Evaluating Our Project November 6, 2010

We have now completed our project for the Future Cinema and Designing for Interactivity, we have made the ‘Archetypal Reflectomatic’ (which is a title I really like because it sounds like something from Wallace and Gromit!), which is basically a mirror but a projection at the same time.

It works by providing the user with a t-shirt that has an AR Code printed on to it. Then when they enter the room with the ‘mirror’ will pick up the code and turn the wearer into either a character from a different genre of film, or put them into the kind of scenario you would expect from that genre.

For this we have used the FLARToolKit (using Flash), we started off using MaxMSP but soon discovered that this was a much more effective way of producing what we wanted as our end result. We printed our t-shirts by hand as we decided that this would be the most time effective way to produce them just in case something went wrong and we had to change how they were printed or what was to be printed on them.

In terms of the ‘cinematic experience’, we came to the conclusion amongst ourselves that the social part of this experience is the most important. Our idea is that this could be used as something in the entrance hall before you go in to see the film as perhaps a bit of teaser material. Or even afterwards so people can relive parts of the film to discuss them with their friends and family.

When we began making this we were not entirely sure how to go about it. We knew what it was that we wanted to do but we only had vague ideas about how we should go about it. We were given a crash course in MaxMSP to make an attempt at what we wanted to achieve but we had problems with the fact that we could only get it to work within a 2D space as opposed to the 3D space that we wanted to use. We spoke to Liam to see what his suggestions were and had a little scout on the Internet and found the solution to our problems with the FLARToolKit.

When it came to testing our first prototype we got another member of our class to try on the t-shirt and have a go with it in front of the laptop on a smaller scale. He understood the concept of what we were trying to get across and thought it was a good idea, the feedback that he gave us was mostly the stuff that we had already decided that we needed to work on, such as making the videos bigger so that they cover the whole person as opposed to just over the marker.

We have made two versions of our product to see which works better with the user. The first version that we planned was the option of turning the user into a stereotypical version of a character from a specific genre, i.e. a zombie from a horror film, a cowboy from a western and our second idea was to use semiotics to put the user into an environment which would be reminiscent of the genre, i.e. aliens flying around for sci fi. We have made an example for both of these ideas, tested them out and are satisfied with them.

With regards to improving on this project, should we have had more time to develop our idea and create it we would be able to make a more sophisticated model, that would be in 3D, would move with the wearer so that the two could interact, and have a soundtrack. We would also like to have been able to develop this idea further in terms of making two characters able to interact with one another, as opposed to just one person using it at a time (therefore reinforcing the social aspect of the cinematic experience).

So Then, We’re Pretty Much All Wrapped Up November 5, 2010

Our animations are done, our t-shirts are done, the coding is done, everything is done. Life is good. We do have one hiccup though, we printed our t-shirts with the old markers and since then Mat has been able to make new ones that work with the animations. However, for the crit we have decided that we will show our working t-shirt as an original prototype and then we will show our new markers working off the webcam and a piece of paper with the idea that they can then be printed onto a t-shirt.

The Finished Animations November 2, 2010

I have finished my two animations that will be triggered by the markers.

Aliens

Zombie

Making Marker T-Shirts November 2, 2010

Last night Alice and I started making our AR Code T-Shirts ready for a test this morning. Here is our top when it was finished:

This morning we tested out our tops with Mat‘s coding as he has now edited it to fit in the animations that I made. We filmed a couple of test videos just to ensure that it works, thanks to Sam for modelling for us!

Tracker Test One

Tracker Test Two

Learning Agreement for Future Cinema November 2, 2010

Name: Cat Abbott

Course: Digital Media Production Level: 5

Unit: Future Cinema

Reference number: IMD516

Credit points: 22.5

Study hours: 225 hours

Tutor(s): Liam Birtles, Phil Beards, Amanda Stephenson and Bob Cotton

Synopsis of study

For the Future Cinema Unit we will be working on an ‘Interactive Mirror’. The idea behind this is that the user can put themselves in the scenario of a film. We are focusing on the conversational element of the cinematic experience; what you discuss with your friends and the people you are with when you leave the cinema. As they enter the room they will be given a choice of ‘Genre T-Shirts’, which have fiducial markers printed on them, each of the markers will trigger a different animation to turn the wearer into a character from that genre. For example, there will be a horror t-shirt that will then turn the wearer into a zombie, or a western t-shirt that would turn the wearer into a cowboy. As our main prototype we will be creating a sci-fi shirt, turning the user into an alien, we are going to make sure that the image is animated on to the person instead of it just appearing, this will make it a little more interesting for the user and make a little bit of suspense in what is happening.

We will go about this by creating our own fiducial markers to be transferred onto t-shirts. Using the FLARToolKit we will ensure that when the wearer comes in front of the camera an animation of the character will begin, turning them into, for example, an alien. We will transfer our markers on to different T-Shirts so that a different T-Shirt will trigger a different animation. The characters for the animation will be designed and created in Adobe Illustrator, they will then be animated in Adobe After Effects and exported within an Alpha Channel to ensure that when they are triggered the user can see the background that is actually around them at the time, to make it seem as if the ‘cinematic experience’ was being created within their own reality. Once this has been done they will be synced up with the coding of the markers in Adobe Flash, this means that when they are presented in front of the camera they will project our animations as opposed to some kind of stock footage.

We have chosen to do this because we decided that the most important part of the cinematic experience is when you are able to discuss it afterwards, comparing with friends and/or family what you liked, what you disliked, how you felt and what you inferred from the given scenarios. By allowing the audience to talk at the same time as receiving the experience it can, in theory, make it more enjoyable for the audience (as talking is generally frowned upon in the cinematic environment you cannot discuss at the same time the ‘action’ is happening). Our idea aims to increase the social aspect of the cinematic experience and with more time we would like to be able to create it so that more than one character can be in the same screen at any time and then they can interact with one another.

For this project I will be helping out with the programming aspects, as I wish to learn more about it but without getting too much out of my depth, but mostly I will be making the animations that appear when the marker is produced in front of the camera. As well as this I will be overseeing the production of the t-shirts as this is something that I have had experience with and generally keeping everything organized and ensuring that our group blog is written and maintained at a professional level, should we get the opportunity to present this idea to other companies.

Aims

A1 To refine and develop an understanding of the appropriate use of interactive technologies in the application of media solutions.

A2 To research and develop design solutions addressing the users’ needs.

A3 Evaluate the use and development of a prototype.

A4 To demonstrate an understanding of the role of multimedia in contemporary society

Learning outcomes:

LO1 Investigate, analyse and design appropriate applications of interactive media.

LO2 Analyse existing solutions to similar problems and demonstrate an understanding of their effectiveness. Changes in technology should be reflected in the analysis.

LO3 Design and assemble an interactive prototype.

LO4 Analyse and contextualise multimedia communication forms and solutions in contemporary media

Assessment Criteria

• Evidence of understanding through research and analysis. (c) Report on effective uses of multimedia and its role in contemporary media (LO1, LO4)
• Evidence of knowledge of technical processes (b) – Through detailed report and practical assignments (LO2, LO3)
• Evidence of realisation through communication of solutions (f) – Final multimedia presentations demonstrating effective use of media (LO2, LO3)
• Evidence of realisation through application of technical knowledge and skills. (g) – Presentation of final production, web blog, written report (LO3)

References
All reference material can be found on the project’s blog:

http://archetypalreflectomatic.tumblr.com

Action plan/time plan

We have agreed with our tutors that for this project we will be making a prototype of our idea. For this we will print one or two t-shirts with a tracker, one of them will go with our proposed idea of a genre t-shirt, and for the purpose of the prototype we will make it according to one genre (we have chosen to do the horror genre and make a zombie character). As well as this we will make a different version using the semiotics of a genre and get them to hover and move around the person, with the idea that in the future they could move around and interact with the person on the screen. Likewise in the future we would like to be able to get the genre character to move about with the wearer so that it can interact with other users at the same time.

We have broken down everything that needs to be done and been assigned jobs for what needs to be done and we have set days by which things need to be achieved by so we will finish in time with a working prototype to present at the deadline.

Making Animations November 1, 2010

I have been given the designs for our animations from Alice and have begun animating them. We are working with two ideas on this, our original idea that a character will appear according to a genre and turn the wearer into something such as a zombie, and our second idea that we will have semiotics from a particular genre floating around the wearer. For the latter idea we have chosen the sci-fi genre and are using space invaders characters to fly around.

For the alien project I have made the space invaders so that they fly around in uniform as they would on the game version, with the larger ship flying across the top. However I have altered it so that the big ship is shooting the aliens, instead of all of them being shot at. At the end of the animation I will get a few of them to fly randomly around the screen.

For the zombie project the animation is a lot simpler. I got Alice to give me the image file in two parts, the lines and the colour. I have masked all of the lines and hidden the colour so that to begin with the lines will appear as if they are being drawn on and then as they are reaching completion I will put up the opacity of the colour layer so it looks like it is being coloured in as well as drawn on.

Progress with the FLARToolKit October 27, 2010

Over the last couple of days Mat has made a good deal of progress with some FLARToolKit research. He has found something that shows us exactly what we need to do to get our project to work within Flash, instead of using ReacTIVision and MaxMSP. However, this does now mean that I don’t really have a job any more, so I am helping Alice with the content side of our project and am going to animate what she designs.

Fiducials With MaxMSP & Jitter October 22, 2010

After being taught the basics on how to use MaxMSP and Jitter we have been playing with some patches that came with ReacTIVision when it was downloaded, in theory these will, in conjunction with other parts of coding, make a movie play when it is displayed.

We have linked this patch to a tutorial patch within Jitter and have managed to make it so that when the tracker moves the video does too.

So far we have been successful in making the video rotate when the marker is rotated, and in theory we will use the same method in order to get it to move left and right, should the wearer of the fiducial t-shirt move left and right also.

Making our own Fiducials October 20, 2010

Today we have been experimenting with making our own fiducial markers. We have done this by using a programme called FidGen, a piece of software that can be downloaded for free and the markers created will work with ReacTIVision. Here are some examples of the markers that we have made.

Brain is Sufficiently Frazzled October 19, 2010

Ok, so, we tried out our fiducials today. I say ours, we enlarged one of the ones that came with the download of ReacTIVision just to check that they would still work when they were enlarged (for when we put them on a t-shirt). One of the things that we’re still not sure of is whether or not they would work on a girl. Due to the matter of a chest getting in the way and therefore not making the fiducial straight anymore.

We are now looking at 3D tracking with this so that the image will scale with the person and move how they move instead of being straight in front of them. This would probably involve making the ‘characters’ in Maya and then going from there. I don’t think we’re entirely sure, but we definitely need to get a shift on. I also need to somehow get Maya back in my Mac. Things are a little more confident now that we’ve been given the go ahead and our idea is sufficient to the brief.

Yesterday I spent most of the day figuring out how to use ReacTIVision, I’ve learnt the shortcuts (and written them down for future reference), we also got it to read our enlarged fiducial. Whilst it didn’t necessarily play a movie, it did recognise it which showed us that it will still recognise the fiducial when it’s resized.

Today Liam started to introduce us to using Max MSP and Jitter. For what we want to do it seems we will mostly be using the Jitter elements. I have taught myself (using a tutorial) how to capture a live video input.

I have tried to rebuild this tutorial myself (see the left side of the screen shot, the right side is the original), it’s considerably messier but I think I understand the elements needed in order to do this and how to piece it together.