Last week for IM out at St Albans, Second last week for the New Media Class

Today was the last class for the Adv Dip IM class, I was surprised how prepared everyone was, a few are doing some finishing touches(due date next Wednesday 12th) however most of the class have finished.
If anybody is having hassles please drop me an email.
The Cert IV/New Media class is progressing well, we have one more week which gives everyone a reasonable amount of time to get things done.

PLEASE NOTE - You must upload your video to youtube, and embed this on your blog. If the video is not on YOUR blog, then it doesn't exist. If you did the video as a group, you must still post it on each of your individual blogs....

Videotrace

Worth a look, tracing 3d models from video footage.
http://smart-machines.blogspot.com/2008/01/videotrace-creating-realistic-3d-models.html

Final week for IM Flinders Class

Welcome to the final week, and well done for making it this far.
By now your assignments should be very near completion.

All of your machinima pieces should be exported as .mov or .avi files, then uploaded to youtube and embedded/posted on your blog. I suggest you limit your filesize to under 100 meg, taking into careful account the quality of both the video and the audio.

If you have any problems at all completing the task, please email me at dale (at) oztron.com, I still have several other classes to complete and will be around the university over the coming couple of weeks.

Voice chat demo

For todays class each person was required to make a short clip at least, showing they have voicechat working and understand a lot of the machinima settings.

Shortcut keys for camera control

ADD COMMAND KEY FOR MACS

Second week back - learning how to film in Second Life

This week we will go through the following settings which will help us film our machinima in Second Life. You should spend a little time exploring these techniques to see which will best suit your film, and then it's finally time to start capturing!

CAMERA CONTROLS, PANNING
alt + left click to focus (+ cmd for mac)
ctrl-alt + left arrow to orbit (+ cmd for mac)
alt + down arrow to zoom out (+ cmd for mac)
ctrl-alt-shift+arrow keys to zoom (+ cmd for mac)

EDITING YOUR GRAPHICS SETTINGS
To see your FPS/performance
View>Statistics
To change settings
Edit>Preferences>Graphics
For example - if you are doing close up shots, limit your view distance to increase performance.

SPECIAL SETTINGS FOR MACHINIMA
Edit>Preferences>Input and Camera
DEBUG MENU - ctrl-alt-d (+ cmd for mac)
INTERFACE ON/OFF - ctrl-alt-f1 (+ cmd + function for mac)
Client > Character > Slow Motion Animations
Disable Camera Constraints
Debug Settings>zoomtime

Advanced>Character>Enable Lipsynch

World>Environment Settings>Environment Editor

SOFTWARE
Crazytalk
Fraps
Captureme




Check the links below for a lot more information about all of this, including video tutorials.

Finishing our sets, first week back from holidays

First week back, and into the final stretch.
This week we are finishing up our sets, getting them ready to film in.
We will be using Fraps to capture the video.
A couple of important SL shortcuts are;
DEBUG MENU - crtl-alt-d
INTERFACE ON/OFF - ctrl-alt-f1
Please note you need to have your debug menu on to control the interface.

Links that will help you;

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Machinima
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Movie_help

There are plenty of ways to skin a cat - consider your story carefully and plan your set and film accordingly, and ask for help if you need it.

The VU virtual commission flats.....

Last week before holidays - units under construction

It's the final week of term and everybody should have their stories and/or scripts posted on their blogs.
We have started to deck out our apartments, above is a picture of work in progress.

Tuesday at Flinders - WM

Another Tuesday class at Flinders after missing last week because of the special new media workshops.

Today the aim was to get the scripts and hopefully comics completed. Several people are going well on the scripts, several aren't.
By next week, which is our last week before holidays, everyone will need to have their scripts and comic/storyboards 100% complete so that next term we can get stuck into the machinima making immediately.
Anyone who hasn't got the script and storyboards complete by next week will have to meet with me and discuss why it is worth them continuing, as they will be too far behind to catch up and pass.

Wed afternoon at St Albans - working on our stories

Today we started working on our stories for the final machinima piece.
Some students are working alone, some are working in groups (there are a couple of trios).
Any student not here this week will NOT be able to join any of the existing groups.

Stories should be created initially in wordpad/notepad.
Next week they will then be transferred to Comic Life as a storyboard, helping us to examine the kinds of scenery and shots we will require for the final machinima piece.
The final step shall be creating the machinima, which we will start in two weeks.

Several students in this class are falling behind, and will need to update their blogs to remain in the class. Please feel free to email me with any concerns.

Thursday at Flinders - Interactive Storytelling

Today we started off by building a spinning globe, learning how to drop scripts in and how to build symmetrically.

We then made some guns, firstly replacing the bullets, then making original guns, and bullets. Some people made hoverboards etc.

We then had a quick look at Comic life, from here on we will be concentrating on machinima.

Wednesday afternoon - New Media

Today we had our third and final Second Life class, we just did a quick little project building a tv and entertainment unit each for the apartments.

We then moved onto Comic Life, with each student creating one comic each.

HOMEWORK for next week is to come up with a beginning, middle and end for the Melbourne Story. Over the coming couple of weeks we will be workshopping our story ideas using Comic Life, then after the break we will be in full machinima production mode.

Wednesday morning - first class with St Albans IM class

We did the introduction to Second Life as listed several times below.

Welcome to Interactive Storytelling.

Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment

• Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
• History of Multimedia - Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
• Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)

Introduction to augmented and virtual reality

Second Life and other Virtual Words

• There
• Openlife
• Activeworlds
• Entropia
• Playstation Home
• The Sims
• Google Earth
• Lively
• Photosynth

What is required in a virtual environment?

Introduction to Second Life

• Registering
• Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
• Applying textures
• Using the Appearance Tool
• Searching
• Teleporting
• Object, Library and Inventory Use

We had a quick look at how to make t-shirts. Most people made them without any hassles.

Tuesday at Flinders - IM

Today we had another quick look at building, (a coffee table) before getting stuck into Comic Life.
http://www.plasq.com
We used Comic Life to create small one-two page stories, which will be ideal for storyboarding our machinima ideas over the coming weeks.
Next week this class has a Milan workshop so the task to be completed over the coming fortnight is to create a blank storyboard(just text bubbles, not pictures) of your apartment story ideas(using comic life). These should be at least a few pages long.

Interactive Storytelling - Intro to Second Life

Welcome to Interactive Storytelling.

Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment

• Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
• History of Multimedia - Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
• Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)

Introduction to augmented and virtual reality

Second Life and other Virtual Words

• There
• Openlife
• Activeworlds
• Entropia
• Playstation Home
• The Sims
• Google Earth
• Lively
• Photosynth

What is required in a virtual environment?

Introduction to Second Life

• Registering
• Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
• Applying textures
• Using the Appearance Tool
• Searching
• Teleporting
• Object, Library and Inventory Use

What is Interactive Story telling?
How can VR be used to tell a story?

You must visit three places in Second Life, take a snapshot, and complete a short review on each place.

• Location Name?
• Region?
• People Online?
• What is done there?
• What is your opinion of it, and why?
• Would you visit again?

Eg;


The first location I visited was Ocean Sunrise.
I liked the trees(nice palms), they used some nice saturated rich colors, and nice waves.
I didn't like the land style, and the sand was a little boring, it needed more shapes or perhaps some grass. There didn't seem like there was too much to do, and there wasn't many original creations to examine.
I would come back if I needed a new style of palm tree.

Week 2 at St Albans, New Media

Today we did spinning globes with clouds, using rotation scripts and earth and cloud textures, followed by some t-shirts using fireworks templates.
We then had some free building time, where each student had to build an object for their apartment. Many built fridges, there was a tv, couch, and a few other things.
After that we finished by having a look at Comic Life.

NO CLASS NEXT WEEK - STRIKE.
We will make up for this by extending the classes during the last 5 weeks by 30 mins.

The Dumb Man

A good example of Second Life machinima - it's all about the story.

First New Media Class out at St Albans

Today was our first day of New Media out at St Albans.

Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment

• Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
• History of Multimedia - Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
• Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)

Introduction to augmented and virtual reality

Second Life and other Virtual Words

• There
• Openlife
• Activeworlds
• Entropia
• Playstation Home
• The Sims
• Google Earth
• Lively
• Photosynth

What is required in a virtual environment?

Introduction to Second Life

• Registering
• Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
• Applying textures
• Using the Appearance Tool
• Searching
• Teleporting
• Object, Library and Inventory Use

What is Interactive Story telling?
How can VR be used to tell a story?

You must visit three places in Second Life, take a snapshot, and complete a short review on each place.

• Location Name?
• Region?
• People Online?
• What is done there?
• What is your opinion of it, and why?
• Would you visit again?

Eg;


The first location I visited was Ocean Sunrise.
I liked the trees(nice palms), they used some nice saturated rich colors, and nice waves.
I didn't like the land style, and the sand was a little boring, it needed more shapes or perhaps some grass. There didn't seem like there was too much to do, and there wasn't many original creations to examine.
I would come back if I needed a new style of palm tree.

We finished by posting all this on our blogs.
Student addresses should be posted as replies to this blog.

Story basics - a reminder for all classes

Hi all.

When developing your story, remember the story shape we discussed during class. This story shape can help you create a story that gets people interested in it. You can use this structure as a kind of scaffolding to hang your story off. The elements of the story shape are as follows:

- setup (introduction to characters, scene, future conflicts)
- turning point (a 'point of no return' that leads to stuff happening in the story)
- crisis points (where the drama/conflict increases)
- a climax (The height of the drama, out of which comes the ultimate end to the story)
- a denouement (a winding down of the story, where things are wrapped up)

Remember too that the story idea for your Second Life project requires at least two characters: your own Second Life character/Avatar and a visitor. You cna have as many other characters as you like - but remember, you have to film them in your Second life apartment so make sure your story is realistic and achievable.

Some questions about bringing 3dsmax into Second Life answered

Some good questions from Glen;

Is it possible to model meshes in max, and export them to second life?

And if this IS a possiblity, can you export animation keyframes with them? Meaning, can we export our own models from max, into 2nd life, and have them animated?

If so, this will really help open up the potential of action that occurs in our machinima stories.

The answer to this (yes) is quite complex, posted below is some information from http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims:_3d_Software_Guide

If you wish to make what are known as 'sculpted' prims I suggest reading that whole wiki.

In terms of animation, there is a massive range of animations to choose from for Second Life avatars in world, or you can import .bvh files(avimator or poser export these, I am not 100% sure about 3ds).

The best help of all will be jumping in (you can sign up at secondlife.com, search for Victoria University once in if you need space to build) and having a look around. Like any OOP (object oriented programming, think flash) - it has quite a steep learning curve, but after those initial few hours you will realise just how much is possible and how easily it can be achieved.

Thanks for the questions, and keep them coming. I look forward to catching up with those of you I haven't met yet.

3d Studio Max (Autodesk)

• Website: Autodesk 3ds Max
• Cost: US$3495. Educational License: ~US$200. Subscription: ~US$500/year.
• Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP, Windows Vista (with version 9.1)
• Trial version available?: Yes, 30-day demo, full features
• User Scripting? Yes, MAX Script/plugins
• Modeling Methods: Polygons, NURBS, Subdivsion, Basic Brush Sculpting
• Built-in Texture Baking? Yes (some functions only in version 8 and higher)
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: Yes
  • Prim Composer for 3ds Max Prim Composer is a complete offline builder for Second Life and OpenSim. Create regular prims and sculpts within 3ds Max and import them into either Second Life or OpenSim as linked sets. Hierarchical grouping and gizmo scaling are supported within 3ds Max. (from the maker of SculptGenMax) Open Source.
  • Method 1 by Gearsawe Stonecutter, uses a premade template file.
  • Method 2 by Abu Nasu, uses a shader. Download the Materials file here, or the updated Materials file here. Read the tutorial here.
    • A varient of Abu's methood by Chip Midnight uses a projection modifier and can handle arbitrary shapes but requires Max version 8 or higher. The tutorial is here.

Formerly Maya's main competitor, especially in the game industry. Then Autodesk (the makers of Max) bought out Alias (the makers of Maya) a couple years ago. So far the company is developing both products separately, marketing Maya at the movie industry and Max at the game developers, but they have long had comparable feature sets, and in the future it's likely that there will be tighter integration between the two. A choice between Maya and Max generally comes down to user preference and (particularly in our case) plugin support. Some users have said that Max is easier for a newbie to learn than Maya and certain basic controls share similarities with SL's build tools (such as shift-drag to copy).

Resources

SL Prims to 3ds Max - A prim building plugin and export system for Max. Open source.

Prim Composer for 3ds Max - Prim Composer is based on SL Prims and SculptGenMax. 3ds Max offline building plugin for both prims and sculpties. Open Source.

WM1 Flinders Class Two - Tuesday July 21st

Today we caught up with the blogs which could not be accessed last week.
We then did the spinning earth exercise, learning how we can place a rotation script inside a textured sphere to make it spin. We then made some transparent clouds for the earth which span at a different pace.
After this we worked on some fridges and various household items, to practice importing textures and basic building.
We then blogged about it all, and went for a field trip to the NGV. More to come on that!

Note - Sorry all, I didn't realise that the gallery was undergoing renovations! We will return at a later stage, in the meantime please feel free to email me at dale (at) oztron.com with any questions about how Second Life can be used.

Preview images of your apartments

Here are some preview images of the flat everyone shall be given to use as a set for their machinima pieces.

Next to the window(the photo shall be redone from Eureka tower.)


Looking at the kitchen on the left, and through to the bedroom on the right.


Standing looking at the entry, kitchen to the left, bedroom behind that, and window number 2 on the right along with some lounge space.


You can visit the display apartment in Second Life by searching for Victoria University(it's diagonally opposite all of the white buildings with native trees on the island).
You shall all be given self-rezzing copies in which you will be able to modify the textures and content to suit your own machinima piece.
We will be building some of the content during the course, such as artwork, a fridge, and furniture.

WM1 Flinders Class One - Tuesday July 14th

Welcome to Writing for Multimedia.

We will be doing the classes from week 6 today as Stefan is at a conference.

Introduction to Interactive Storytelling, explanation of course outline and assessment

• Linear versus interactive multimedia/storytelling
• History of Multimedia - Speech>Text>Print>Radio>Television>Interactive Multimedia
• Discussion of future technologies and their impact on society in general (Disabled, Digital Divide, Intelligence/Individual Divide, What will become of our current reality?)

Introduction to augmented and virtual reality

Second Life and other Virtual Words

• There
• Openlife
• Activeworlds
• Entropia
• Playstation Home
• The Sims
• Google Earth
• Lively
• Photosynth

What is required in a virtual environment?

Introduction to Second Life

• Registering
• Modifying avatars/characters in Second Life
• Applying textures
• Using the Appearance Tool
• Searching
• Teleporting
• Object, Library and Inventory Use

What is Interactive Story telling?
How can VR be used to tell a story?

You must visit three places in Second Life, take a snapshot, and complete a short review on each place.

• Location Name?
• Region?
• People Online?
• What is done there?
• What is your opinion of it, and why?
• Would you visit again?

Eg;


The first location I visited was Ocean Sunrise.
I liked the trees(nice palms), they used some nice saturated rich colors, and nice waves.
I didn't like the land style, and the sand was a little boring, it needed more shapes or perhaps some grass. There didn't seem like there was too much to do, and there wasn't many original creations to examine.
I would come back if I needed a new style of palm tree.

..............................................................

We also looked at creating tshirts, with everyone creating their own shirt from a template in fireworks.

For anyone who missed it, the file can be found on mmshare>secondlife, or alternately you can download a similar template here as well as view instructions;

http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/RSWTShirtStart.html

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to Writing for Multimedia - or Interactive Storytelling, if you're doing the games course.

Your teachers are Stefan Schutt (stefan.schutt {at} vu.edu.au) and Dale Linegar (daleoztron {at} gmail.com). Stefan will cover the general story, character and industry stuff, and Dale will be guide your guide into developing a story and machinima using Second Life (this will be your major project).

In this class, you’ll learn how to enhance your design and development career with writing skills. You’ll find out what makes stories and characters tick, how to create scripts and how interactive narratives differ from linear stories. We’ll also building assets in Second Life, making movies from within Second Life - and we'll cover some visual aspects of interactive writing including tips on how to write for the screen. Welcome aboard.

Week 1 :: Introductions. What is interactive media? What is interactivity? What is immersion? :: A history | Technology and times :: What is an interactive media writer? | What skills do they need? | Some project roles.

Generating ideas | Postcards exercise :: How to write: point of view, style and structure, active/passive voices, sentence length

Week 2 :: Script formatting for dialogue. Plotting and story shapes: linear narrative. Hero’s Journey. Three act play.

Week 3 :: Flexible week: create storyboard of linear narrative. Create script of scene.

Week 4 :: Non-linear and interactive stories. Creating characters: character sketches.

Week 5 :: Writing dialogue: pacing, believability.

Creating worlds: fleshing out your idea, Creating worlds cont

Week 6 :: Introduction to Virtual Reality and Second Life. Basic Avatar Design. Location
Reviews - Uploading artwork

Week 7 :: Avatar design, T-shirt design, Prop design

Week 8 :: NGV, Building and scripting objects - Fridge with opening door,
rotating kitchen items

Week 9 :: Building and scripting objects - Furniture with sitting/sleeping
scripts

Week 10 :: Comic Life - recreating stories as comic strips using SL

Week 11 :: Machinima in SL - tips and techniques

Week 12 :: Filming and editing

Week 13 :: Filming and editing

Week 14 :: Filming and editing; presentations