1st Progress Report to SEEDA – August 2008
The Talking Walls Progress Report – August 2008
Please find below the progress report for each task listed on the Gantt chart for The Talking Walls Beaulieu Abbey project.
Task 2 – Sourcing Capital Equipment
The Talking Walls has purchased from Clear Thinking UK Ltd a design laptop complete with software for the project ahead at a cost of £2,700.00. The payment of this has been made in stages.
The Talking Walls has also purchased a single seat of Swift3D, software that will enable interaction of the 3D model and KubeMatrix. www.swift3d.com
An arrangement has been made to hire from Clear Thinking UK Ltd the use of further machines, including printer and scanner for an amount of £200.00 per month as per project cashflow.
Task 3 – Sourcing Manpower
Rebecca Furse had taken a full time position in Bath so was no longer available. After a round of advertising for students and subsequent interviews, we did not find a suitable candidate. We took on a 16yr old to help with research and word documents for Fact sheets temporarily. This is now complete.
We have now found someone to help with the 3D modeling and animation on a freelance basis. Her name is Sandy Whitehead, and her CV is available on the following link: Sandy Whitehead
Rebecca Furse has also agreed to work on the 2D characters on a freelance basis.
This now fulfills our needs to ensure the project completes on time.
Task 4 – Project Briefing
Meetings have been held with both Beaulieu and freelancers to ensure everyone is aware of the project contents and timescales.
Meetings continue on a regular basis with Susan Tomkins and Stephen Munn of Beaulieu to ensure direction and content of the application.
Task 5 – Research components / style
This area has been thoroughly researched and most of the information required is now collated. There may be some areas that will come to light as the project progresses that we will need to look at briefly. I cannot see this being an issue or delaying the project.
Task 6 – Build 3D Model
The Abbey is still in Revit, the ‘building’ programme, and is very nearly completed for this stage therefore should be finished by the 14th Aug as scheduled. The model will then get taken into another programme to finish some finer details such as the doorways, doors, abbey furniture (altar etc), before animating the build of the abbey, and the tours.
Task 7 – Animate movement through the model
This area is not due to start until the middle of August. I canot see any reason why this should not start as scheduled or take longer than planned.
Task 8 – Source period games
We have sourced the type of games for the period and are in the process of creating the images to be used within the games.
Task 9 – Design Interface
The interface has been designed to schedule and is waiting to be made interactive and uploaded to a test site.
Task 10 – Build Matrix
Paul Wilson is currently working on the interaction of the navigation cube. We are looking to use some new technology – Papervision3D – so that the users can rotate the 3D cube and click on each cube to navigate to next page etc, it should work really well and feel quite intuitive for people to use. This is an area we have changed slightly due to the new technology of Papervision3D, therefore it is taking slightly longer than planned. I do not see this being an issue, any extra time will be an investment of time on both Paul Wilson’s and my part and not a cost on the project.
Task 11 – Source facts and images
We have researched the various areas of the monks life, farming, food, medicine, how to become a monk, law and order, music, etc. This information as well as the information provided by the Beaulieu brochure should give many fact sheets that the user will be able to browse and learn from. A format has been designed, it now needs the text to be re-visited, checked and amended.
Task 12 – Design characters
As far as the characters are concerned we have pinned down who they are, researched their roles and how they might look. We now need to draw the characters in 2D for the characters page, which Rebecca has already started to do.
Task 13 – Animate characters
I have developed some of the monks in 3D, and animated them to walk etc, so when looking at the preset animated tours, the viewer will be able to see them walking through the abbey.
Task 14 – Write script
This was planned to be from the audio tour script and similar notes from Beaulieu. Unfortunately we are not in possession of the script, but have had great help from Susan Tomkins at Beaulieu with regards to possible stories for the characters. The meeting with Susan was held last Friday, so I plan to complete these scripts this week, so this should still be on schedule.
Task 15 – Voice over recording
In a meeting with Seanine Joyce, (her details can be found on this link: Seanine Joyce ) on Monday in London. Seanine has agreed to work on the music for the animations of the Abbey, the sound effects and generic music for the rest of the application. This will be specifically composed for the period, and set pieces for the possible three main scenes – the dedication, the arrest of Perkins Walbeck and the dissolution. Seanine plans to use actual instruments for a better quality of sound instead of digitally reproduced. This will also be easier on the ear and produce a much more authentic sound. Her experience is excellent in this area, so I am very pleased that she has agreed to work with us on this. We have agreed a cost of £2500.00 for this work and the voice over recordings. This is currently on schedule.
Task 22 – Market Assessment
This has taken place and will be re-visited on completion of the project.
The remaining tasks are not yet due to start. The design consultancy has continued throughout as planned.
Overall the various elements are on schedule for completion, even with the lack of an assistant in the first few weeks of the project. Now with two freelancers on board (Sandy to help with the lack of time available from the initial planned freelancer Rebecca Furse, due to her new full time position with another company) I do not envisage any changes to the planned completion of the project.
Commercialisation
Mike Wilman and I presented The Talking Walls Beaulieu Abbey project at the EVA conference in London last month. It received a great deal of interest, and we were asked to return next year, We also submitted an accompanying paper which has been published in the conference proceedings. EVA Conference
Mike Wilman is currently looking into routes for advertising the project for Beaulieu, for example Hampshire Life and Compass, and researching contacts of similar organisations such as Beaulieu to approach on behalf of The Talking Walls.