What are you left with, once you take a sense away?

What is the role of the user?
The piece is an attempt to allow the user to try to gain an understanding of what it would be like to be blind/partially sighted. The user will enter an environment, which will be pitch black and the user will also be blindfolded to avoid any possible light.


Following the tutorial we had several questions to ask ourselves about the project:

Who are they?
The users will be several different students from around university. An individual will enter the room one at a time. The idea behind the individuality is an attempt to highlight the lonely experience that many people who have become blind feel.

What is in the space?
- physical objects
- sounds- which will be triggered by pressure pads, at least 5 or more? The sound will allow the person to experience the installation and consequently to become a part of it.

How will we shake up their senses?
We need them to be disorientated before they lose their sight completely. A blind person would be unbelievably confused. Moving objects, moving floor, moving walls, through sound effects?

Is there a dramatic situation?
A dramatic situation would give the piece meaning, it would give the user something to participate in and direction. Through conditional statements the user can progress through the situation, so if they move to somewhere in the room before they go somewhere else they will find out certain information that wouldn’t have been accessible without going to the first position in the room.

Does the user take up an ‘acted’ role?
If a dramatic situation is employed, the user will be an onlooker into the situation, learning information about what has happened and the story behind it, e.g. hearing a life story of a blind person etc. It will consequently be a partially acted role, as they will be basically doing what we want, and only accessing information that we allow them to gain if they imply ignore the piece and walk out, then they won’t have had any interaction, but that is their choice.

Tutorials

We had a tutorial with Peter today and explained our idea regarding the removal of senses. Peter encouraged us to make a decision about what sense we wanted to use and to try to move forward with the idea. During the talk we decided on a statement that would introduce the piece: What are you left with once you take a sense away? This would work much like a film one-liner, giving a slight insight into what the piece is about, but still remains intriguing. Through talking to Peter we realised that we had alot of work to do until we could reach a position where we could outline our final idea. We were still uncertain about which sense we wanted to concentrate on, indifferent between sight and hearing. However, we were sawying towards concentrating on the lose of sight. We realised that in order for this to be an accurate project we would have to talk to a person who had actually lost a sense and how this had effected their life. As a result, we decided that the best course of action was to contact the Royal Institution on the Blind and other charities for the blind.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Neal Bryant and I am a student at the University of
Westminster. I am currently doing a project into the blind, and in
particular how they experience the world. The project is primarily aimed
at people who have become blind during their life, and how they felt
during that period. I was wondering if you would be able to assist me in
meeting a blind person, who wouldn't mind being interviewed regarding
the issues from above. Any help would be extremely useful and gratefully
received.

Yours Faithfully,

Neal Bryant

At this point we are going to wait for our response from the charities contacted and hopefully move from there. In the mean time we have to research into the blind and try to think of how we could emphasize a loss of sight.

Advancements in Ideas

We had been discussing the idea of losing a sense and trying to highlight this lose in our animation. We were undecided on which sense to concentrate on. Obviously the easiest senses to use would be sight and hearing, but we also considered the idea of using touch, smell and taste.

How would each of these be implemented:

Sight: Either blindfold the user or move them into a situation which is unfamiliar.
Hearing: The user could wear sound reducing headphones, and put into a silent environment.
Touch: A room could be adapted into a room full of different textures.
Smell: An adaption on scratch and sniff which would also incorporate the sense of touch.
Taste: Try and link tastes to emotions/sounds/visions etc.

As i said earlier the easiest to implement would be sight and hearing. As hearing and sight are the most important senses they will be the most effective for a piece. The problem would be how could we highlight this lose of sense and how can we convey the loss to a level that would be true of the actual loss experienced in real life.

The Daisy Chained Magnetic Funness!!!

After experimenting with the IPAC card, Alberto and i decided that the best soltuion for the previous task set was to keep the flash side of it fairly simply, and get to grips with the Ipac car. As a result we decided on a simply animation that included a arrow moving around a compass that would be triggered by both the arcade button and also the magnet.



We used a simple code:

on (keyPress "c") {
gotoAndPlay(2);

}

on (keyPress "x") {
gotoAndPlay(41);

}

This code just corresponds an IPAC input to a key press, then once this has been 'triggered' a different frame is played within the movie clip. Within the movie clip there was a simple motion tween, moving the compass hand from one position to another around the compass. The keyPress 'c' corresponded to an arcade button and the 'x' keyPress corresponded to a magnetic switch.

The Nintendo Wii

The Nintendo Wii has recently won the BAFTA for innovation and has also won several other awards throughout the course of the year. The Wii remote has definitely taken both technolgy and the idea from earlier forms, such as the Nintendo's light gun for duck hunt, Power Glove and also from arcade games (using a gun to shoot rather than a controller, using a platform for a skateboard/snowboard/ using a plastic sword to swing rather than a controller).
Its interesting to see that the Wii is regarded as innovation considering the ideas are years old. In this instance the innvovation has been to take such a technology and apply it to something that could be sold on a huge scale, and that would appeal to the user.

The IPAC Card

We have been looking at using IPAC cards today, which is a card that can be plugged into a computer to replicate a keyboard. From this different sensory equipment e.g. pressure pads, or arcade buttons, or magnetic sensors. This can allow animations to use several different methods of input, which takes away the standard use of a simply keyboard and a mouse. An IPAC card consquently allows an animation to be triggered by a user without them knowing, taking it to another level that goes alot further than pressing a button and something happening as a result.

We were set the task to create an animation using the Ipac card, to include a daisy chain i.e. more than one input and to include a magnetic input.

Remediation

Remediation is the evolution of new media from old media.

Initial Ideas

After establishing that i would be working with alberto, we decided to talk through any initial ideas that either of us had previously considered.

These included:

* 3D Whacker Game - 3D Version of the whack It game where the person will be the whacker, like the traditional arcade game where characters appear from holes and are hit with a hammer.

* Fishing Game - Use magnets to trigger senses to pick up fish through virtual screen.

* Press-pad Objective Games - Involves press-pads to trigger action having mini games.

* Maze type Adventure Game - following a path in certain ways with moving walls and targets etc.

* Lose of Sense Experience - Taking away one of the five senses and seeing how the user reacts in a cartain situation.

Our favourite from these was the idea to do something with the lose of a sense. We both agreed that we wanted the project to be an epic piece and to be on a large and dramatic scale.

During the third practical session Tom informed me that the method that i had used to make the small previous flash animation, i.e. attaching the script to the individual movie clips, is no longer used in the Flash world and that it was now practice to put all of the actions together in its own layer, as it makes it simplier to find and to break it down understanding what you have used and for what. In the class we went through further Flash examples with Tom including examples that included variables, keypress and condional statements. We were set the task to complete the following before next lesson:

1) use an array to control or "target" something in your movie.

2) Build and Comment- A small project using keypress, variables and conditional statements.

Unfortunately SpaceCat was not to the standard that i would have hoped for, but following the class i felt more encouraged to take something from the experience.
We were then set the task of looking through Flash tutorials, to get us back into Flash mode. We had been given some examples that coinsided with the tutorials, which was useful as we could actually see the results of what had been said in the tutorials. I decided to use the coding form the spaceinvaders and pong examples where an object follows the mouse in order to effect its x position. I wanted to add to this and use the mouse to control both the x and y coordinates of the object. My inital idea would be a shooting game where the gun can be manuvered using the mouse and then on click a shot can be fired. I also wanted to introduce a moving target into the animation, so that the user has to aim at, adding another level to the shooting.

Here is how i put it together including the code that i used and an explanation of what it means.

The first stage was to import the background onto the stage. I decided to use a bar scene as the background, as many other shooting games do. The first step was to introduce a gun, i simply cut out an image from the internet to use. Following converting the image into a movie clip i need to make it fire when the mouse was clicked.

onClipEvent (mouseDown) {
_root.gun_mc.play();
}
This code means that when the event mousedown the flash file will return to the main level of the timeline (_root) then look into the Movie clip called gun_mc and consequently fire.

I wanted to introduce a crosshair so that the user can use this to aim where they shoot. i applied the following code to the crosshair's script, which would also set the gun to follow the crosshair.

onClipEvent (load) {
startDrag("", true);
Mouse.hide();
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
_root.gun_mc._x = _root.aim._x;
_root.gun_mc._y = _root.aim._y;
}

I wanted to add a moving target into the game, i decided to use a simply circle to illustrate this, obviously this could be changed to any shape or image. After drawing the circle and converting it into a movie clip i used the following code to make it move across the screen.

onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
if (this._x <= 500) {
this._x += 10;
}
else {
this._x = 30;
}
}

This code checks if the circles x cordinant is less than or equal to 500. If it is then the target is moved 10 px to the right. If its not then move the target to the point on the x axis where x is 30.The number 10 could be changed to a higher number to make it move quicker and a lower number to make it move slower across the stage.

As you can see this was quite a simply animation to put together and didn't involve that much coding, but it acted as a good refresher into using Flash again.

The main problem that i have encountered in producing the game was getting a collision to work between two sprites, the cat and the stars. I had previously planned for SpaceCat to collect stars as he jumped, therefore having to connect with the star in order to change the variable (score). However, as i have not been successful the Cat only jumps over the star and it appears as though the star vanishes becauses i have told it to hide. As a result the variable could be changed as the two sprites collide, which has taken away the scoring element from the game.

I now feel that i am at a point where i have all of the visuals that i need in order to produce SpaceCat however, i have encountered a problem when mporting then into Scratch because when you cut out a shape, for exmple the moon in photoshop, it cannot be saved with a transluent background in jpeg form consquently as its revolving it appears that the shape is a square and not a circle as it should. I have tried saving and importing the image in a different format, but unfortunately haven't had any luck findind one that works.

Chapter Two

Following our first lesson we were set the task to make a game using the program Scratch, which would hopefully further our understanding of coding before we start using flash again. Obviously the first step in this process was to decide on a theme for the game. Several initials ideas come to mind; for example a bingo game, of a simply tennis game, but after much deliberation i settled on an idea called SpaceCat. The idea had come from a card that i had which pictured a cat in space.



The first thing that i felt was necessary in order for the game to be sucessful was to outline what i wanted to happen in the game in a step by step plan.

* The user will be greeted with a flasing 'SpaceCat' message on top of a starry sky background. There will also an enter sign which allows the user to start the game.

* The instructions of the game will then appear. They could appear in front of the cat or on a different scene?

* The instructions will then dissappear and the game will start.

* The game will involve a spinning moon and the SpaceCat will appear like he's moving across the move.

* Need SpaceCat to be able to jump, in order to be able to collect stars, altering the score of the game.

* Each object will have to be a different sprite in order to maximise control.

* If the cat jumps and hits a star, 1 point will be added to the score. Maybe add a different object as a different points alternative.

* How will game end? SpaceCat could die. When the sun comes up the cat dies. This would mean you have to collect as many points before you die.

Graphics Needed for SpaceCat:

1) SpaceCat, use from card, if it can't be used during the gameplay i'll have to use another cat.
2) Starry Sky stage- photoshop background from the card, or easily obtainable from the internet.
3) Spinning Moon
4) Stars and moons for the game play.

Welcome

Welcome to the blog!

Having just started the the Innovation module in my second year of Contemporary Media Practice i have taken the advice and instruction to start my own blog, which will outline my progress and advancements throughout the module. I hope it makes for interesting reading. Over the next week i intend to look into examples of innovation within the new media and to complete my first project using Scratch.