Wednesday 28 November 2012

PG02-Cycle3-Visit-to-LCI, 2D/3D Projection Mapping Talk (28 Nov 2012)














Video Mapping presentation by Charles Rosendaal
from Utrecht School of the Arts
Video mapping
Distance vs size and brightness

- Projection Overlays increase brightness
- Building in darkness is more effective in appearing than a building with Semi ambient light (as it cannot dissappear)
- At the edge of each blend it can fade to black, so that the blends can overlap smoothly

limit with projecting light onto brick
black areas do not reflect

flat surfaces are ideal, curved surfaces can be deformed
- custom made to fit building
- mannekins - use with 3D model projections
- projectors lined around a car

Projectors have a focus point

Hardware - Projectors

different lenses
- wide angle
- close up
(measure distance versus size)

fibre optic cables - link the video signal to the projector

 Process for video mapping event
- Site survey (day/night) - plan view
- Permissions and locations - sometimes need to build, is there enough space?
- Choosing projectors and lenses
- Getting a map/model
- Storyboard/animation
- Rendering content
- Preparing show in the projection software
- On site lineup to projection surface

Different methods of video mapping - AVstmpfl - Wings application
1.Physical object + 2D Virtual layer = 2D Mapping projection
2.Physical object + 3D Model with light = 3D mapping projection

Projectors - separate layers in software

d3 - 3D model of object, can have more projectors
and 3D virtual object is re-rendered
- can have a rotating car - with adjusting projection

Different methods of video mapping
VPT
resolume
madmapper
modul8
vdmx
vvvv

polystyrene - for building models
built model - specific dimensions

Animation composed in After Effects

interactive video projections (via touchscreen as input) / interactive floor (Hiclear software)

LCI - after sales services - maintaining and supporting projectors and software updates

Input > Interactive Software > Projection Output Software+3D model > Projector > Object surface

project onto opaque surface / frosted glass / translucent fabric

LCI UK videos on Pinterest
https://pinterest.com/LCIProductions/

LCI China videos on Tudou
http://www.tudou.com/home/item_u59298845s0p1.html













Sunday 25 November 2012

PG02-Cycle3-Brief-and-Research (25 Nov 2012)


BRIEF:
As an individual, create a concept (around the theme of ‘time and space’) inspired by/working with the National Maritime Museum and LCI.
Build and construct one prototype. Prepare and deliver one pitch to a panel (NMM/B.Pollmuller/J.Gardiner) that illustrates your concept and pilot.(summative assessment: 23rd January 2013)
(about 2 months before pitch)

Throughout the project, contribute to a Learning Log. Use this as a tool to track progress and note applicable research and technologies for the major project. The log can be an online resource (e.g. Blog / Wiki) and a link to it must be emailed to the project tutor.
*Note applicable research and technologies for the major project

The Learning Log is not formally assessed, but at the end of the unit its content is distilled into a Learning Log Progress Report that is summatively assessed.
Deliverables: What needs to be delivered? What has the client asked for?
·         Proposal with prototype
·         Concept around the theme “Time and space”/NMM
·         One prototype
·         Individual pitch
·         Learning log


The opportunity:
What’s the challenge?
What’s the opportunity?

Research your client!

·         To develop a concept, e.g. products and services that engages NMM's visitors in a more interesting and interactive way (e.g. immersive) by using new technologies.
The client: NMM: Who are they? What are their objectives?

The product: (the current situation).
·         Look into products and services that they offer already
The Audience: Visitors: Who are they? What’s their culture? What are they interested in?
·         You are not limited to the audience; however it would be beneficial if your research covers both sides of the spectrum
What: What do we want them to do with it? What do we want to achieve? How are we measuring success?
·         We want to make people experience the museum more or differntly?.
·         We want to use findings in this project to support the NMM in creating new visitors experiences which will include interactive and immersive activities.
 Why: Why would they care? What difference does it make? What value can we create for them?
·         You need to figure it out yourself!

Considerations & constraints:
·         You have 5 weeks to finish the project.
·         You need to work independently (no group work at this stage)
·         You need to research technologies.
Dates and deadlines:

28th November: Visit to LCI, Meet 12.30, LCI Productions Ltd, 55 Merthyr Terrace, London, SW13 8DL, UK
5th December: Short pitch of initial idea, plus 100 words to explain your project proposal
23rd January 2013: Final, summative INDIVIDUAL presentation and pitch. END of cycle 3!















Wednesday 21 November 2012

Presentation of Greed - PG02-10 - (21 Nov 2012)


Presentation
- Group contributions

Peter talked about Russian montage

Paul
What does it mean to personalise an experience
Humanising the issue, for someone who gets draw into it.
Comes across as being haunting and cold
Has longevity
Crop out the friendsbook - mention of 12
not dated by clothes

Question - pauses - is this what you really want to do?

John, RBOS group, inc other financial institutions
Refinements - to make it a bit more believable
Liked the ending
Pause allowing for peopel to think - what would I do in that situation

Click of the handcuffs sets the tone

You have abused your position of trust - ok
I sentence you to 3 years
'You will never work in the financial services again' - remove phrase

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Lots of impact
To the point
Right length
Lots of tension

Individual banks might like to include their own messaging, for help

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Colour grading - blue tones to be added

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Tony -
Words he uses
Scene - outside Snowhill Station - emotion is too angry

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Credits
Add the crew
Add Ravensbourne logo
DCPCU logo
FFA logo, funded by RBS
Copyright to be added

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Uncompressed and compressed format
Master file
Project file

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Henry - NMM
LCI, Hammersmith

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Saturday 10 November 2012

Mozilla Fest - day 1 - Zeega, Game Verbs, ParticleQuest (10 Nov 2012)

Mozilla Fest
Saturday



ZEEGA














ZEEGA
HTML5
Storytelling on the Web

http://alpha.zeega.org/register

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npr api

allow people to upload photos to flickr

what is a website based around storytelling look like?
- based around maps
- other ways to organise places and stories

'Remake the Internet!'

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Dear Andrew,

Welcome to Zeega!

The Internet is a wild place. We like that. Too often, though, it’s overwhelming. And full of too many choices. Little by little, we want to help remake the Internet. To make it a more beautiful place. To make the web’s wilds accessible to anyone for new forms of creative expression. Zeega is a community of makers passionate about creating immersive experiences that combine original content with media from across the web.

We’re busy processing your invite right now. You can expect a login soon!

- The Zeega Crew

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soundcloud

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http://alpha.zeega.org/editor/2856

Link to Project page
http://alpha.zeega.org/56436

Embed code;
<iframe src="http://alpha.zeega.org/56436/embed" width="100%" height="100%" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

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Project: Geodesic Homes or No Direction Home
1.Video starting with planet, with text fading in over the top
2.Still images, then
3.Displays black and white documentary film,
4.Shows a slide just showing text, with arrow navigation on each side.
reading at your own speed
5.Video played

Interaction and Linear sequences are interweaved.

Can you display data from the web, with video - not built in yet

Concept of layers: Video layers, Text layers, Link layers, later on Twitter layers, etc..

Meograph
Popcorn Maker
Zeega

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'Austin Music Map'

'Planet Takeout' - Library

Media Library
http://alpha.zeega.org/library
- organise, tag, grouping.
Collections of audio, video, etc.
Calling in media via hashtags - ie.mozfest

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Bookmarklet for bringing in media

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Images can be added dynamically by adding hashtags, and sourcing uploads from Twitter.

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Zeega Web apps - with Zeega Player
Custom Navigation items

Feed from Flickr / Youtube

Collections Viewer - showing content gallery
- seeded content

Built on Underscore and Backbone
Can add a JS file that has its own API, depends on Jquery

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Load zeega.css file
Load js file
Script that listens to a Zeega ready event
JSON file with data on each layer

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Issues around web-sourced content
Creative Commons
Attribution
Aggregator contacting Content Creator for permission
Only include 'Public' content

Talk to Lawyers

Issues around deleted or relocated addresses for content


Planet Takeout Participate

On Twitter
Project called Trees
Make a new hashtag called Trees
Link and add path into Zeega

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Instagram - Photo-sharing

Zeega Boilerplate

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Build the webpage around the player
navigational elements that speak to the player

Custom Parser

Zeega:
Visual layers - each is considered a plugin

ie.Image layer, with js, css file
Controls defined for each layer
Instructions on how it is to be displayed

Consistency of factory controls ie arrows VS expecting the users to build their own arrows

Popcorn framework is built around timeline
Zeega is built around video

Going for a Paid model?
Currently as open source, but looking for a monetisation model that is similar to Wordpress

Vimeo does not have adverts, Youtue can include adverts

Playing from timecodes of videos, start time, end time...
Hosting video from Youtube VS Downloading video to host

7 people in Zeega Team, based in Cambridge, MA

Hypermedia Authoring Platforms/

'Web Publishing Storytelling Platform'

Prezi - 'Cloud-based presentation software'
StoryPlanet - ''Visual stories, Community collaboration, developer platform" - https://www.storyplanet.com/about
Meograph - '4D Publishing Platform'
Klynt - flash based - 'Interactive editing and publishing application dedicated to creative storytellers'
3WDoc - 'authoring web tool for creating and broadcasting stories across platforms'

interactivedocumenary

idocs.org

Google Group - Zeega
info@zeega.org

Night Foundation Grant

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Paper-prototype Social Responsive Games with Verbs

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Physics game - ParticleQuest
https://github.com/jessykate/ParticleQuest/issues

(Project set by CERN to create a game)















8 abilities

anti-particles
particles
photons

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abilities - collect items

gradual improvement - get faster - XP system, like Zelda

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Sigma bar

Scientist

Find the Higgs Boson

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reduce meetup announcements

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Work on Portfolio

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What makes a game?
analysis

Browser Quest
http://browserquest.mozilla.org/

---

https://github.com/jessykate/ParticleQuest/issues

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Thimble - Learn
https://thimble.webmaker.org/p/flt3/edit

Popcorn - Make an interactive video
https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

Xray-Goggles
https://webmaker.org/en-US/tools/x-ray-goggles/

Webmaker


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Thursday 8 November 2012

Reflections on PG02 Cycle 2 - Filming (08 Nov 2012)


Reflections on PG02 Cycle 2 – Filming Project – TBSOG

Individual contributions:
- Interactive concepts
- Storyboard
- Shooting Schedule
- Sound recording
- Voice over

Group contributions:
- Martin – Direction
- Lola - Script
- Peter – Lighting/Art Direction
- Kieron - Logging
- Tori - Props
- Bara - Makeup

- Julia – Mother - Actress
- Jarone – Mark - Actor
- Nick – Criminal - Actor
- Andrew – DC1 - Actor
- Neil – DC2 - Actor

Objective:
Shoot a 10 minute film

Challenges

Different angles
Different emotions
Different endings

from last week – from Monday 5th Nov

On the first Monday we all met to go through the initial script with the actors, and I presented them with the storyboards. The storyboards that I put together followed the dialogue from the script and were perhaps over-detailed however Peter liked that the storyboard shots had been detailed out. Martin, the director’s view was that the storyboard did not have to be precise and actually in being more abstract allowed for flexibility in the actual days of shooting. The preparation of the storyboards helped in deciding and defining the camera angles, initial scene framing shots, identify where the camera would be pointing, and the size of the camera zoom to define whether it would be a wide angle shot, mid-close up, close up shot or a cutaway shot.

From the storyboard and in discussion with Peter on the art direction, we were able to put together a Shooting Schedule that consisted of Scene number (taken from the script), Shot number (based on the storyboard), and Setup number (based on the number of times that the camera would be re-positioned.) Within the actual filming the setup numbers would mostly match the shot numbers. Although the storyboard was useful in helping to visualise the script and dialogue, the actual locations proved to be different to the storyboards interpretation. For example the bedroom did not have a desk and the lighting source was weaker than the antipicated lighting that was visualised. However the floor lights that were brought along could to some extent simulate lighting such as daylight, side light, uplighting and reflected light from a mirror that was placed below the actors.

The meeting on the Thursday with the team from Bank fraud investigation, and the Met Police fraud team, presented very useful insight into the things that both employees and criminals might be likely to do. However it was pointed out that the flow and sense of story, feel of dramatic emotion was more important than being too concerned with absolute accuracy or rigidly detail-obsessed performances.

The script went through about seven versions to perfect the wording.

The order of the scenes were re-arranged to follow in the sequence of the shooting schedule. These were Scene 2 and Scene 4: At The House on Monday, Scene 1, Scene 6 and Scene 9 at the Police Station on Wednesday, and Scene 3 on the High Street on the Thursday of the week of filming.

On the week of filming on the Monday, we arrived at the House to film Scene 2: At the Doorway with the Mother and Scene 4: Mark in the Bedroom. The outside sunlight and temporary cloud cover provided us with a short moment in which to shoot the doorway and the mother opening the door. I stood to the side and held the boom above the doorway. In other scenes I held the boom below the actors pointing in the direction of their voices. The filming in the bedroom proved to be awkward for the movement of crew and actors, all being in one room. The lighting and especially the pamper lighting could easily be knocked over and wires tripped on. The wide angle shot of the bedroom was forgotten in the busy action of the actors and first day of filming. As the focus was mainly on the actor, a shot list might have been useful in reminding the crew of any shots that remained to be explored. The over-exposed laptop shot was a good idea, as this allowed for a later zoomed in shot to be filmed with the on-screen text in focus.    

The filming at the Police Station on the Wednesday, was quite different to the house. The security measures of staying in set areas, constrained the movement of crew and actors and sound travelled along the walls. The positioning of the camera and microphone was solved by trying out different positions and wiring arrangements. For the filming of Mark in the cell, we tried both positioning the camera within the cell looking at Marks face, from his back looking at the door which provided a sense of isolation. With the microphone within the cell this proved to be perplexing, when the camera was positioned outside the cell, however this was solved, as the wiring for the microphone could run underneath the doorway. Wiring and positioning alignments of crew by walls, doorways and reflective surfaces were important to get right.

On the Thursday we filmed the cuffing and placing of the main character into an unmarked car. The reflective surface of the car paint showed the mirror reflection of the crew, however Martin who was taking the camera zoomed in as the door was closed to hide the view of the crew in the shot. We later filmed in Scene 2: In the High Street. We thought and debated over the best location for the High Street and settled on my decision for the team to film in Greenwich High Street. The sound levels of traffic such as lorries, cars and pedestrians was too loud for the recording, and our solution was to film the actor crossing the road, and then film the encounter between him and the approaching person on a quieter side street. Random events such as wandering cats, talking people and prams were unexpected extra parts of the takes. The cold temperature and windy breeze of Autumnal weather had an effect on both the crew in working with camera tripod, and especially with the actors and use and effectiveness of props such as lighters. Environmental effects can be better taken into account with an on-site reccie before filming has commenced, however the bringing of spare materials such as paper, tape, boards and pens can work around some of the visual, lighting and sound issues.