Tonight, the Entertainment Technology Center presents what has become a Carnegie Mellon campus tradition: the Building Virtual Worlds Show, an annual showcase of interactive virtual worlds created by first-year ETC students. Students and others in the campus and tech communities line up for hours to see some of the ideas the new crop of ETC students has come up with.

Fourteen works were chosen out of 75 submitted for this year's juried show. The jury is a mix of faculty members, former students, visiting faculty members and others. The works are chosen "for what is going to make an entertaining show," says Jesse Schell, assistant professor of entertainment technology at ETC.

Among this year's featured works:

• The audience collectively plays Pac-Man by passing a glowing ball around the audience. The ball's movements control the characters' movements onscreen.

• An actress interacts with virtual characters in the retelling of a Korean folk tale.

• In a prison escape game, audience members use remote controls to direct a spotlight as they collectively try to catch the convicts.

These first-year projects are boot camp to the more serious work students take on later in their ETC experience. "This is where they try crazy experiments and learn their chops," Mr. Schell says. At the same time, he adds, Building Virtual Worlds "has become an important scouting mission" for industry professionals looking for new talent and ideas.

The show is free, and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Because of its popularity and the limited seating, the line forms hours before the 6 p.m. showtime in McConomy Hall. The overflow crowd will be seated in Rangos Hall, where they can watch the presentations on video.

The show will also be Webcast live through the ETC site.