Fishbowl Conclusion ><{{{*>

In preparation of the game I began thinking how I was going to design the fishbowl from the fish's point of view, the glass of a fishbowl is round and distorts the image being seen by the fish, to create this view I had to import flash camera methods onto the stage and insert a curve around the centre of the stage, this effect was made so that the person who was trapped in the fishbowl would have the centre of the stage as the normal view that they would usually see and the outside would curve out the same way that a fishbowl would curve out, when I ran the effect for the first time it felt as close to a fishbowl I could imagine as I had to keep returning to the centre view to understand what image was being reflected and to see my face properly in the environment, this made me think do fish swim around the centre of a fishbowl to see a normal view or does it differ for them. unfortunately I cannot ask a fish this question but it was a interesting result and I liked the way it made me question their existance by seeing myself put into their environment, this to me made it a augmented reality as there is no way I could of felt this way before now without physically being in a fishbowl. 

 To create a better augment effect I decided to add a base to the fishbowl with some sea weed at the bottom of the screen to give more of a water effect on the stage and give off more of a fishlike feel, the way the seaweed moves and the colour of the base represents the base of a fishbowl very closely and does remind you that you are not a human in this environment, but a fish. The other fish inside the bowl was added to bring the fishbowl theory of overcrowding into the user's mind, as the theory say's that the more fish that are in the fishbowl the more it can affect the outcome of how the fish feel, the more fish there are in the environment the more insignificant the fish can feel and being to questions their own existance. 

The theories was interesting to read about the fishbowl's and when I was looking at the final project it made me think how usually being on cam could feel a bit paranoid however with the effect it became more of an activity than a mere viewing of myself on the screen, this worked well with the theory that if we could always be seen we would get used to it because I could feel myself having fun being on webcam and generally we do not get this feeling from a mirror or a webcam. I was constantly reminded that I was in a fishbowl with this augment although the reflection was of the real world it looked and felt very different that the real world was being reflected and felt like another world altogether. 

However after using the program for a duration of time, with the distortion and the fish effect's I did start to feel disorientated as do some fish in fishbowl's as writer's have written in previous blog's, I thought this was great and this was the overall object of the augmented reality for me to prove to people, therefore I think that the augmented reality was a success and after having a lot of fun with it and learning how it feels to be in a fishbowl it is unlikely that if I owned fish I would like them to be inside one of these containers and I would look more into what would make the fish more comfortable as after being in their environment, I know that it is not a environment I would like to spend my life in after living a life of a human. 

I hope that any users of my program recieve the same outcome and realise that their is more to fishbowl's than what you see.