Fables, Myths And Narratives — Converting Our Stories Into Multi-Screen Experiences. Advertisement Storytelling takes many forms. In the past, stories were told orally, with people telling and retelling myths, fables and even histories. As writing technology became more prevalent, we began to record our stories, and we told them in the pages of books. Now, our society is awash in different devices and technologies, and those traditions of spoken stories and printed stories are blurring. Multi-screen narratives are being told across all kinds of platforms, pages and devices, making for truly immersive experiences. We are watching them, tapping them and learning from them. They immerse us in the storyteller’s world. How I Fell In Love With Interactive Storytelling First, a little background. The Kwagh Hir, or Thing of Magic, my tribe’s largest cultural festival (Image: Naptu2) Those fables are a piece of my cultural inheritance.
Creating modern, interactive versions of these stories is possible, but how exactly do we do that? A Bit About Context And Screens 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Glimpses—The Uncanny Valley. Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating? Written and illustrated by Dave Bryant Japanese roboticist Doctor Masahiro Mori is not exactly a household name—but, for the speculative fiction community at least, he could prove to be an important one. The reason why can be summed up in a simple, strangely elegant phrase that translates into English as “the uncanny valley”.
Though originally intended to provide an insight into human psychological reaction to robotic design, the concept expressed by this phrase is equally applicable to interactions with nearly any nonhuman entity. Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. The same factors that inspired Doctor Mori to research and describe the uncanny valley and the rest of the curve to which it belongs are of immediate concern to any creator of fantasy or science fiction.
Full Circle.
Blast from the Past - A Rideable Robotic Elephant from 1965. You Are Watching Machinima, the Future of TV | Game|Life. Machinima’s independent channels scored billions of views in 2012. Click on the image for a larger version and zoom in to see the top performers (numbers represent pageviews in millions). Illustration: Matt W. Moore The future of TV isn’t in an HBO boardroom or on the CBS lot in Studio City; it’s not sitting on Aaron Sorkin’s laptop or buried deep in Dan Harmon’s Tumblr archive. It’s next door to a Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood—the corner lot of low-slung real estate that online-video juggernaut Machinima calls home. Inside, the decor is pre-post-collegiate: arcade games, fanboy swag, and the occasional wafting odor of recently nuked pizza pockets.
Yet it’s one of the biggest online video producers there are. Not bad for a never-ending highlight reel. Machinima traffics in videos of people playing videogames, often with voice-overs by the players. And they did it all without much of a homepage. Machinima gets almost all of this content from video-making enthusiasts around the world. Defining Adaptive Music. Introduction …I know, I know: defining adaptive music sounds boring, pedantic, academic, theoretical, and of limited practical use. Yawn. Trust me, I was right there with ya. But! As it turns out, this particular exercise was a huge personal breakthrough for me in terms of my own understanding of the topic.
So I thought I’d share. (Your mileage may vary.) Audience This article is targeted mostly to experienced game composers and audio programmers with actual practical adaptive music experience. At the same time, the paper should be easily accessible to a general audience. Background (Warning: gratuitous personal anecdote. Some More About Me As far as I know, I’m one of very few people with the following skill set: a formal training in classical composition (BMus from the University of Toronto) many years of indie music production experience audio programmer credits on two “next gen” console titles (“Full Auto” Xbox 360, “Full Auto 2: Battlelines” PS3) Full Auto My meeting with Prof.
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The Banner Saga's branching narrative and travel events detailed in Kickstarter update | Indie, News. An update to Stoic Studio's Banner Saga Kickstarter sheds some light on the RPG's conversation options and decision-making, which promise to have a significant effect on the game. In addition to your more standard conversation options, you'll have to make decisions on the road - including chance encounters and events - that "may affect the caravan's morale, size and supplies, and form a personal connection to the characters traveling in your party. " The game's branching narrative is also detailed, with the diagrams to prove it. Excitingly, when discussing its branching story and combat, creative director Alex Thomas namechecks two of history's finest strategy RPGs.
"Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics or Shining Force, The Banner Saga has a large cast of playable characters; special warriors in your caravan who can also join you in combat. Head here to read the full, fascinating Kickstarter update, discovered via VG24/7. Bethesda Tutorial Dialogue. This chapter will walk you through creating specific dialogue for our tutorial quest, "Bendu Olo's Only Hope. " The reader will learn: How dialogue for Skyrim is authored in the Creation Kit. How to script events based on the player's dialogue choices. Skyrim provides a simple visual layout system so you can see the flow of your dialogue as you're creating it. To get started with the view, navigate to your quest (GSQ01) and double click to open the quest window. To make a new view, right-click in the table in the left part of the window and select "New. " We haven't added anything to the view yet, so it's a boring white expanse.
Before we go on, there's some terminology that can be confusing and we need to get straight: Response: A single line of dialogue said by an NPC. So in that set of clicks and typings above, we created a branch, which automatically created a topic for itself. Double-click on the topic to open the Topic Window. Now hit the OK button at the bottom of the window twice. If you give people virtual superpowers, will they use those abilities for good or evil? (Credit: Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory) Researchers at Stanford recently investigated the subject by giving people the ability of Superman-like flight in the university’s Virtual Human Interaction Laboratory (VHIL). While several studies have shown that playing violent videogames can encourage aggressive behavior, the new research suggests that games could be designed to train people to be more empathetic in the real world.
To test this hypothesis, the group — which included Jeremy Bailenson, an associate professor of communication; Robin Rosenberg, a clinical psychologist and author; and Stanford communication student Shawnee Baughman — needed to choose a superhuman ability that could only be simulated in virtual reality, but that people would also subconsciously identify as a “do-gooder” superpower. “We thought about giving them X-ray vision, but that was a little creepy,” said Bailenson, director of the VHIL. Narrative elements. 4 Inspiring Examples of Digital Storytelling. Layla Revis is vice president of digital influence at Ogilvy PR Worldwide. Her specialties include international affairs, tourism and multicultural marketing. In 2011, Sundance Film Festival created The New Frontier Story Lab, an initiative created to foster the development of a new style of media production.
As media began to depart from traditional, linear films intended for a passive audience, the launch represented an innovative new era in entertainment. The New Frontier Story Lab helped many an interactive narrative come to life. Each of these productions features multiple points of entry across platforms and employs technologies such as facial recognition, augmented reality, geo-location, motion sensors, data visualization and the entire toolset of social and mobile platforms. President of the National Film Board of Canada, Tom Perlmutter's multi-platform interactive productions have also been revolutionizing transmedia. 1. 2. 3. 4. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, shevvers.