Linking Patches up - Paul

The two patches are near enough complete, Now we have the problem of linking the two together so that if you click play the game on the home patch the game patch will open and the home patch will close and the same the other way round. Me and Tom tried working with java script on these buttons just using the ; max openfile path (name).maxpat, message but for some reason it was not working as well as expected. So Tom quickly added an index patch in which this patch triggers the home patch to open and uses sends and receives to open the game patch and switch between the two patches. This works, however we now have a problem with the audio and it does not seem to play the audio put into the game patch or home patch. Hopefully a tutorial with Rob tomorrow will help us to sort this problem out.

Also today was the presentation day down at the Rotunda museum. We presented our installation and gathered some more feedback. The text of "Touch A Good Catch Charm " and "Play Game" was not the same as the text I used on the videos of the charms, which is one of the first things that was picked up on. So I have now just this minute changed these so that they are the same Text. Had a slight problem because the text in the video called Coolvetica is only on iMovie fonts so what I had to do is download the Coolvetica Font file off the internet and install it to work in photoshop. This is now sorted and I will replace these in the Charms Home section tomorrow. 

Also when playing the game, I think that a pop up message on the touchscreen to say whether the user has caught a fish or not will make the user look at the big screen which will be showing the animation. Otherwise they may be too drawn into looking at the touchscreen and questions, to not even notice what is going on with the animation. So I am going to try have sub patches triggered if the user gets a question right or wrong, I will hide the tool bars and scroll bars to make the message look like an actual pop up message. In the sub patches I will need a delay of about 3 seconds in which will close the message down to view the next question.

Il keep posted of how I get on with the pop up messages.

Paul

Game Patch - Paul

The triggering of videos for the game patch is complete, however the quiz questions need to be imported in with it now so that the user actually has to answer questions for the animations to happen. I have decided on using a bpatcher to do this, and instead of loading in the different patches, I got Tom to put 5 questions along side each other in one patch, this is then the only patch that needs to be put into the bpatcher in the games patch. Now what I did was use the offset message to an inlet of the bpatcher which basically jumps accross the patch to view the next question. I linked these offset messages up from the buttons on the answers so that the offsets are sent to the bpatcher immediately when a user gives touches an answer in the quiz.

The counter basically adds up the question number that the user is on which selects the offsets that I have put in for each questions position in the bpatcher.

Paul

Changes with game patch - Paul

After having a tutorial with Rob on 02/11/10, I have now decided to use the match object to trigger the different animation videos though the game. I began to use the select object in the patch, but due to the number of scenarios that I have mapped out for the 5 questions, it was impossible for the select object to memorise the answer to the previous questions. The patching of the game patch has really hurt my eyes, but I managed get everything running as it should and my animation videos trigger when they should dependent on the answers that the user have given to the previous question. I have attached a print screen of the Game patch to show the programming behind it. I also decided to use lists for the videos. Doing this means that max only has to load in two videos at a time, rather than the total 43 that there are.

I have also uploaded the match scenarios that I had to plan for question 5, As you can see the possibilities for just 5 questions is alot and took many hours for me to work them out.

Il Keep you posted with more work

Paul

More on Audio - Ian Bayntun

Following feedback from Mark Hildred and members of staff from Scarborough Museums Trust, we have re-recorded the voice overs for the "Meet the Charms" video.  We have removed some of the more complicated speach and also re-arranged the intro video.  In actual fact this is the second major change we have made to the audio the first change was to take of the sea and seagull sounds and make a loop for them.  I am sceptical about the value of this.  Both the Sea sounds and seagull sounds were different for each video in the installation.  Although the amount of time taken to create it wasn't too long, I feel that it gave pehaps a little more interest, even of the sounds were all from the same basic recordings.

For example

The Bollan Bone was...

Old Bollan Bone Audio

It then became

Bare Bollan Bone Audio

And Finally, I hope it is

New Bollan Bone Audio

Having recorded the voice overs again in the Overdub studio, I was alarmed to hear a constant buzz in the audio when working with it at home.  I managed to eliminate the buzz using Audacity, hopefully the audio will be good enough, there wasn't much degredation of the actual voice.  If it's unacceptable, then it's back to the studio again.

Quiz Questions - Ian Bayntun

I have had a request to upload the quiz questions, so here they are.  There are 3 questions for each charm, this could be expanded at a later date if needed....

What were Cowrie shells attached to net as?

A: Net Sinkers

B: Shark Bait

C: Amulets

D: Identification tags

Which part of the world were Cowrie shells used?

A:  South China Sea and South Pacific

B:  North Atlantic and North Sea

C: Mediterranean and Black Sea

D: Indian Ocean and Arctic Ocean

What did fishermen hope to gain by attaching Cowrie shells to their nets?

A: Good Luck

B: Good Weather

C: Good Catch of Fish

D: Good Health

When did William Clarke collect his Butt Horn charm?

A: 1934

B: 1935

C: 1936

D: 1937

What fish was it believed that the Butt Horn foretold the capture of?

A: Mackerel

B: Haddock

C: Whiting

D: Halibut

Where were Butt Horn charms widely used?

A: Yorkshire Coast

B: Kent Coast

C: Cornish Coast

D: Isle of Man Coast

What sort of fish was a Butt Horn?

A: Cod

B: Flounder

C: Jelly Fish

D: Star Fish

The Eskimo charm is a case of what?

A: Paul Daniels’ Magic

B: Sympathetic Magic

C: Black Magic

D: Radio Magic

What were Eskimo Charms passed down?

A: The Street

B: The Line

C: Family Line

D: Under the Table

What were Eskimo Fish Charms made from?

A: Walrus Ivory

B; Elephant Ivory

C: Plastic

D: Polar Bear Tooth

The Bollan Bone came from which fish?

A: Ballan Wrasse

B: Barracuda

C: Sword Fish

D: Tunny Fish

Fishermen from where carried Bollan Bones?

A: Conrwall

B: Angelsey

C: Scotland

D: Isle of Man

When did William Clarke Collect the Bollan Bone charm?

A: 1913

B: 1914

C: 1915

D: 1916

What was the main function of a net sinker?

A: To Keep aNet Vertical in the Water

B: To make the net sink to the bottom of the sea

C: To Make the net look more attractive to passing swimmers

D: So fishermen could easily identify their own nets

Where were the Net Sinker charms in Clarke’s collection found?

A: South Shields

B: Scarborough

C: Grimsby

D: Cromer

Why were Net Sinkers shaped like fish

A: For Good Luck and to blend in with the environment

B: To attract fish to the net

C: To scare sharks away

D: To warn other fisherman the net was there

Good Catch Home page - Paul

After taking feedback from the people from the Rotunda some changes have been made. Me and Ian re-recorded the audio for my videos about the charms. Ian mixed them down and then sent me these audio files. I then replaced the old audio files with the new ones in iMovie and mixed these down to be put back in the patch. I also altered the intro video slightly. I have added an extra photo of Clarke and made more of the photos appear on postcards which is one bit that needed improvement. It was hard to get the charms looking right at the start of the video where they appear to be falling through water, I had to put them on a green screen in after effects, animate them so that they are falling and slowly spinning, mix them down then place them in iMovie with green screen removed. This was hard because iMovie can be very temperamental when dealing with effects like that. I also changed the way my videos are triggered in the Home patch. instead of the individually just being loaded into a jit.qt movie I have decided to have them in a list, the same as I did with the Game Patch. Before we had the problem that the background runner video would just fade in half way through the charm videos and there were many timing inssues, However now, I have simply used two lists with a cross fader between. The left list just consists of the background runner video, and the right list consists of all the 5 charm videos and the intro video which automatically plays as the home patch is loaded.

Now when a charm is touched, it sends the number of the video to the recieve in the right list which will load it, and then select the duration of that video to a delay which will go into the crossfader before the background runner appears again, This avoids any timing issues like before and stops the background video coming in too early or too late.

I also got Tom to change the charms so that they have a slight glow behind them, This is nice because it makes them stand out abit more and entices the user to touch them. I also changed the background of the Home page and instead of using toms photo of concrete, decided to just go for a blue background panel, which relates more with charms of the sea theme. 

Paul

Coming Together - Tom Clarkson

Been a very busy patching session the last few days, very confusing at times with very simple maths. Here is an example of what the conditions look like at our final question (Paul drew up the diagram)

 

This designed up in a patch has been the most confusing thing ever, but it's starting to come together with some newly found max objects. Hope all goes well tomorrow!

The "splash page" (as I like to call it) is working fine after a few number of issues but all seems good with testing so far. The only thing left after the game patch is complete is linking them together and hoping all works well.

Quiz Questions - Ian

I have written the multiple choice questions for the quiz section of the project. Each charm has 3 questions, each question has a choice of 4 possible answers. It was quite hard to make 3 questions up for some of the charms.

Audio Mixing - Ian

I used Pro-Tools (My DAW of choice for mixing!) to mix the recorded audio of the sea, seagulls and Paul's Voice Over and the audio for the "Video" part of the project is now complete, after a bit of feedback from Paul I lowered the sea and seagulls in the mix.  I had also included excerpts from the "Theme from Jaws", but we decided against using this for this part.

Hopefully it can be included somewhere, because I think it's a brilliant tune!!  Perhaps we could use it on the quiz for a wrong answer???  The question then becomes what to use for a correct answer?

I am not sure what sounds are needed for the game section yet.  We have a meeting tomorrow, and I will ask the team for their views.

I have included links to some previews of some of the audio for your listening pleasure!! 

Bollan Bone

Cowrie Shells

Design of Fisherman Character - Paul

Not sure whether to include the hat and pipe yet :)    But he is shaping up nicely.  Next stage is to design some fish and a net..

Paul

Sound Recording Photographs - Ian

My mobile phone shoots video in a strange format, so while I figure out a way of converting it here are a couple of photographs.  At least my phone takes still images in JPG format!!!!

I have had a listen to the audio I captured, and it is quite good.  My experiment with "Pitching" didn't work as I had hoped, but the audio is probably the pick of the bunch

Stage One of Animation Drawing - Paul

Heres The first stage of my scene. (The surroundings) Ignore the over spill on the sides of the stage this will not be shown when published. I am now working on the main focus of the animation including, The fisherman, The shark, The boat and the fish.

Signing Out, Paul

An Update On our Installation

Audio Recording - Ian

I spent several hours trying to record audio for the insatallation.  On Saturday, I took a drive around Marine Drive, my intention was to record seagull sounds. |However, not only were the levels of traffic too high as to not get a good recording, but there didn't seem to be many seagulls!  The few that were there were unusually quiet!  It then went to The Spa to record waves crashing against the sea wall, I thought that this would be a good location as there is little traffic.  Unfortunately, the tide was going out and recording was abandoned for the day.

A quick check on the times of high tide saw me heading down to The Spa again on Sunday.  I arrived at about 12:30 a full hour before high tide.  I walked further along from The Spa, to where the South Bay Pool used to be, and identified several good spots to record.  I made quite a few recordings ranging from a little over 2 minutes to over 5 minutes in duration, which is more than enough for this project.  I also experimented with "pitching" the tripod the recorder was mounted on to simulate the pitch and roll of a boat on the sea.

I have not had chance to listen to what I recorded in any depth yet, so I don't know if my experiments worked or not.  Sound files and photographs to follow.......

Pitch & Initial Feedback

Paul

Working on the background image, in Adobe Flash CS4, for the game. Drawn the sky and the sea, and a small blurred building in the background. Going to work on the boat next.

Gathering Information - Paul

Today I rang the Scarborough Museums Trust to confirm the exact locations that each 5 charms were collected at. The woman who i spoke to was unable to give me this information herself, So has passed on Ian Reads Email for me to ask him. Hopefully i will know the exact finding location of each five charms soon so I can begin to create the opening video with the globe in the corner of this locating the home of these charms.

I have also been touching up on my animation using photo shop so I can soon begin the animated video for the game.

Paul

Interactive Displays @ Rotunda Museum - Ian

I looked at 3 of the interactive displays at The Rotunda Museum on Wednesday, although I have to say that the third one wasn’t really interactive.

The first display was a touch-screen pedestal , there were two parts, first of all there was the “Erosion Game”  In this game you had to select the correct route of action to pretect your town/village.  There were different scenarios with a multiple choice of solutions.  For example, A small town with an unlimited budget on the top of a sandstone cliff needed protection from the effects of wave erosion.  Once an answer was selected the cliff was erroded until you selected the correct answer.  Various objects fell into the sea, and if the house fell into the sea......

The animation was slick, and I found the game both easy and enjoyable to play.  The last scenario had no correct answer, and, I found this a little annoying, as there was quite a wait for the house to fall, although this might have only been a few seconds it seemed a lot longer.

The second part of this display concentrated on “The Holbeck Hall” this comprised of press clippings relating to the hotel falling into the sea on the south side of Scarborough.  I found this brought back memories, as I was one of those standing on the cliifs watching, with hundreds of other people.

The second display I viewed was “Gristhorpe Man”  The glass case was the home of a skeleton, and an animated head spoke to the viewer by way of a handset, not unlike a telephone.  The dialog was amusing in parts as well as informative.  It transpires that Bradford University established where he had lived by means of his teeth, and they could also tell that his level of fitness and general health were good.  They also determined that he was about 60 when he died.

The last display I viewed was the inteactive dinosaur coast line.  I did not see much of this as there was a large crowd taking part in the activity.  My vision was hampered because of the height of the display, and I lost interest pretty quickly.  I think the activity went on too long, I could only imagine that had I been a ten year old, how frustrating it would have been with perhaps 20 other children waiting for my turn.  Although it has to be said that at such an age I would probably been able to see what others were doing on the screen.

There were other displays, which had telephone type handsets for listening to the audio whilst viewing the acompanying screen.  I though the displays I used were well thought out and interesting.  I am sure the other displays were equally fascinating.

Critique Of The Rotunda Museum - Paul Hollingsworth

The Museum had some great installations for the public to use, some of which was very modern technology. The information provided about each installation was very detailed. The 3 touch screen installations I think were the most educational displays in the museum, the reason for this is because the quiz that it gave you to complete actually made you apart of the installation and it was down to you to get each question correct in order to save the houses from floods. I think the big touch screen installation in which you created your own dinosaur land, was a very nice feature but only for children, I did not feel it was very educating. I enjoyed the sound beam that they had projecting into my ears as I entered a room. It was good to see this sort of technology being used.

The installations are mainly designed for one persons at a time, which could be very frustrating if theres a big group of people trying to access it at once. With our project there will be just one person controlling the touch screen, but the big screen above will ensure other people can see what is going on. Also the voice recordings on the phones went on for quite a long duration, I found that after a minute or so I began to lose interest and linking into what I said before, only one person can hear this at a time.
The dinosaur touch screen was very interactive and looked really good, but the installation itself is not very educational and therefore it seems almost a waste of technology to just have a game where you place objects around a bit of land and didnt actually gain any information from it.
Furthermore, there was alot of writing on some of the displays which a majority of people would not take the time to stand and read it all. This is why in our installation I think it will be best to just play a voice over instead of having lots of writing for users to read.

I learnt alot from looking at the installations already homed in the Rotunda museum and it has inspired me in the design of our installation. I will make sure that the information given about my charms is accurate and just enough for the user to know and not overload them with too much detail. I also think it is very important for the user to feel involved with the installation for them to learn something from it. Therefore I think a game or quiz is the best way to attract users and for them to interact with it.

Paul