The creation of 'Uvira's Pot', a virtual reality puzzle to promote engagement with archaeological research.

Introduction Advances in computing have made it easier to produce three dimensional (3D) models of heritage material culture. Incorporating these models into virtual reality (VR) games has the potential to increase peoples engagement with other communities including those from the past. This paper examines the creation of 'Uvira's Pot' (uviras-pot.vercel.app), a prototype VR puzzle game where the user reassembles a ceramic vessel from fifteen sherds. Refitting vessels is an important archaeological technique that can provide information on the function and origin of the artefact. A broken ceramic vessel can also reveal details, such as the mineral crystals in the clay, that act as temper, and the colour of the core, which relates to firing conditions. Agarabi speakers of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG) were the only recorded highlanders to make pottery (Watson, 1993). In 1987, the creation of several vessels in three different highland villages was documented by Chris Ballad in field notes and photographs. Recently these notes were prepared for academic publication and the 'Uvira's Pot' application was created as an experiment in conveying this research to a less academic audience. One vessel, created by Uvira of Anonantu has unfortunately broken and this was used for the application. The time and effort spent assembling puzzles, both 2D and 3D, often connects the puzzler with the object of the puzzle, and can also lead to closer inspection of details on the object (or image) (Balabanian & Shahrabi, 2022). It is hypothesised that when reconstructing Uvira's vessel some puzzlers will become interested in how it was created and the photographs of the different steps in its creation (the chaîne opératoire) have been displayed around the virtual space. Asset Creation Digital models of the sherds were created with photogrammetry using the Polycam iPhone application (photo mode). The models, while not archival quality, were sufficient for a VR experience. The automatic model scaling, was incorrect for the smaller pieces and the models had to be normalised to sherd measurements. The colouring of at least one sherd could have been improved. To reduce the mesh polygon count, Metashape mesh decimation was used. The photo panels were made using Affinity Designer and importantly sized to have lengths and widths of pixel numbers that were a power of two. Coding VR applications can be downloaded or viewed via a webpage in a browser. The later option is more likely to attract a casual user. The Three.js JavaScript library allows for the display and manipulation of 3D models. The library has code examples that can be combined and modified to allow models to be moved with VR controllers such as those for the Quest2 (with which the application was tested). In the application the initialisation step imports the sherds and places them randomly on a grass floor. The photographs of vessel creation are in a circle around the user. With either hand controller, the user can select and move a sherd and place them together to reveal the pot form. Conclusion VR websites to convey archaeological research, can be created with minimal JavaScript experience and it should now be possible for others to modify the publicly available code (https://github.com/tosca-har) to create experiences focusing on the material culture of other regions. Phone photogrammetry applications have made asset creation much easier, although model retropology is essential. The ethics behind creating models, especially those of artefacts from communities previously exploited by colonisation, should always be considered and appropriate permissions sort. User testing protocols are currently being designed so that the ability of the application in engaging the audiences' interest in the Agarabi pottery chaîne opératoire. The creation of sites with 3D models has greatly facilitated by Three.js, thus lowering the time costs associated with site creation, and allowing for more experimentation to find puzzles that will effectively communicate the wonders of Papuan, and other, material culture. References Balabanian, A. and Shahrabi, S. (2022) Dev Chat #5: The Making of "Behind High Walls" (https://puzzlingplaces.ghost.io/devchat5/) Watson, V.D. (1993). Adzera and Agarabi: contrastive ceramics in Papua New Guinea. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 102(3), 305–318.