Digital storytelling

In modern era digital technologies are intensively used for presentation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. High fidelity 3D reconstructions of cultural monuments and sites, virtual presentations of dances, crafts and traditions offer the users time travel to the past. However, all these digital assets need to incorporate the information on the context of presented cultural heritage objects, as well as related events and characters. This is implemented through digital storytelling. Interactive digital stories become parts of museum exhibitions, virtual and augmented reality applications and, of course, serious games. This chapter will present an overview of techniques and implementations of digital storytelling and its incorporation into virtual cultural heritage presentations. It will discuss challenges of adjusting classical storytelling methods and tools to virtual environments and VR videos, telling stories which users will find educational and entertaining at the same time, stories fitting into VR and AR navigation and complementing the 3D geometry with emotional and emphatic content. Novel interactive digital storytelling methods presented in this chapter will revolutionize the visual language and offer new media expressionism for the future.