Presentation of Prototype (2 weeks prior to final installation)

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