Waiting room: Simon Adams

Well this is the waiting room where the patients will be seated before being seen by the doctor, just the presentation left to see out and hope the visuals are fine with all. Next week the final designs will hopefully be up with regards to the drawings and we might just have a interactive installation ready to go.

The unlucky patients: Simon Adams

Well here are the five patients that will be seen by the doctor with their various ailments to be cured by the charms, a bit more work to be done on these but nearly at the end of the pictures for the presentation, good times.

The Doctors office: Simon Adams

Well as promised this is the first picture of the doctors office. This will be where the learning with regards to the charms will happen. Starting to take shape now. These pictures will not be put in color until the presentation is finished and all are happy with the direction otherwise there will be a lot more work to do. More to come later

One More Before TV: Simon Adams

Just one more before some TV. A quick mock up of how the first scene may look with regards to the news room. Only three layers deep this time.

I promise there will be drawings of people up here before the end of tomorrow

The Box Has Arrived: Simon Adams

Finally have managed to get the charms cut and re-sized to put in the first version of the box that the charms will be in. This is by no means the finished product but it took a fair bit of time just to get it this far.

This is the prototype for the charms box, and again I am still learning things in Photoshop and Illustrator so shading is currently on the cards to give the pictures a more 3d feel.

Hopefully in the next day or so the first pictures of the doctor and the waiting room will be up on here also as there is now just over a week till the folks get to see what we have done.

Good Times.

Basic Art Work: Simon Adams

Hello all, as promised there is now some basic artwork coming along for the project. The main problem at the moment is getting used to using Photoshop and Illustrator as they are new tools for me but hopefully this wont take to long.

 The picture above is just the basic menu screen which will have a lot more added on to it yet but this will be the first scene after the short intro video so the user can either learn about the charms or take the quiz.

This second picture is the set up for the four videos we will have as an extra option. This will be in the waiting room and when you click on the TV there will be four videos that will be taken from the interview carried out by the Scarborough Maritime group that will give short bits of info on other charms and also this will help with our concept/story.

Plenty more stuff to come soon

Script draft - Stephen Barker

Just thought I'd make a quick post to get some feedback on potential script ideas, before I go on and do any more of it.

Intro sequence

Newsreader 1: Now to news of an interesting solution to the recent NHS budget cuts. North Yorkshire health services have approved a trial of using long forgotten natural remedies to cure common ailments, in order to save money on basic medicines such as painkillers and antibiotics.

Newsreader 2: One such surgery is the castle road drop in centre in Scarborough, which will see people with complaints such as tooth ache and stomach upsets being treated with sharks teeth and various other local charms.

Newsreader 1: Officials have defended the move, saying that no patients lives will be put at risk and such unconventional methods are necessary in order to keep other vital services afloat.

(as it fades out) Newsreader 2: now back to our main story, a penguin has gone on a rampage....

Patients:

the idea is that the patient gives a vague but humorous description, and the doctor will then say (as a monologue) something like “hmm, I believe this patient is suffering from *insert illness here*, now what was the correct treatment again?” at which point the user will get to choose the correct charm.

Patient one (elderly Scottish woman suffering from diarrhoea) : hello doctor. I've been having a wee bit trouble with me pipes if you know what I mean. When I go to the toilet, I... well, without going into too much detail it's like the battle of bannockburn in there! I need something to get the flow back regular you see, a bit less like broth and a bit more like haggis if you catch ma drift.

(if given wrong treatment)

patient one: now come on doctor, I may not have ma medical licence but even I know that's wrong!

(after being given correct treatment)

Patient one: oh right, I see, So I just pop this....

Doctor: (interjecting) no, no, just carry it with you.

Patient: oh right, I see, well thank you very much doctor. Goodbye now!

Obviously this is work in progress, I don't want to continue if the style is not suitable.

Rob, if you get chance to read this, I need you to tell me if the style of humour is too much, i.e. if the museum would be OK with it. Personally I feel we need to be ever so slightly on the edge to grab the attention of our target audience, and I think that kids would just laugh and some of it would go over their heads anyway. But I clearly don't want to offend anyone! So I don't want to do any more if it's unacceptable.

Sound list - Stephen Barker

Just a rough outline of the sounds I hope to record/create this week (this is separate to the voice acting that will be done next week most likely). Mixing of the sounds will happen later, maybe next week, although it is possible that raw sounds may be used for the prototype just in case we need to change anything and then I can concentrate on polishing them up after that presentation.

Intro: "breaking news" music. (no sfx needed for this section, just music and voice.)

Doctors office: background ambience (perhaps a clock ticking, the muffled sound of waiting room.)
sfx: internal door opening/closing. maybe the crate/box being opened. creaking of chair, chair being pulled out.

Waiting room: Sound of people talking, intermittent coughing, main door opening/closing. phone ringing. Receptionist typing.

Congratulations screen: small burst of music. maybe clapping/cheering.

Most likely there will be many more added as the visuals take shape. Also I expect there are many things that I have forgotten that will reveal themselves as the project moves along. Voice acting to be done next week, might get chance to throw together some demos this week though.

Quick Update from yesterdays meeting

So it may have taken us a while but we finally have a plan and we love it when a plan comes together:

• The short 20 second intro will now be drawn instead of a live film due to time constraints 
• The ideas for the top and bottom screens are done with some drawings to come within the next week
• A real prize/reward to be given at the end of the quiz
• Audio script to be written on Monday with time to be booked out for recordings

Looks like things are getting underway and expect to see a lot of stuff coming up on here over the next 7 days or so.

Random Notes from the meeting

These are just some notes from the meeting tonight. They may not make any sense to anyone else but it helps us have a place for shared information so stick with it until the pretty stuff comes next week.

• animated into 20 - 30
• learn as the doctor with the charms on the bottom screen and information on the top screen
• play the game and try to cure the patients with charms on the bottom screen as the answers and the doctor and patient on the top screen give them a reward after the quiz
• learn with the doctor button - doctor looking down on the box (top screen)

take the quiz - patients on the bottom screen, top screen is receptionist.
      depending on the patient picked, a short clip is shown
      of them walking into the doctors office.

      bottom screen has the charms on it again, top shows the
      doctor and the patient.
      when the patient is cured, you go back to the waiting room
      and pick another patient

      Short animation after the quiz is compleated to give the
      secret word away to collect the prize

Pitch + Feedback

Digital artwork looks like fun: Simon Adams

Hello, just a small update. Getting a new toy to help with the visuals for the project. A tablet to draw straight into the computer so that the process will be easier to get through.

Actual pictures for the project itself to come next week

Interactive Exhibit Critique - Stephen Barker

I was focusing on the 3 metallic displays in the centre of the room.


Good: I felt that the overall visual style was very sharp and professional looking, it definitely makes you take it more seriously when the standard of presentation is high. The colour scheme was pleasant; bright and eye-catching without being too garish. 
There were a couple of interesting interactive elements (aside from the obvious "push a button to see more information" parts), one of which was the "name your own fossil" section, which turned out to be a clever way of getting the rules of the naming scheme of fossils/animals across without just showing the information on screen. It is important that there is variety in order to keep the users interest, and it was interesting in that it wasn't just the usual quiz element that you come to expect.


Bad: Although there was a lot of interesting information, I felt that there were a few areas that had too many walls of text, the section on Holbeck being most notable for that as the pictures used in that section were newspaper clippings, which themselves are essentially walls of text! The quiz element wasn't very well implemented in my opinion, it wasn't made clear what you had to do to advance; I kept getting a nice green tick for the answers I chose, but it kept repeating the same 2 questions! multiple answers for one question is fine but ideally it needs to be specified that this is the case.
There was also a distinct lack of sound. A voice-over would have been nice in some parts, although this isn't essential  But what is essential in my opinion is at least some sound somewhere, it makes the user feel more immersed and helps to keep their attention (which can be difficult anyway when you are showcasing a particular subject that they might not be immediately interested in). Even something simple like a noise to acknowledge a button press would have been acceptable.

Review of The Rotunda Interactive Displays: Simon Adams

Time for my first blog post of many then and this one is regarding the interactive installations that are currently in the Rotunda museum. The first one that drew me in with its visuals and sounds was a wall mounted, touch screen that takes you through making a prehistoric landscape on the big screen. You run through a sequence of screens that start with putting different types of plants from the era onto the screen, before you can do this though you have to listen to a man describe what each type of plant is and why it existed back then. You are given about eight types of plants and two of those should not be in the picture. 

Then comes the part where you get to place the pictures of the plants wherever you like within a minute time limit. The same process is repeated with the next set of images which is animals from the time and then after that you have the same situation but with the dinosaurs. Now the only problem with this kind of set up is that you do not want to listen to what is being said by the narrator on the screen, you just want to get to the final screen and put the dinosaurs in the picture. 


Also, with no real form of quiz or reward for learning there is no need to learn about the plants or the animals. There is always a main menu back button on each screen though   and overall this comes across as quite a fancy installation but nothing much from a learning perspective can be done and there is no way to go back a screen without coming back to the main screen so if you miss something interesting you have to start over again.

This is all for now, will update with more after work and give a first post on the visual ideas for our own installation, Enjoy!

The Rotunda Museum Interactive exhibit critique

By – Craig Hood

The first interactive installation I will be discussing is the three plinth set up with each screen using the same interactive activity. The picture above shows the main screen on this installation after  the user first presses the touch screen, as you can see there are three sections which are clearly labelled, have good supporting pictures (3^rd one is debateable) and is easily accessible. The first, ‘what’s happening to the coast’ has an information section on the Holebeck Hall incident in which the building fell into the sea. This is well designed and looks good using the newspaper articles. The feature has a couple of options on how to scroll through the different pages, choosing from the left hand side or dragging your finger to turn the pages manually, this gives an added sense of interaction but I fear the latter method may be missed due to no information informing the user of this possibility. In ‘what’s happening to the coast’ there is also a weather challenge where the user has to solve problems for a particular settlement, such as a small town. The first scenario is about erosion and asks the user to come up with a solution for a town, small town and single property by choosing from a list of options. I thought this game looked good and was interesting at first but realised that the options for solutions didn’t have any supporting information. Only when a choice was made would it inform the user of its properties, its price, strengths and weaknesses. It felt as though I was just second guessing with no informed guesses. The second scenario about rises in rain levels seemed to have the same answer for all three settlements (sea wall defences) which I entered due to the info I got on the last round that it was fairly effective and cheap to use, perfect for all three settlements. The third scenario was similar to the first two but about rise in sea levels, I was again second guessing at the answers with only the small amount of information gained in the last two rounds to guide me but still easy to solve for most users. The third settlement however on this scenario throws a curve ball at the user and actually there is no answer. After I had chosen all of the options with no success, and they were all greyed out (see pic) the only option was to do nothing, which when pressed simply said that it was a trick question with no correct answer. This left me feeling a bit disapp

With good navigation on this installation I was able to easily return to the main menu when desired.

‘How do you find oil?’ was the second option on the main screen and was packed with information on the subject, provided by videos which were prompted by the user selecting a question to ask from multiple choices. This whole section is also easily navigated and well laid out but had some problems in the way that the information was given. When the videos were opened, by the user selecting a question to ask, it only opened in a small screen on top of the background. This could have opened in a full screen mode to ensure maximum attention grabbing of the user, although resolution issues could have been a problem due to poor quality of the videos. The sound of this installation was also an issue as it was sometimes hard to hear the information been given by the videos. This problem was made worse when other people in the museum were using the other interactive installation that had a sound output because it made it harder to hear. The three screens in this particular installation could also be used separately meaning that any of the videos could be played at the same time whenever a user opened them. This caused a bigger issue in hearing the information as the voices were clashing making it hard to concentrate on the screen being used. Headphones could be a solution but this would take away the opportunity for groups to listen in so positioning of the screens could be reviewed to solve the sound problems.  

‘What’s in a name’? was the third section on this installation and again had good information with professional looking quality on the design but shared the same sound issues as the last due to a lot of the information coming in the form of videos. The main attraction in this section was the part where the users could name a fossil after themselves but in all honesty it took a little while to arrive at this point and I felt inclined to skip ahead missing out the information on how fossils are named. Some improvements could be made to this.

The other interactive installation in the museum that I looked at was a big touch screen that looked very appealing. The picture quality and resolution was of a high standard and was quite engaging to use. The response of this installation however was not as good as the three plinth set up due to the protective glass in front of the screen forcing the user to press on their chosen button/options harder or more than once. The main attraction I believe on this was the opportunity to create your own prehistoric scene with dinosaurs been the most appealing. One problem I found was that placing the dinosaurs in the prehistoric scene came last and really that is all I was waiting to do, a feeling probably shared with the younger audience. It took a while to get to this point so could leave kids getting bored more easily whereas the earlier addition of dinosaurs could keep them interested for longer. I also found that this installation didn’t have a great deal of information but probably just enough for what was needed. When creating the prehistoric scene there was no restrictions on the amount of objects the user could place (plants, animals, dinosaurs) so the scene could easily become a bit of a mess and not end up looking realistic. This could be a negative but for kids and myself probably made it more fun, over doing it is probably an understatement :D.

Unfortunately the pictures didn't work on this post so ignore the points refering to them :( boo.

      

Presentation notes

Craig Hood

Presentation notes

Key concept and story

With a rise in medication prices some local doctors have resorted to using old fashioned techniques of using charms to treat patients. Charms give the patients, who can’t afford the medical treatments, comfort and helps them on their way to being cured.

The user will be able to play as the doctor or the patient.

When playing as the patient the user will be able to choose a character from the waiting room that will be called in to see the doctor where the user can decide what is wrong with that particular patient. The doctor will then prescribe a treatment, giving information on the charm used.

When playing as the doctor different patients will enter the room describing their symptoms which the user will then have to prescribe the required treatment or charm. By using the information gained in the ‘play as patient’ section, the user will have the correct knowledge to treat the patient and illness in question.

Setting

The game will be set in a modern day doctor’s practice. There will be a waiting room scene and the doctor’s room. Each room will have pictures of the local area to keep with the local feel of the exhibit. Along with these two scenes in the game, there will also be the news story footage set in a news room and possibly on location around Scarborough.

Visuals

Interactive installation starts with the news story footage, this then will go to an option screen where the user can choose to play as the patient or the doctor.

If ‘patient’ is chosen the scene will change to the waiting room where a choice of characters is available. Once chosen the patient will enter the doctors room to commence this part of the installation,

If ‘Doctor’ is chosen the scene will change to the doctor’s room where patients will enter and the quiz begins. The user will have to guess the right treatments for the given illness.

Sounds

·         Music and sound FX for the news story

·         Different voices for characters (doctor, around 4 patients and receptionists voice calling the patients names).

·         Waiting room music to be played while in that screen setting.

·         Sounds/music for when the user succeeds and fails.