ABSTRACT: The virtual ship museum will serve as an interactive, vibrant, virtual representation of a time and a place that has disappeared: the year 1900, aboard a United States warship. Physical museum ships provide the rare opportunity to explore a warship, but they are missing a crucial element of the historic record – the crew. By using cutting edge gaming technology, a detailed rendering of the battleship USS Oregon – complete with an authentically modeled, functioning crew – will be brought to life. Additional links will direct visitors to an extensive photographic archive on Flickr containing historic photographs, with informative captions. This complete package of historic materials will create a record of the men who served, presented in an environment designed to help the visitor understand what their lives were like.
WHY DO WE NEED IT: Naval history often places a great emphasis on combat, technology, great ships, important leaders, and changes to strategy and policy. However, it is crucial to remember the contributions sailors at sea made to advance the cause of American naval power. Museum ships teach people about the ships and their technology, but their ability to tell the story of their crews is limited to exhibit displays or a few faithful reenactors. This virtual recreation of a warship at sea, with hundreds of sailors bustling about, completes a story that has been previously only half-told.
FUNCTIONALITY: The site will consist of a fairly simple home page, providing jumping off points to three main technology areas. The first area will be the virtual museum ship itself. Second, a link will be provided to a large Flickr photographic archive – the “Museum Warehouse” – that will allow visitors to browse through photos related to the project. Finally, there will be a link to a moderated forum that will be both a tool for 1) answering questions about the virtual ship and the period she served in, and 2) creating a dynamic community engaged in discussion on the technical specifics of the Oregon and her crew.
AUDIENCE: There should be several audiences attracted to this project. The first will be naval historians and enthusiasts, for whom this will be a unique opportunity to wander amongst the people they study. Though the project uses a video game engine, it will be a faithful representation of life during this period, devoid of the artificial melodrama and plot devices of a video game. While it should appeal to some portion of gaming fans, many will be turned off by the lack of a scripted plot, or the violence and killing common in military-themed video games. The virtual museum may also hold some appeal to those interested in social history of the period, as it will be an intense study of the social aspects of life aboard ship. It may also be an effective teaching tool for students. Additionally, it is hoped that detailed and clever tagging of the Flickr collection will attract a diverse, random web audience through Google searches; visitors who can then be directed to the ship museum.
TECHNOLOGIES: The core of the project will be the virtual representation of the Oregon. This will be achieved by building a custom “mod” using an existing gaming engine. There are several technologies under consideration for this portion of the project, each with different user system requirements. The gaming engine will provide the basic tools to create a detailed ship model, as well as the behaviors, duties, and personalities of the crew. The remaining technologies will use existing web tools without serious customization. The Museum Warehouse will be created with a Flickr account. The user forum will also use an off-the-shelf solution, along the lines of vBulletin. Ideally, the Flickr archive and user forum will also be directly linked from within the virtual ship, though this may be difficult within a proprietary gaming engine. All of these tools will be brought together by a concise, visually appealing website. The site will have very little functionality, and will serve mainly as a gateway to the tools being used. It will consist of a brief project description, links to the various project tools, and some attractive screenshots of the museum to generate visitor interest.
INTERACTIVITY: The museum ship will be inherently interactive, as visitors will be able to wander throughout the ship freely, observing the crew as they carry on with their daily lives. But a higher level of interactivity is sought for this project. The construction of a museum ship is a daunting technical project, as the dearth of existing photographs and construction plans will leave gaping holes in the design of the virtual ship. It is hoped that the enthusiastic and knowledgeable community of naval ship historians and enthusiasts will provide vocal and specific feedback on a multitude of issues about the ship and her crew. To this end, a user forum will be linked off the main site, intended to spur a vigorous dialogue on the project. The Flickr collection will also allow for commenting of photographs.
hmm, this sounds familiar…
This is such a great idea, and I would love to see it implemented. Two questions: Why the USS Oregon in particular? And if this is a successful site, would you expand to other ships?
zayna
Why the Oregon – good question. I’ve collected some particularly unique material on her, and she achieved a bit of fame in her day, so she feels like a good candidate. I will post a more detailed blog on my reasons for selecting the Oregon in the next week or so.
And yes, I think this project would be scalable and transferable to all kinds of other fascinating ship projects. Long term, I think the creation of a “virtual museum fleet” would be fantastic, and would allow for even deeper comparisons, such as the change of life at sea over time. What was it like to be a sailor in the War of 1812, versus World War II, for example?
Dave -
As mentioned previously, I appreciate the notion of virtualization for artifacts that may no longer be with us. The tie-in to a significant data store (library/arcvhives) as you virtually “walk” through the ship really allows a non-linear narrative to be told.
The narrative is fully driven by the consumer… this is absolutely a web 2.0 concept. It also leaves open the possibility of “stumbling” onto data that can take the place of “browsing the stacks” to a limited degree.
I would like to see how you would approach the VR build… to me, that seems to be the largest technological challenge for the project.
– DGQ
You’re right, the technology aspects are a bit daunting. I think all of the tools are available and in place, except for one – distribution. Using a game engine has technical challenges for reaching a wide audience. There are some new tools coming out that would be ideal for this project, but I’m not sure they are available yet.
The challenge of designing and building the ship and crew are also somewhat intimidating, but I think doable. 100% accuracy won’t be possible, but a reasonable approximation should be close enough. It may not be 100% accurate for the Oregon, but I think accuracy for the period is achievable.