Courses

VRP101: Content Creation I 

Understanding the concepts of content creation in 3D is essential either for further participation in the process as an author, manager, or producer. Familiarity with the various approaches to 3D modeling and animation is required to make educated choices on tools and methods during production.

The course opens with the fundamentals of computer graphics and digital representation of virtual objects and then moves to content creation and content acquisition techniques. After completing the module, the students have both theoretical and practical overview of the field, they understand the terminology, they are aware of the various methods of content creation and have practical experience with each of them.

VRP102: Human-Computer Interaction

Virtual reality is an interactive medium and a rather new medium too. Understanding human-computer interaction is therefore vital for successful creation and production in the VR domain. The course provides students with universal fundaments of human-computer interaction with a special focus on interaction and navigation in 3D VR environments.

After the course, the students can predict the impact of many of their design choices and thusly create interaction systems in a way that is more intuitive and accessible. They can also critically analyze existing designs, assess risks in terms of interaction and create prototyping/testing workflows.

VRP103: VR Development 1 

The course focuses on providing basic techniques that can be used when developing an application in virtual reality. As part of the course, students will acquire basic skills and information about programming techniques, and gain knowledge about the graphics pipeline and computer graphics techniques. Students will learn to work with game engines and use the capabilities of libraries for virtual reality to create web and standalone applications.

VRP 104: 360° video technology and hardware

The aim of the course is to provide information about the individual hardware components used in the creation of VR and AR applications, their construction, properties, and possibilities of use. As part of the course, students will acquire skills leading to the use of 360° panoramas, their acquisition, processing, and integration into the work within virtual reality.

VRP 105: Applications of Virtual Reality

The aim of the course is to show students the possibilities of using virtual reality or augmented reality in practical applications in real life. Within the course, we will focus on applications in the fields of culture, education, sports, industry, and healthcare. The course also includes an overview of artificial intelligence techniques and their use in virtual reality.

VRP106: Extended reality (XR)

In the course, students will gain an overview of basic and advanced techniques of image processing and computer vision for creating applications in augmented reality. They will acquire skills in the practical use of existing software libraries for XR and the possibilities of their use within the implementation. They will gain knowledge about their connection with external sensors and the possibilities of tracking when the user moves in space, together with the use of the right techniques for creating UI for XR.

VRP107: Multiuser virtual environments

The aim of the course is to provide knowledge in the field of multiuser virtual environments (MUVE) and their use within virtual reality. The course also includes information on the possibilities of hardware and software communication between devices and the creation of a client-server architecture. The end of the course is dedicated to MUVE applications and practical implementation.

VRP201: VR Development II

Virtual reality has a number of opportunities for developers, from entertainment to enterprise-level applications. Developing virtual reality experiences is an essential skill in today’s competitive environment. During this course, the student will learn the skills needed to build powerful applications within the chosen game engine.

Throughout the course, students will learn how to create object interactions in VR by building rapid prototypes.
Furthermore, they will learn how to build immersive experiences, make sure the players can interact inside the world, and learn to keep their experience running smoothly with optimization techniques.

The goal of the course is to use practical experience to show students the process of creating a VR work, from input through the integration of individual components, including interaction, sound, video, and haptic response, to testing the created work and its optimization for various platforms.

VRP 202: Storytelling

A good story captures the audience’s attention and engages them emotionally. In order to do that stories must have certain qualities such as good structure, well-developed characters, well-designed conflicts, and satisfying conclusions. Building all of these dynamic elements is especially challenging in the VR world where stories have to serve not only emotional but also technical requirements of storytelling. This course offers students specific views and skills which will equip them for storytelling in VR. Exploring fundamental theories of story structure and scriptwriting principles students will learn to apply various aspects of interactive digital storytelling focusing on dramaturgy, conflict, character, backstory, and dialogue. At the end of the course, students will be able to transform their ideas into structured scripts that will in all aspects serve specific requirements of the VR world.

VRP203: Acting in VR

Acting in VR is different from stage and screen acting. Many acting schools didn’t develop specific programs for this type of acting yet. Acting in VR is a relatively new experience for actors so we cannot claim with certainty what acting techniques, systems, and models we could implement in this medium.  Students in this course will be given an opportunity to approach Acting techniques both through theory and practice. They will learn different aspects of character development from psychological analysis to physical appearance and body language. Also, students will understand how to create a character based on historical facts and how to create a completely fictional character. They will understand elements of the acting craft but they will also have a chance to apply that knowledge and transform it for the requirements of acting in VR. When thinking of VR we usually focus on the technical aspects of this experience, but in this course, the students will explore the importance of the art of acting and the actor’s contribution to this new technology. The main aim is for students to develop at the end their own system of understanding of the acting techniques and their own vocabulary so that in the future acting in VR will be recognized as another acting system and hopefully a part of the formal education for all actors.

VRP204: Directing in VR

A film is a form of art with its own language and rules. This module will introduce students to basic elements of the film, basics of directing for film and theatre as well as directing in 360 degrees video. The module will start with an introduction to basic tools of filming and storytelling as well as creating your own idea and turning it into a story. It then continues creating a synopsis for your film and developing a scenario. Afterward, students will start to plan how to shoot their scenes while doing the location scouting and rehearsals with actors. Finally, students will shoot a short VR film and write an essay about their production. By the end of the semester, students will learn the differences between VR film and other film forms as well as be able to tell a story without using the framing technique.

VRP205: Content Creation II

Interactive and narrative-based digital experiences are created by combining content assets into interactive relationships and by using audio-visual content to provide narrative means. It’s vital for producers in the field of VR to understand how these relationships are created and what technical means and tools are used to create interactive VR narratives.

The course focuses on the terminology, workflow, and best practices in merging existing content elements into VR environments. The first half of the course introduces various methods of structuring relational information within interactive digital worlds, such as means of interaction with the environment, and logical relationships between scene elements or animation states. The second half of the course focuses on narrative content with virtual environments, both verbal and non-verbal. The tools selected for the practical part of the course aim to provide means to fully implement an interactive VR environment without extensive programming skills. These tools contain Physical simulation; Particle animation; Crowd animation.

After completing the course, students can produce fully interactive scenes with narrative elements, they are familiar with the technical workflow of interactive, narrative-based VR experiences and can choose appropriate tools for specific tasks within the field, and they can implement selected game design concepts into creating VR experiences.

VRP206: Sound in VR

Sound is one of the key factors of every film, game, and visual story, and just the same as any Virtual Reality film or application. Just as with a film or video game, the importance of sound in virtual reality is often unappreciated. Users do not realize this until they experience content that has a soundtrack but is turned off. Visual elements tell the story, but sound is just as important in virtual reality because it affirms whether or not the experience is believable, and it creates an emotional impact. The goal of this module is for students to understand the importance of sound in VR and how to create a spatialized sound that has localization. The module will start with the basics of sound theory and then through learning about the different microphones, students will learn how to actually record sounds like dialogs, atmosphere, and folly. Modul will continue with editing and mixing of the sound and finally teach students how to create localized sound and mix it with the music in VR films and applications. By the end of the semester, students will be able to create the sound for their own VR projects.

VRP207: Production Design

Production design should provide basic knowledge about the design of sets and physical environments in movies and theatre. Upon that knowledge, we will build up the particularities of 360 filming and creating 3D virtual environments. We will address physical set design where the set elements also contain lights and provide possibilities to conceal microphones and sound recorders necessary for 360 video production.

We will address the connection between 3D modeling virtual scenes and turning them into sets for VR applications where characters and players can interact within the environment.

VRP301: Filming in VR

The objective of the course is for the students to be able to apply practical and theoretical knowledge in the field of Filming in VR. The course starts from fundamental theoretical concepts of audiovisual production and continues by exploring the concepts related to immersive media with a focus on VR filmmaking vocabulary, directing techniques for creating VR projects, and other roles in all the phases of VR film production. At the end of the course, students will be able to discuss VR filming as a new type of filmmaking and have a scientific insight into the differences related to conventional film production. The knowledge will provide them to organize and participate in the main phases of VR filming: pre-production, production, and post-production.

VRP302: Post-production in VR

The objective of the course is for the students to explore the post-production phase of VR/360° video and export the content for various platforms and devices. The course starts by providing theoretical knowledge in traditional video editing and exposing the differences compared to VR/360° video. Based on that, advanced techniques for 360° video editing are explored, including stitching the video, spatial audio, using different formats, color grading/correction, motion graphic design for 360° video, and exporting the video by using different video coding standards. In this light, students are able to understand how consumers perceive the output and adapt the content in order to achieve the desired outcome.

VRP303: Immersive journalism

The objective of this course is to recognize and analyze the role of journalism in contemporary society and to develop the skills needed to create for various media. The aim is to offer the fundamentals of news writing and reporting. The course stresses accuracy and fact-checking as well as the importance of reporting with 360 videos. Students will develop skills appropriate for news gathering for convergent as well as traditional news media, under deadline pressure. Throughout the course, students will learn how to prepare for multimedia storytelling and to produce different journalistic forms.

VRP304: Research methods

The course serves as a preparation for writing the final thesis. It focuses on various research methods, starting with the conceptualization and fields of VR research. The aim of this course is to provide participants with the ability to identify appropriate research questions and apply suitable research methods along with the proposed research model. This will provide them with the skills required to complete a research project or thesis. The course comprises quantitative and qualitative research methods focusing on VR environments. The practical part of the course covers writing a research proposal, including a theoretical framework, research questions/hypotheses, research methods, and proposed statistical analysis.

VRP 305: Business management

The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding of business creation in the VR industry, with a focus on how to create and develop business models and how to do that in different types of business contexts. The course is built around the notion of value – how to assess the potential value in offerings, how to communicate and distribute value to different stakeholders, and how to practically organize and develop these value-creation processes in a way that is sustainable for businesses. In the course, emphasis will be put on how analytical models need to be translated into the local context and into action. The aim is to analyze and formulate suitable business models in the creative industry and understand how to market and communicate the value of products. The aims are to understand and select managerial approaches for the creative industry.
The purpose is to analyze and understand the management implications of different business models and business model innovation.

VRP306: Societal impacts of VR

The aim of the course is to provide the students with an understanding of VR and its implications for society. The aim of the course will be to also to acquaint

students with the possibility of health complications and their prevention in the use of virtual reality devices, especially in connection with motion sickness. At the same time, we focus on solving ethical dilemmas associated with the use of virtual reality in single and multi-user environments. Virtual reality will be understood through different disciplines such as psychology, sociology, communication, and economy. The aim is to explain the role of virtual reality with the broader community and apply VR in solving problems and issues encountered in business and community in society.

An analysis of major social problems in contemporary society, their nature, development, and social causes. The course examines the impact of VR in relation to societal problems. Possible solutions for social problems are discussed.

VRP401: Thesis

This writing and research-intensive module is designed to provide guidance in the preparation of materials, development, and completion of a dissertation research proposal, in compliance with the graduate dissertation requirements. This includes clarification of general program expectations, familiarisation with research resources, presentation of models of effective policy and administrative analytical reports, and provision of basic support in a structured environment of feedback.

All students are required, by the mandatory meeting, to have developed a dissertation proposal and named primary advisor, a full-time faculty, or a part-time faculty who have agreed to supervise and assist in the completion of the assignments required for this class.