• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.308-315
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• 2017

This study aims to review the differences and distinctive characteristics between storytelling method of virtual reality contents and storytelling method of conventional contents instead of focusing on economic and industrial effects of virtual reality contents. As a specific target, this study discusses how existing storytelling method of webtoons as a single contents genre can be applied to virtual reality contents when webtoons are adapted into virtual reality contents. The purpose of this study is to find limitations and possibilities for the storytelling technique of virtual reality contents. The results of this study showed that the essence of storytelling in virtual reality contents is in three roles of the users of virtual reality. The users of virtual reality must play the roles of service user, audience of contents, and director of story. This is because the most important storytelling techniques in media contents like editing and change of camera viewpoint can no longer be forced in virtual reality contents. Storytelling techniques in virtual reality contents are much limited compared to the conventional contents in terms of user interaction, expansion of senses, and guarantee of freedom.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.147-153
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• 2022

Most of the metaverse service is a gamification type of metaverse solution composed by placing 3D objects on a 360 panoramic world base. However, the metaverse webtoon service is lacking in implementation and research. In this study, a method for realizing a 2D flat image form in a 3D space and a realistic 360-degree panoramic webtoon metaverse service were studied. The research process consisted of basic storytelling and design work for webtoon production, panoramic image creation to convert the produced image into 360-degree form, and content creation process for viewing 360-degree directions. Finally, we implemented shading and material work with game engine tools so that you can enjoy virtual reality-based webtoons. The webtoon-based metaverse study studied the process of creating a 360-degree panoramic webtoon from content that can only be viewed in 2D format. Accordingly, it is thought that webtoons will also be presented as a standard for the production and implementation method for the metaverse service.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.653-664
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• 2021

This study proposes a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) program for career exploration of middle school students. The proposed program utilizes VR (Virtual Reality) for new digital technology and webtoon as a popular cultural element. It enables the students to investigate promising fields and experience them virtually for themselves. We design the program based on the 2015 revised curriculum, which enhances the learning effects with existing subjects. In particular, the program provides a hybrid education to combine contact and untact classes considering the COVID-19 situation. The educational goal of the proposed program is to improve creativity and convergence capability. Specifically, it aims to prepare an educational foundation that integrates new digital technologies into education and applies the programs to school education fields. To prove the effectiveness of the developed program, we applied the program to the second graders of A middle school located in Seoul. We expect that the proposed program helps students learn how to utilize new digital technologies and explore future career paths.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.50
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• pp.101-130
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• 2018

Since the advent of the Smart Devices, the smartphone has become a popular tool to view Webtoon. This phenomenon has caused the convergence of cutting-edge technologies and Webtoons in diverse forms, creating unique versions of Webtoons including, but not limited to Smart-toon, Effect-toon, Cut-toon, Dubbing-toon, Moving-toon, AR-toon, VR-toon, and Interaction-toon. By comparison to these rich diversities of Webtoons in the online industry, there is a lack of academic research on this topic. There are some papers which talk about the different types of multimedia technology conversion and its case presentation or the effectiveness and problems of visual effect, but the effects of these convergence technologies on comic readers' concentration and reading effectiveness have never been investigated so far. Therefore, this paper will discuss the unique method of immersive storytelling that is often used in comics and analyze each aspects of immersive method in technology-converged Webtoons along with its problems. Furthermore, this paper will analyze different aspects of "immersion" and interaction elements that can be found in the popular Interaction-toon, (Encountered). Through this, this paper discusses the positive influence of the interaction elements on comic readers' immersion level and its limitation. To classify the technology-converged Webtoons in terms of the immersion level, the Effect-toon sometimes interferes viewer's flow by using excessive use of multimedia effect, creating information overload. The Smart-toon which applied motions to each frame under horizontal mode of smartphones was a good try, but it hindered the readers' activeness and made it hard for the readers to be fully absorbed in the story. The VR-toon, which utilizes virtual reality gadgets to allow viewers to explore the world of Webtoon was also a nice try to overcome the limitation of vertical screens. However, it often caused dispersion of user's attention and reduced the users' immersion level. The Moving-toon which only emphasized the reading convenience also invaded readers' activeness and disturb users' concentration. On the other hand, the cartoonist Il-Kwon Ha applied high technologies such as face recognition technology, augmented reality techniques, 360-degree panorama technology, and haptic technology to his cartoon (Encountered). This allowed the readers to form a sense of closeness towards the cartoon characters which let the readers to identify themselves with the characters and interact with them. By this way, the readers can be fully immersed in the story. However, technology abuse, impractical production and hackneyed storylining often showed later in the story remains as its limitations.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.45-52
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• 2018

The virtual reality (VR) cartoon is a format of VR contents that leverage the characteristics of webtoons that provides the simple story line and graphical storytelling tools to strategically surmount limitations of VR contents design. The VR cartoon enables people to experience the imaginary three-dimensional space in the webtoon as a real space by the transformation of webtoon contents through VR prototyping. The VR cartoon successfully presents focused environment where people can readily pay attention to the contents without notable motion sickness. People have been familiar with the storytelling strategy in the context of published cartoons and webtoons, likely we've understood the narrative of a movie through the continuous scenes projected in the screen. Indeed, it has been recognized as a popular toolset of communication, where visual images are sequentially delivered by replacing multiple planar spaces to tell a story narrative. While there are discrete panels with the time and space resolution in the graphical cartoons, people can distill a commit closure based on their past experiences. This is a typical "grammar" of the cartoon, which can be extrapolated to the VR cartoon that provides a seminal storytelling strategy. In this article, we review how the storytelling strategy in webtoons has been transformed into that in VR cartoons, and analyze the key components of VR cartoons. We envision that our research can potentially create keystones to produce variety of new VR contents by reflecting various narrative media including cartoon as a 'sequential art'.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.103-114
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• 2022

Global virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) markets are growing as VR and AR become a new source of revenue for industries around the world. In the edutech sector, an industry that combines traditional education, research on new innovative educational models and business models are scarce, and improvements are needed in the technology group and business environment to realize edutech in detail. Therefore, this study aims to define the elements strategically required for VR Toon development by comparing and analyzing the characteristics of existing touch panel-based display Toon and VR Toon content experiences. Tablet PC Toon and VR Toon were selected to conduct the research. Thirty people (19 men and 11 women) from their teens through their forties were surveyed using questionnaires. The questionnaires were formulated through a quantitative method by using AttrakDiff with a 7-point scale (-3: negative words to 3: positive words). Qualitative evaluations were also performed addressing nine concepts (satisfaction, novelty, operability, creativity, understanding, education, interest, participation, expressiveness). As a result, the usability test results of educational content using tablet personal computers and VR equipment were analyzed from the viewpoint of user experience to define elements expected to be strategically required for VR Toon development.