Major Project Evaluation

Evaluation

Although I consider the MA successful in terms of achieving goals set in the proposal, there are several areas that will need to be re addressed. Within the evaluation, I would like to take a critical look at areas that would have benefited by either being worked on in a different way or by using different software, and design issues affecting the final product. I would also like to analyse the final product and see whether it meets the criteria initially set in the proposal.

Construction

Building the major tour, it became apparent that the rooms and corridors were not the right width, they looked far to narrow. This was confirmed when showing the Ground Floor tours to the Manager at Dunster Castle, and revisiting the rooms covered in the tour. To build the correct structure of the Castle, a bitmap of the 2d floor plan was brought in as a background image in the ‘top’ viewport in the 3D software Cinema 4D.

It was only at the later stage, and therefore too far down the line to adapt, that the proportional error was noticeable. On investigation, the bitmap brought in resizes itself to the viewport – rather like images being brought into placeholders in Director. This was not something I was aware of and therefore drew on top of the bitmap expecting it to be the correct size. The whole castle has now been built and is a complicated model. The only way that it can be corrected is by grouping all the structural elements together and then stretching the model along the X axis and making corrections to elements that may no scale relatively. I did try this at one stage but it did not go smoothly. Floor levels adjusted themselves out of proportion to others, some windows, window frames and doorways also scaled incorrectly. The reason for this was because primitive shapes do not scale in the same way as polygons. Polygons can be scaled on each axis independently, whereas primitives scale each axis, whether you have selected them or not. Once this was realised, I converted all the primitives to editable polygons. This made an extremely large file that took far too long to load, refresh and select, let alone scale. Therefore, due to time limitations, this adaptation was aborted and the original file continued with. It will be important to correct this. It will take a fair time to ensure that each element scales correctly without converting any of the primitives to polygons, but it will need to be done in order for it to replicate the Castle correctly.

Creating the animated gifs for the Matrix was another area that caused some concern. The levels were rendered and then each room cut and saved as a separate file, with the same process happening for the jump-ups and corridors. Taking each image into Freehand, the coloured background was erased and the  transparency retained as they were saved. On the PC, this was fine, but moving them to a MAC, the transparency wasn’t quite transparent. Putting the rooms and corridors back to together in Director, there was a noticeable pale edge to areas that should be dark. After a couple of times revisiting this, the pale edge was changed to dark, losing the anti-aliased, and therefore smooth look to the image. The jump-ups in the final model still show partial white backgrounds. This needs further editing and a method devised to ensure the images remain smooth and crisp.

For the Matrix to work, meetings were held with Russell on a regular basis, exploring the way it would work and be used. The Matrix is a unique concept, acting as a navigational tool, representing time, and space in a three-dimensional format. The Matrix tracks your progress by indicating the “rooms” you have visited. In the commercial model, it is planned that it will not only show where the user has visited, but also the path taken. This will be shown by a textual format. Each cube represents a room, or other designated space, and the connecting tubes the passageways or doorways between the rooms. The vertical layers are the different times / eras that are important in the history of the site. All the code has been written in Director Lingo and has proved to me how powerful scripting language is. The behaviours built into Director would not have achieved the same effect.

The interface has been redesigned at several stages throughout the MA. The final design was based on some ideas from the Computer Arts Graduate Showcase earlier this year, looking at sites on the web and design companies. These ideas were then combined with elements from previous interfaces such as the scroll navigation to create the final look. In retrospect, the buttons on the scroll need much more design consideration. This was highlighted within the presentation along with a useful tip regarding QuickTime Pro ‘chapters’. These ‘mark’ sections within a movie. Users can jump to different areas rather than watch the whole tour. This would be very useful, and will be incorporated in the next version. In presenting this to Dunster Castle and the National Trust, it would be better to show the Matrix first and then explore the other areas. For the MA, I left the Matrix until last as in ‘leaving the best ‘til last’, on reflection I should have made more of it. The feedback regarding this was very useful.

Summary

Overall, I am very pleased in the way the project has come together. As usual when working with deadlines, areas are often compromised in order for them to be completed on time, this project isn’t any different. Also like working projects, the deadline is often just met. Considering how involved this project has been, I am even more pleased to have just met the deadline. Just getting to this stage with the Talking Walls has been invaluable. The extra skills, the confidence in using them and ability to stretch the mind further has been a huge bonus in finally producing The Talking Walls, no longer an idea but an object that can be demonstrated and developed.