digital storytelling

Interactive digital storytelling

• movie

Initial user evaluation

• qualitative analysis of user experience

• interviews• comparing

– audio narration activated by user's movement

– substories as movies activated on mouse click to highlighted objects

• very technical group of users

Results

• most of the users like better the movie substories than audio narration

• felt presence and immersion in virtual environment• found site map useful in both environments• problems:

- looking directly down reveals a sphere instead of a model- audio is positional depending on the info mark, it would be more appropriate to

be positional depending on an environment- in the interior it is not clear how to move from one event to another - subtitles could be useful- mouse wasn’t working - audio overlapping (multiple sources at the same time)- mouse cursor slightly annoying- unclear what info corresponds with which info sign- mouse rotation oversensitive

Conclusion

• user evaluation shows interactive storytelling as efficient way to present cultural heritage

• virtual CH applications contribute in preserving the past in collective memory

• future work– evaluation by non-technical users of all ages and professions– exploring different variations of the concept (introducing live and/or

animated virtual guides, developing more intuitive user interface, trying different story structures, introducing user avatars, developing a serious game application)

– developing augmented reality implementation of the project

Thank you!