The principles of interactive authoring

BTEC Subsidiary Diploma in Interactive Media 11/12 - Principles of Interactive Authoring

Authoring software, also known as authorware is software that allows users to write hypertext or multimedia applications and make a final application by merely linking together objects such as text, images or a song. This can be done by defining the objects purpose and how it relates to other objects and by sequencing them in the appropriate order, authors using authoring tools can produce incredibly useful and good looking applications with more ease than using programming software would.

            When it comes to differentiating authoring and programming software, no clear distinction is immediately visible. However when looked at authoring software is much easier to use, especially for less technically advanced users. They require less technical knowledge to master and are used exclusively for applications that present a mixture of textual, graphical and audio data whereas programming software can be used to program mechanical devices and change and create existing software and hardware.

            The key difference between authoring software and programming languages like ‘C’ is authoring involves the assembly and bringing together of Multimedia with possibly high level graphical interface design and some high level scripting.

 

When it comes to ‘high level’ and ‘low level’ software those who are new to the terminology will think that high level means that you must be ‘highly advanced’ in programming to use it. It actually refers to how ‘close’ the software is to the actual computer and hardware in the sense that the lowest language is binary which is all 1s and 0s. Right above binary coding is Assembly coding, both of which can only be used by the most advanced users as they are so complicated, the next level is C, the coding language that most people can actually read and is the most used by programmers, as well as the language Java. Authoring software in this sense is rather high and could be described as ‘basic’.

This brings attention to GLBasic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It is authoring software used to create games, databases and anything that does not require an extensive library and can get quite complicated at times but it is still good software for beginners as key words and commands are already recognised in the code and there are easy to use ways of writing out code that is easy to master. It is essentially an easy version of the coding language ‘C’. Obviously GLBasic is limited as to what it can do as it is high level software.

 

 

There is a lot of authoring software to choose, from the most basic and easiest to use to software that takes a little longer to master:

·         Powerpoint

·         Prezi

·         Director

·         Snap!Empower

·         edgeLib

·         Flash

·         GLBasic

 

Powerpoint and Prezi are by far the easiest to learn and master. They are both used for presentations, Prezi being the newest way of doing so with interesting animations and a newer feel with the way it zooms in and out and twists and turns that looks complex but in fact is quite easy to make. With both Powerpoint and word you can easily drag and drop, copy and paste any and all images into your work. Prezi has the ability to zoom in and out of the pallet that contains the artwork and text with many animations to choose from that are already part of the program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A prezi presentation zoomed out to reveal more information and artwork

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The same Prezi presentation zoomed out further ready to zoom in on key points in the presentation to then be discussed by the person presenting it to the audience.

 

Powerpoint works in a similar manner for the same purpose but instead of working as one big image it works in slides to either cut to or animate through the different slides containing different information and images like a controlled slideshow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can create complex presentations with Powerpoint and even create complex point and click games through extensive authoring and editing with skill.

This kind of authoring is used by people who want to demonstrate and present their ideas or creations to others and allows users to easily put their minds onto a canvas for others to explore.

 

Moving onto more complex authoring software is Adobe Director and Snap!Empower. Adobe director is and expensive piece of software that allows authors to create and publish interactive games and eLearning courses for the web, iOS devices, Mac and Windows desktops, DVDs, and CDs. With Adobe director users can integrate virtually any major file format, including FLV, swf and native 3D content. This requires some skill to use but through using the software users can master it and create good applications.

In comparison to authoring software such as Director and Flash, Snap!Empower is extremely basic, easy to use and prides itself in the fact absolutely no experience in flash or design is needed to use it. There are hundreds of pre-set designs, images and flash animations available for users to simply drag and drop into the design area, which can then be altered and customized using simple tools. This is very high level authoring software.

 

           

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 Snap!Empower may be seen as being too basic. More advanced users who have the knowledge to actually make their own animations may want it to look more unique or they may want their own animation and designs rather than using pre-sets. This can be done with more advanced authoring software and programming.

           

            However easy to use authoring software is, it will always work the same as other authoring software with different purposes. There are those for presentation, creating applications and games or creating websites. They all share the same idea of having code made in the C language being pre set into the software for easy to use coding and editing. Almost all authoring software is created with C. Advanced users with more technological experience and skill in the C language can create the same content authors can with the authoring software.

            Authoring is done with the use of interactive buttons, scores, timelines, slideshows and animations whereas C is used to create from scratch. It also involves the assembly and bringing together of Multimedia with possibly high-level graphical interface design and some high level scripting. Flash is most known for the use of buttons and animations. Many games are created with Flash because of its capabilities to make animations and game mechanics with bone tools, buttons, prompts and in built shapes and a timeline, which makes for a much faster and easier way of creating than programming.

 

            When it comes to choosing authoring or programming it comes down to how experienced the user is. Authoring can severely limit authors to how much they can really do. With lower authoring software such as GLBasic or Flash they can create their own games and go quite advanced but authoring has proven to be far more limited than programming. Programming, especially in C and Java, is much lower meaning it has far less boundaries than authoring software with pre-sets and limits on what the authoring software was designed to allow authors to create.

 

            Less experienced users will use authoring software over programming as there are guides and tutorials on how to use the software built in and code will often complete itself and problems will be shown and somewhat explained to the authors as they work. Authoring takes some getting used to but overall it gets work done much quicker and easier compared to programming.

Personal reflective comment

Personal reflective comment

My role in the group while making our James Bond interactive YouTube game was the Director. It was my job to make sure all the props and equipment were collected. I went out to purchase multiple items of clothing for the characters to fit in with the story and theme of the 'James Bond game. 

I took the job of making sure we had an actual story and narrative for our game. This meant doing research on our target audience (primary research), doing research on where we will be filming (location scouting) and making a storyboard and script.

The others in the group made the questionnaire after as a group we discussed what questions were needed to get the answers I could analyse to create the best story I could. The results we got suggested people would want motives behind their decisions and would want more quick time events.

            During the process of finding a place to film I tried to base my story around a house or a woodland area but these would be too far away or would not fit into the James Bond feel enough. After some looking I found the ‘ghost tunnels’ on Portland that looked great for a villain hideout.

            The storyboard was based off of the questionnaire results we received. The storyboard had all the details that would be in a professional storyboard, the type of shot it is, how long it goes on for, what goes on in the shot and a picture of what the shot should look like.

           

During filming we had to improvise with some shots due to the large amount of broken glass on the dirty floor in the dark and damp environment of the ghost tunnels and there not being enough room directly outside the entrance to the ghost tunnels. We also had to improvise with the environment we worked in by using rocks as a table.

I managed each shot as well as actually acting out several roles as the 'bad guys', moving the group along as fast as possible. We did have to stray away from the storyboard a bit due to health and safety reasons and also purely because we had a dirt bike we could use for our final shot we took the opportunity to have our James Bond drive away.

In the storyboard most of our shots were POV, filmed with the GOPRO camera. This went well until the GOPRO battery died before we could film the last scene. Luckily we had the HXR camera with us so we could film the fight scene from a mid shot to mid-close up perspective. This meant in the end we did have to show our bond characters face a bit more than we wanted to as we wanted our players to feel more in the characters shoes than watching someone else play.

            As the director I did a good job at pushing the team to film as fast as possible and keep as close to the storyboard as possible. We made sure to set up ‘filming in progress’ signs and to clean up after ourselves to keep the public safe and happy and we managed to finish on time with all the filming done in one day.

The filming had to be cancelled from our original date of Feb 12^th to the half term holidays because our Producer could not make it on time. This forced us to film way behind schedule and it put a lot of pressure on the whole team to get the editing and special effects done. We had a lot of effects we wanted like blood splatter and extra flash effects that we had to avoid doing, as it would simply take too much time to do. The postproduction was put under a lot of stress because of this and we had to work towards the deadline rather than have it completed one week before like we had originally planned in our schedule.

Towards the end of the project our Producer, Adam stopped communicating with us. He stopped answering text messages and phone calls and he did not join the Facebook page we set up early in the project to keep communication inside the group and he did not post all his important documents on the group Dropbox which hindered our capabilities of written work as we had no reference to the documents he was seemingly keeping from us. This is due to the fact he fell very ill towards the end of the project and the area he lived in had very bad connection so Adam could not receive text messages and calls.  This meant we had to make some changes, as it seemed our producer was gone for a while.

This is why I was made the new Producer so I could keep tabs on the whole group and make sure we had all the written work and editing done. I supplied the group with content that would help them in their tasks and made sure to do as much written work as I could to help with the group.

Drew did all the editing and he was doing a great job at it. I assigned graphical and written work to Kia and Scott while I did a lot of written work and helped out in individual tasks. Me pushing the group and assigning jobs put the group on the right track towards completion in a much less ‘panicky’ working environment’. Without the Dropbox and Facebook page, along with Skype chat we would have been in serious trouble. They were both out main way of communicating with each other and for me, making sure the group was doing their part.

Overall the group did a great job at making sure we had permission to film, gathering research, props and equipment, filming at a professional and fast pace and editing the final product. We constantly double checked our sources and risk assessments and made sure to keep good communication in the whole group despite some bad connection issues.

Video for Interactive Media: What You Need to Know

With the way digital video technology is advancing, designers have many more ways enhance a users experience. Before the Internet, video sharing and online advertisements, it would be extremely difficult to get a wide audience to view your content because it would take so long to get your content shown around. Now in the world wide web companies from big to small can have their content and advertisements viewed by hundreds almost instantly around the whole world. The web can be used on multiple platforms, the most portable and arguably popular is the smart phone.

 The way this media has evolved has opened doors for companies to grow, now into other countries because the world wide web can be accessed all around the world. Small growing companies who would not have stood a chance against the big titles before the internet can now have advertise and have people see their content from users in their own city to users on the other side of the world.

 This advancement in this area of the digital interactive media also allows small time companies and users to buy or rent their own hardware and software like editing software and HD cameras to create their own media.

 This also goes towards more personal use of the media, a lot of mobile phones have HD cameras and better advanced cameras a becoming more accessible to people who specialise in that area of the media. A website that has thrived off of people posting their own content that they have created themselves is YouTube, a site that allows users to post their own videos. YouTube started in 2005 and in the 8 years it has been going users have shared their videos to people all around the world and view each others content. Due to it's popularity with millions of people, some videos getting over billions of views, YouTube has become a big site for big companies to place their adverts and use their advanced software and hardware to create interesting videos and target the correct audience based on what genre the video is in, whether that is gaming, educational or comedy.

 People can become extremely popular through websites like this, because millions of people will re-blog or re-post and in general 'share' things they like with all their friends who in turn show all their friends and so on. With the use of social networking sites through the internet and messaging. Just like in the 'real' world big companies pay celebrities to advertise their products, big companies can also advertise their product through 'internet celebrities', some of whom have millions of 'subscribers' who view their videos. The channel 'Uberhaxornova' has advertised an American energy drink called NOS:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjHx2jBSnE

 And other 'YouTube' celebrities have made similar deals, some of whom have over a billion subscribers viewing their videos. Through this method, normal people and designers can post videos to these sites and get paid through advert revenue as their full time job. This also means designers can afford new software and cameras for higher quality work, like some graphical designers such as 'Corridordigital'. The quality of their work has improved because of their viewers and advancements in camera technology and editing and graphical software:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEa0T9QdYm4

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_254413&feature=iv&index=2&list=PL84DB158CAABE4E07&src_vid=ZEa0T9QdYm4&v=EtRIrQR0C0s

 The technology and editing software can really be seen improving the content these designers put out without the help of big companies. What originally started as a hobby became a job. Videos like these are equal quality to most modern films, but before the internet and video sharing this media would have been in lower quality in movie theatres/cinemas, whereas now w can watch videos on platforms like:

•DVD

 •BLU-RAY

 •Tablets

 •Smart phones

 •Computers - Media sharing sites (YouTube) and social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter)

 •Entertainment systems like the xbox 360

 •Television

With almost everyone with smart devices capable of recording videos, almost everything is recorded then sent to local or nation, even international news stations which then go onto websites and news sites where people can watch and share what people would normally never see without access to the internet and instantaneous video recording. However, this can be bad for privacy reasons. If somebody is recorded when they do not want to be and then that video is posted online it is impossible to remove it from the internet. Some sites may take the videos down due to bullying but there will always be copies. Cyber bullying is a huge problem that can be done anonymously and can leave a huge impact on the targets of bullying.

Industries have become increasingly more powerful through the internet since its introduction in the 1950s computers to the ARPNET in the 1960s to the 1982 World Wide Web. These companies, the two most powerful being Apple and Microsoft have created their own operating systems that can be used to search the World Wide Web and to promote their products through advertisements.

                  The introduction of video sharing has caused a revolution in the media industry. Before almost every mobile phone had a built in camera people one side of the world could only learn what was happening on the other side world through news stations and newspapers. This is the ‘hypodermic needle effect’ introduced by Lazarsfeld in 1940, where the media had a full direct and immediate powerful effect on its audiences with information that is heavily edited to be heavily biased towards what the media wanted to show. Now that almost everyone has a mobile phone and can post videos onto blogs and video websites everyone around the world can video their everyday lives and what the world is really like. We as a human race can, for the first time, see the world for ourselves online. Despite third world county Governments trying to block the internet in their countries people on the outside still set up sites where people can post their stories and videos of their hardship and real life situations.

                  The news channels and papers no longer have full control over what the people see and understand, users can search for themselves online for the truth and real stories that are happening in war zones and countries have a struggling economy.

Before videos were available on the internet the only video entertainment sources were movies and television. Now television has hundreds of channels and movies have advanced onto bigger and smaller screens in high definition and 3D. Films and TV shows can now be watched online through websites owned by the channels and also through ‘pirating’ sites that have illegal free downloads of games, movies, videos, songs and any digital media that can be thought of through sites like Pirate bay. Many industries and companies have tried to sue and arrest the owners of these websites but to no avail. With the use of YouTube people can now make YouTube exclusive internet series such as ‘Forward unto Dawn’, a high budget live action series that is based on the popular shooter Halo. -

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJVgXBfSH8&list=EL6AoSkjfTnuc&index=1

 Many people choose to watch their favorite television shows and movies online or download them to watch at their leisure and even when not connected to the internet. The advancements in how much data everyone can personally hold in personal hard drives and memory sticks has increased greatly. It is common for people to have a 32Megabite memory stick for work and have terabytes worth of data in external hard drives which would not even be considered a possibility years ago. The introduction of motion capture allows realistic animations of animated characters like in the movie Avatar.

Today’s cameras can film in higher definition at higher FPS (frames per second). The standard FPS in filming is 24p, 25p and 30p (as progressive formats). More films are using higher FPS such as 48FPS like ‘The Hobbit’ but it was still optional to view in lower FPS because if the frames are too fast in can often cause nausea, especially in longer films. The difference between 30p and 60p can easily be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nU2_ERC_oE

A higher FPS gives much clearer movement and reduces motion blur which is what can cause people to feel sick as the camera moves fast but normal motion blur is minimized.

People have found interesting ways of making their videos interactive with the use of links placed over the videos that take them to different linked videos that tell a story that the player controls themselves. These are called interactive YouTube games. They are essentially point and click adventures and a lot have quick time events.

Like this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OVhanOQOw4  

It allows the viewers to choose their own story and make their own decisions.

This has become possible with the use of editing software such as Adobe Premier and Adobe after effects, just to list a few. After finishing the edit, users have multiple options for exports like .avi, .flv, .mpeg and .mpeg4. These are used to move media to different software formats, such as web designers using Adobe Flash who need to export in .flv to have videos play on their websites.

                  Over the last two decades DVD has replaced VHS video as the dominant format, which is then overtaken by digital downloads. This allows for videos to be shared and watched on portable devices like mobile phones and music players. We can download moving images quickly and easily with the use of ever increasing technology on smartphones and on our computers.

With new technology and applications being available to designers and editors to create content that can be used by the mass media and users worldwide we can see how advanced the technology really is. We have gigabytes of data stored in our pockets, we can share videos worldwide with the push of a button, we can see the true stories of people all over the world and we can share our own content. We can interact with each other through videos and the advancements of video technology over our mobile phones and computers and all without restriction. More people can grow their skills to be designers with more access to brilliant new digital technology.