World Building

The tool set of Bruce Branit's World Builder and Little big Planet are comparable,the main difference lies in the interface. The Little Big Planet world builder interface is somewhat limited because it's input device is a Playstation controller. Given this limitation however, the interface is intuitive and creative. The problem for dealing with a third dimension with an input device that is not designed for such a task is solved by creating three planes each of which are two dimensional levels.

In Banit's video, the interface is holographic and utilizes touch controls to create 3D environments. Although "buttons" are still utilized, most of the creation is done through gestures and motions. The nature of the holographic world makes three dimensional editing easier on a conceptual level because it is much easier to understand how the vertices relate to each other in space when it is a simple task to walk around the object, but upon closer inspection, this interface is not too different form Little Big Planet.

The button commands are very similar, of course, mapped commands accessed by touching a designated spot. The menus that display various texture options are also very similar, both by design and function. The main difference in interface would appear to be the analog stick "smearing" of objects versus the elegant gesture commands in the video. Conceptually though, an analog stick is little more than a very basic tracking device to determine the position of the player's thumb, and track it's motion to commit it into game commands. The interfaces are nearly identical in design, but Banit's world adds another level of depth and sophistication.

As for the aspect of world building, I'd have to say yes, these activities to be world building on the grounds that they create environments that can can be interacted with. When one gets philosophical on what it means to inhabit a world, or what constitutes a world's existence, the answer could be as simple as a doodle on a piece of paper is evidence of an entire world in which that drawing is a part of, or a world could require every detail to be addressed.

If the latter choice is selected then every step towards realism requires an exponential amount of effort, from randomly generated wind currents that have a minimal effect on physics, to the position of the sun in the sky relative to the season, to the presence of small rips or cuts of specks of dirt on character clothing as they interact with the environment; the world is never really "complete".

Therefore the most defendable position, in this author's opinion, is to simply accept any creation as evidence of it's own possible world, and thus an act of world building.