Multimedia Design

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Multimedia Design

• Introduction

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Contact Details

• Dr Judy Robertson
• Judy.Robertson_at_hw.ac.uk
• 0131 451 8223
• Rm EM G29
• Second Life name Jxr Greenwood

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Overview

• Definition of multimedia and active research
  areas
• Structure of module what youll learn
• Assignment information

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What is multimedia?

• The combination of different media into one
  application
• Text
• Still images
• Sound
• Video
• Can involve multimodal interfaces (speech,
  gesture, touch)
• Can involve ubiquitous computing (computing in
  the environment beyond the desktop)
• Can involve interactivity, remote distribution,
  collaborative working
• Focus is on users Quality of Experience (QoE)
  rather than Quality of Service (QoS)

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Your experience?

• What sort of MM stuff have you done before?
• Using MM?
• Creating MM?
• At uni?
• As a hobby?

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Multimedia Grand Challenges

• ACM SIG MM identified three grand challenges for
  multimedia researchers to solve
• Make authoring complex multimedia titles as easy
  as using a word processor or drawing program
• Make interactions with remote people and
  environments nearly the same as interactions with
  local people and environments
• Make capturing, storing, finding, and using
  digital media an everyday occurrence in our
  computing environment
• From Rowe and Jain (2005)

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Challenge 1 make authoring complex multimedia
titles easy

• Researchers need to develop tools to make it easy
  for average users to make compelling multimedia
  with different types of content, e.g.
• A physics teacher could make simulations and
  animations to illustrate dynamic behaviours
• A travel agent could make material advertising
  tourist destinations including pictures, videos,
  sounds, live link to people at a remote location
• A family member could create a timeline of an
  important event such as a wedding, documenting
  the proposal, engagement party, wedding.
• Of course, tools already exist for authoring in
  particular media, but
• They dont support different types of media
• Professional tools are too hard to learn, but end
  user tools are too restrictive
• All data types should be first class citizens

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Challenge 2 Make remote interactions the same as
local interactions

• This involves
• Distributed collaboration
• Multimedia meetings between more than 2 remote
  participants are still hard to set up, expensive
  and frustrating
• Its hard to remotely work with the same tools
  (e.g. view co-construct diagrams remotely)
• Immersive 3D virtual environments
• Challenge is to sensitively integrate novel input
  and output technology to make the experience seem
  real (or hyper real)
• Could be better than being there!

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Visiting virtual worlds

• I always look at the game worlds we build as
  other places for us to go. Most of them are
  hell and almost none of them are heaven. Were
  creating hells for our children to live in.
• Henk Rodgers (Edge, 1999 p75)
• Double Life play station advert

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Challenge 3 Make manipulating digital media as
an everyday occurrence

• It should be an every day occurrence to
• Capture v
• Store v
• Find
• And use v
• digital media.
• We have huge capacity to capture and store data.
  But how can we easily make sense of this huge
  heap of content?
• We need to be able to search audio and video
  content from archives the problem is
  automatically identifying what is stored in
  non-textual media.

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The vision for this class

• The class will terraform the HeriotWatt Second
  Life island

?
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What is Second Life anyway?

• Its a massively multiplayer immersive 3D virtual
  environment
• Population 11,175,710 (Nov 2007)
• Total hours spent 24,625,902 (Nov 2007)
• Thriving arts and educational communities
• Growing business opportunities
• Demo

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(No Transcript)
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Second Life economy

• 250 to 1 linden dollar
• You get 2000 Linden dollars to start with
• You can sell and buy virtual land and
  objects/services

US exchanged on Lindex (in millions)
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Who uses Second Life age
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Who uses Second Life gender
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Why are we using Second Life for this module?

• Theres something for everyone you can
  specialise in different aspects of MM
• It lets you build in-world you see immediate
  consequences of what you do
• Everyone in the class can work together on the
  same big project
• Its an expanding, current development in user
  generated content and social networking
• Maybe youll become SL millionaires and give me a
  cut ?

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Second Life and MM grand challenges

• As you get to know Second Life, think about this.
  Does it
• Make authoring complex multimedia titles easy as
  a using a word processor?
• Make interactions with remote people and
  environments nearly the same as interactions with
  local people and environments?
• Make capturing, storing, finding, and using
  digital media an everyday occurrence in our
  computing environment?

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SL mature content

• Second Life has many areas which have mature
  content
• If you want to avoid them, stick to regions which
  are rated PG
• Please share only snapshots from PG areas on the
  class website
• I have given you a list of safe educational
  places to visit
• The HeriotWatt island where you will work is
  rated PG and your practice areas will be private
  to this class

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What you will learn

• about the current research issues in multimedia
• how to design and evaluate multimedia
• how creativity works
• how to take charge of your own learning
• how to evaluate your own learning
• how to evaluate your own work and that of your
  peers
• Remember its an open ended topic there are
  seldom right answers
• Think of the lecturer and tutors as mentors

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Technical skills you will learn

• Second Life
• Content creation
• Terraforming
• Scripting
• Photoshop
• Texturing
• Premiere
• Movie making

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Module activities

• Lectures
• None! Its a practical course
• Tutorial
• Everyone has one hour of tutorial with me a week.
• Mostly group work and hands-on activities
• Labs
• One hour face to face lab
• One hour lab in Second Life with help from tutors
• When would suit you to have this? Please fill in
  the survey on the Vision page
• Reading/homework exercises

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Youll like this module if...

• ...you like
• Exploring
• Building
• Creating (drawing/sounds/music/video/programming)
• Finding things out for yourself
• Coming up with your own ideas
• Things that are open ended

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You wont like this module if...

• You like step by step instructions
• You like assignments to give exact specifications
• You like to be told exactly what to do
• You dont like trial and error
• Your favourite programming environment is emacs
  with a command shell -)

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Learning resources

• Creating your world the official guide to
  content creation in Second Life
• Weber, Rufer-Bach and Platel
• http//wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal
• Countless video tutorials and in-world tutorials

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Learning resources online

• This module will use the Vision learning
  environment.
• https//vision.hw.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.js
  p
• (Use university login and password)
• Course announcements
• Lab worksheets
• Class wiki
• Blogs
• Discussion forums

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Assessment 100 coursework

• Submit an individual portfolio containing
• An area of land in the Heriot-Watt Second Life
  island (group work) (25)
• A multimedia tutorial to help other students
  learn about Second Life (25)
• A fun interactive Second Life exhibit for
  visitors to the Heriot-Watt island (25)
• A learning log (15).
• A review of other students multimedia work
  (10)

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Homework

• Read http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
• Read about the SL community standards
  http//secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

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Any questions?