Getting there - mike porter

 **UPDATE - hints added and answers removed :p**

Hi there


Well it's been just over a week and the patch is coming together slowly.


From my end, the script has gone well and here's a sample of some of my ideas is shown below:

Introduction Voice-over:

Hello and Welcome to the world of Trade. In the 1x00s, various items, known as “charms” were used in exchanges between people across Africa. To find out more, please select a charm from the table in front of you. If you think you know your charms, then why not test your skills by selecting the Trade Challenge in the upper right corner.

Traders:

Trader 1

Ah hello there my friend, you seem lost. Your journey has been long and I can show you a short cut that will take you safely around the infantry . In return you may have something I need. The path I need to travel involves going through the wild, that may involve dangerous wildlife. Is there any way you may be able to help in exchange for information on continuing your journey?


H1: Hmm, I don't think that will help me. I need something that will provide me with protection through the wild.
H2: Hmm, whilst that would give me a good chance of surviving, chance is a risk I'd rather not go for. I need something that will assure me with animals that I will be safe.
H3: Hmm, very good. But protection of the teeth is the least of my worries. I need something that will keep me safe from other teeth.
H4: I don't think so my friend. These beasts are not welcome to gifts like that.
W: Ahh, of course, the death of one of their own would give them plenty of fear around me. Here, take this rough map I've scrawled, it should take you to some local natives I passed a day ago or so.
 

Trader 3

Greetings my friend and welcome to Nigeria. The life is hard here and the medicine supply is short. I have taken to eating the food found on the ground and my mouth is is in agony with each bite I take. Can you help me? In return I will provide you with safe shelter and rest with out family.


H1: No way, They look to solid and would break my teeth!
H2: I don't think that will be helpful. I need something I might be able to chew on.
H3: I'm not sure if luck will save me this time.
H4: I still have all of my teeth man, I don't need another yet!
W: Ooh, so cool, this could help you know? Come now and rest by the fire, You must be tired from that long walk of yours. I'll make sure you brother gives your horse some good care.
 

Trader 5

Hello there old bean. Bit of a roasting day isn't it? Say, you don't happen to know any of these local chaps do you? Only, I'm in a bit of a pickle and I need something to show as a peace offering so they don't lock up my wife. If you can help, you can have this. It's a souvenir I picked up. It's a Carnelian heart from back home, used for luck. I'm sure it will be of good use to you. So what do you think?


H1: Err, the creatures I am dealing with are human, so I'm not sure if that will be of use.
H2: Bribe them? That would work in Western Africa, but I don't know if these natives know of these.
H3: Haha, Promises of Fish and Chips won't do any good in the middle of Africa for these chaps old bean.
H4: Err, I'm not sure if that might insult them old bean.
W: Ohh, hopefully that will work and in turn, may the luck work in my favour on the way back. Here, take the heart, if there's any more room next to your big one. 



Feel free to suggest or criticize any of the above. I'm not the best script writer, but I think it's passable. Once this is sorted, I'll schedule a session with our voice actors and get us some characters ready to put into our patch.

Musicwise, ideas have been drafted and I'll stick up some work in progress tomorrow evening.

Take it easy

mike :) 
 

Update - John Maguire

So with the design under way I have the basis of our 2 interactive screens as well as a large image of a cart which will be resized to fit in with the size of our environment.

 Screen 2 (game)

Cart

Screen 1 (Market table)

I have yet to apply filters to keep all screens conformed to each other. I plan to update these over the weekend and finally fill up the empty space in screen 1 as it needs to have sides added, all attempts so far have looked tacky, maybe a material curtain around the edges? 

I have also made a start on the charms themselves removing the background, Although the material that was placed under the charms have made it awkward thou in time they should look cleanly cut.

Just tested a charm video around 10 seconds long and its rendered fine at 1280x720 but file sizes are huge! 800mb using .avi so I've started to try Quick time movie format which has decreased file sizes a lot, even on the lowest setting in Adobe After Effects (using Quick time) its rendering at 180mb hopefully ill have this sorted soon!

Progress Report by Bruno Siu

I have been working on the interface functions on Max.

I have the main parts working, but there are a few problems I need to adjust.

Video trigger:

The above shows the trigger function, by clicking on the image the video will start and pause. The extra comments in the patch are research notes.

Problem: 

1. The video will constantly play in a loop and won't return to the beginning on the second click.

Audio Trigger:

Again by clicking on the image the audio will start playing. It will fade in at the beginning and fade out at the end to prevent 'clicks'.

Problem: 

1. It ignores the second click, therefore it can't be paused/stopped.
2. If the audio is still playing, a third click will force a fade out causing the audio to end abruptly. 

Journey (bottom part of screen 2):

The knob/dot will move automatically if the user answered correctly. It can move vertically, horizontal and with correct maths, diagonally.

Problem:

1. The imported picture will not fit the object, no matter what size I made it. This includes both background and knob/dot.

I already emailed Rob regarding the difficulties and awaiting his reply. 

I'm also looking at C74 forums, Max help-pages and 'try&error' for possible solution.

Bruno

Research by Bruno Siu

I aim to gather more specific information about each charms tomorrow (19/10/2010) as I arranged a meeting with Karen Snowden, Head of Collections at the Scarborough museums trust.

I aim to clarify their origins, who did they trade with and purpose.

I will also record the conversation with a Zoom H4n Recorder.

Bruno

Final Design by Bruno Siu

Now that I know the resolution (1240x1024) of the touch-screen, I can be more precise with the spacing of the layout on the patch.

This is the final design of our interactive patch. It consist of two screens, the first is for accessing information about the charms; the second is a 'question and answer' to test our user's knowledge of the charms.

Screen One - Information:

I kept the original idea of user's freedom on information. The user can select the charm he/she want hear more about, by tabbing on the image of the charm. 

The light blue circles represent the trade charms and they will be in colour, this is to draw attention of the audience. Taking on previous comment/idea suggested, the grey circle will be the 'non-sea' charm. The reason why I  included the 'non-sea' charm is because the theme Trade. In an open market, the type of charms on sell would not be limited to trade alone.

The bottom section contains the image of 'Horse and Cart', the idea was to make the user take the perspective of a travelling trader and they are exchanging charms with different people around the globe.

By clicking on the 'Game' button on the top right corner, the user can skip the information and goes straight to the 'Question and Answer'. This will also trigger a short animation of the 'Horse and Cart' moving away.

On this screen, if left untouched for a period of time (30seconds) it will automatically return to the master patch.

Screen Two - Game:

In this screen the user would 'approached' by a customer requesting a specific charm in exchange for their 'special' item(s), ranging from but not limited to camels and/or gemstones.

Red circles represent trade charms, by selecting the desired charm, the user gets the 'reward'. Incorrect answer would get a 'hint' from the voice over. The white background also serves as a hint; as an 'out of focus' image will be shown, indicating the origins of 'desired' charm.

The user can re-access the information by tabbing on the 'info' button beside the charm.

The bottom area is a progress report, as the 'journey' moves on, the closer the user gets towards the 'goal'. The patch will congratulate the user on his/her success in trading and it will go back to the 'information' page.

Feel free to post any questions/suggestions at the comment section and I will do my best to answer them.

Bruno

Pitch & Initial Feedback

Ideas Meeting by Bruno Siu

Earlier today (12/10/10), We as a group reviewed our initial idea of 'Drag and Drop' interactive installation.

Simplicity was our main sell point, but it was also our weakness. The criticism we received was our idea lacks a purpose. Dragging and dropping an item to a destination just for more information, was deemed as  a mid-way point not the final stop we thought of. The user would expect more of the installation after receiving the information about the charms.

Taking on board the criticism from yesterday, we had a morning meeting to discuss possible solutions and improvements to our idea.

The conclusion was we get rid off the intro screen, instead replaced with just sound effect.

Merged the both the interaction and informative screens together. The user can click on the image of charm to listen to description, function and story behind it.

By doing so, the user have control whether to access the information or not.

We also changed the concept of the 'game', the user will be faced with a 'customer' requesting a certain charm, by tabbing on the image of the charm the 'customer' will express whether he is happy or not with the user's selection.

The aim of the game is trying to sell all the charms. When the correct charm is selected the game will move onto the next destination.

If the wrong charm is selected, the 'customer' voice their unhappiness and will give more clues to the correct charm. This is to encourage the user to listen the information about the charms instead of randomly guessing.

The game finishes when all charms are 'sold out'. The user is then shown a replay and menu option, so they can control on repeating the game or return to the master patch.

A very rough interface design of Idea1

Strengthening our first idea was our main topic on the meeting. But we also thought of different approaches to our installation, which I will post later on.

Bruno

The Rotunda Visit by mike porter

Hi there readers,

The visit we took the other day to the rotunda I found rather inspiring with the different advantages and disadvantages of some of their interactive exhibits. The touchscreen plinths were very good for a basic task, however, agreeing with Bruno, I did find them a little limited with their single touch interface, meaning they could only ever display things that require a single mouseclick.

The program was a little dissapointing as it just seemed a bit of a standard "push this button to go to the next screen" feel although I did appreciate the "go back" button that allowed you to exit the quiz or information and go back a screen if you wished.

That said, I still think the quiz could have still been a little more engaging than just the pressure of having a timer and I got bored of it after a while.

The main attraction, the landscape designer for dinosaurs was pretty cool, allowing simple click and drag, although it's sensitivity was lacking by having to apply rather heavy force on the touch glass. This exhibit did make instructions more practical by allowing the user to have a clear screen, whilist a voiceover got the users listening in and therefore concentrating on the exhibit, which I felt was a real strength of it.

Despite all that was said, I feel that using this kind of technology on our patch, whilst making it more challenging, it will encourage us to develop a pactch together that is simple yet effective and something that many people will be interested to use.

mike :)

The Rotundas Interactive's - John Maguire

I found that the 3 interactive machines sponsored by shell were very interesting, at least since it reminded me of  Geography in secondary school. 

The idea of these machines was how to combat coastal destruction by natural means, although not the most engaging in was however very informative. 

You have 3 scenarios each stage and 3 stages to complete based on various town sizes and budgets, and they all have different problems: such as to sand moves down away from the coastal town so staggered gydes are needed to capture sand. and you are moved onto the next task.

Although the quiz was interesting I think it failed to bring real interaction as it was only an multiple choice game!

Visit to Rotunda by Bruno Siu

On 6th October 2010, we visited the Rotunda Museum.

The visit allowed us to gain an insight to the ability and limitation of equipments.

This also give us a view on what style of information the museum is already using.

The hip height interactive touch-screens have a clear display, good resolution, they are ideal for simple layout. I believe having short, attractive patches will work very well in this settings.

Since they only support single-touch, our design would be limited to 'click and drag' interaction or multiple question and answer.

The response time is also less sensitive due to the protection glass. Therefore our design can rely on pinpoint movement of the mouse.

Overall, I believe there is enough potential in the equipment for us to achieve what we desired.

Bruno

It begins by Bruno Siu

This is group 1's (we don't have a name yet) first blog post.

Our focus are on the trade charms, and how each item links people across the world together.

More information about our interactive installation from construction to the actual exhibition will be posted here.

Bruno