Research
PhD thesis
The virtual chorus: the crowd as a relay of narrative tension in virtual reality
Original title: Le chœur virtuel : la foule comme relais de la tension narrative en réalité virtuelle
- Period
- Mar 2024 – present
Defense: June 2027 - Laboratory
- Bretagne INP - ENIB / Lab-STICC
- Thesis director
- Anne-Gwenn Bosser · Bretagne INP - ENIB / Lab-STICC
- Co-supervisors
- Brian Ravenet · Université Paris-Saclay / LISN
- Nathalie Le Bigot · UBO / Lab-STICC
- Research project
- PEPR eNSEMBLE — member of PC3 MATCHING (collaboration with intelligent systems)
Summary
Virtual reality lets viewers stand inside a story and look wherever they want. This freedom strengthens immersion, but it also means that a viewer can miss the moments that carry the plot. Interactive storytelling in VR therefore needs ways to sustain engagement without taking control away from the viewer.
My thesis studies how the virtual environment, and in particular the virtual agents around the viewer, can relay the narrative tension intended by the author. Like a chorus on stage, a crowd can echo and amplify the action: its density, its movements and its behaviour become narrative cues.
I am developing a computational model that adapts these cues to the dramatic progression of the story, and an experimental VR environment, a murder-mystery investigation, to evaluate them with users. The first cue studied is a virtual crowd whose density grows with the dramatic tension; sound, lighting and agent behaviour come next.
Research questions
- How can the environment and the virtual agents around the viewer sustain the narrative tension intended by the author, without constraining the viewer's freedom?
- Which narrative cues (crowd density, sound, lighting, agent behaviour) influence engagement and perceived tension?
- How can these cues adapt in real time to the dramatic progression of the story?
Methodology
- A computational model of narrative tension that drives the cues in the environment.
- An experimental VR environment, a murder-mystery investigation, built to test narrative cues (IVA 2025 demo).
- User studies in VR measuring engagement and perceived tension (IVA 2025 poster, WACAI 2024).