Maps and Legends: Designing FPS-Based Interfaces for Multi-user Composition, Improvisation and Immersive Performance

This paper describes an interactive multi-channel multi-user networked system for real-time composition and immersive performance built using a modified version of the Quake III gaming engine. By tracking users’ positional and action data within a virtual space, and by streaming that data over a network using OSC messages formatted as UDP packets to a multi-channel Pure Data patch, actions in virtual space are correlated to sonic output in a physical space. Virtual environments designed as abstract compositional maps or representative models of the users’ actual physical space are investigated as means to guide and shape compositional and performance choices. This paper analyzes both the technological concerns for building and realizing the system as well as the compositional and perceptual issues inherent in the project itself.