New York University - Night Hawks


The real time 3D installation “Night Hawks” is designed to immerse several players in a virtual world which recalls the streets of New York City from the 40's. The navigation system is remote controlled by cellular phones that can influence characters and cameras using a dynamic arrow.

New York University

The New York University professor Jean-Marc Gauthier is associated with the creation and design of several cutting-edge tools used in virtual spaces. He teaches and conducts research on interactive 3D animation, applications of virtual sets and interactive installations with graduate students at the Interactive Telecommunications Program. Jean-Marc Gauthier is also the president of tinkering.net, which specializes online and wireless virtual reality applications. He speaks at national and international conferences on virtual sets, immersive environments, web3D and interactive entertainment.

The Application

The “Night Hawks” project, realised with the help of Sia Sistemas, is a real time 3D installation designed to immerse several players in a virtual world which recalls the streets of New York City from the forties. The visuals are inspired by the paintings of Eward Hopper and by movie sets from that time. Online project demos can be found here.

Night Hawks was created for an audience of teenagers and adults interested in interactive story telling without violence. Each player picks up a character and follows its story. The players experience can be radically changed according to the virtual character that he or she chooses to be. The scene can run by itself without the players inputs and follows actions which are programmed by the artificial intelligence of the virtual world.

This virtual world is designed for four players connected by cellular phones to Night Hawks: a new player connecting to the game picks up any character available in the scene. Each player dials a phone line to connect to the scene via an answering machine. The voicemail greets the player and briefly explains how to use the phone's keypad to play the game, other options are recorded messages used for basic troubleshooting.

The duration of the connection to the scene is controlled by the answering machine and its duration can vary according to the number of people willing to play the game. The player's call is digitized and connected to the center of the behavioral engine controlling the virtual actors. This technology is optimized for four simultaneous players.

Players dial from their cellular phone a phone number corresponding to one of the virtual actors: viewers can watch on the screen at all times the actions of the virtual actors. Players try to create meetings between virtual actors and each meeting between virtual actors triggers dialogues and allows asking questions using a text displayed live on the screen. Although characters are controlled by the viewer's keyboard, they return to their own artificial intelligence when left unattended.

The installation is viewed in real-time by several virtual cameras. The players can control the camera manually or let the artificial intelligence based-cocktail camera take over.

The challenge

The “Night Hawks” application had to offer visitors an engaging, virtual walk through the city of New York . Jean-Marc Gauthier needed powerful yet accessible tools to build a high-quality storytelling application and offer an addictive user experience. With the end goal of providing an accurate replica of the city and the ambiance that reigned there in the 40's, the focus needed to be on smooth, intuitive navigation as well as a new creative way to interact with characters and objects.

Solution

With Virtools technology, Jean-Marc Gauthier was able to create the entire application at a low cost and concentrate on creativity. Finally, the world of «Night Hawks» is endless and the players get addicted to the story thanks to the high level of interactivity associated to an improved navigation system allowed by Virtools powerful solutions.

Key Benefits

Virtools technology allowed Jean-Marc Gauthier to focus on relationships between 3D objects, characters, cameras, and environment with an emphasis on the quality and fluidity of the viewer's experience and the optimization of the scene to display high resolution graphics.

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