For the final project we had to model, texture and animate a short piece.  I choose to create a kitchen scene that was modeled using mostly polygons and textures using pictures of wood textures and lamberts for solid colors.  The dishes in the kitchen would essentially put away themselves as they fly into cupboards.

For the midterm assignment we had to make an model and texture untraditional chess table and pieces.  I decided to use New York City as my inspiration.  The pieces on the board are all skyscrapers and buildings.  Also included is a 360 degree rotation of the board and its pieces.

This pre-made single-celled organism scene was textures using blinn’s and anistrophics

This pre-modeled scene was textured using many found images and cloth texture images.

This was also modeled using nurbs.

A chandelier modeled in Maya using nurbs

What would it be like if we could have several glimpses into Lisa’s life and maybe go on some of her exploits with her.  What if we got a chance to see how she lives her everyday life, her routines, her activities and learn more about her personal life?  This piece aims to tell the story of Lisa’s life and experiences through interconnecting short clips or the usage of vignettes.  As opposed to Lisa’s prior animations and video’s general linear format, the user would be able to choose and navigate through any portion of the map representing Lisa’s living quarters and other places and learn something about the subject.

A visual map displaying Lisa’s home, place of business, retail store she frequents, and maybe even a boyfriend’s home all have potential to tell stories about Lisa and vice verse.  As the user zooms in on the map and specifies a place to explore Lisa’s activities, they then experience part of a continuous yet non-linear story of Lisa’s life. We frequently use the saying “if walls could talk…”  What stories would Lisa’s surroundings tell if they had the opportunity to speak. How interconnected is Lisa’s life.  Does her professional and social life intertwine. Does she have a soft side? What leisure activities does she like? How was her childhood?  Our personal possessions are little reminders of things we have experienced in our lives .  The journal we had as teenagers, the love note from a 5th grade boyfriend, or maybe even the broken vase that we managed to somehow glue back together in order to keep our parents from punishing us.  Is the bottle of wine, cheese and crackers on the coffee table an indicator of a romantic movie date night the night before.  We pass by our personal possessions daily and wake up everyday to an unfinished task or reminder of other things that have come or that may have already left.  These stories like our possessions are strictly ours and are only shared with others by choice.

Maybe in creating a map of the places that Lisa frequents, people can navigate through her life and maybe even begin to put together pieces of a larger story.

Each place that Lisa frequents will hold more stories and short vignettes about her life or things that she is doing. For example, if Lisa’s apartment building is selected….

The user will then be taken to actual apartment building where upon mouse over of the building…

Places such as Lisa’s apartment and other places in the building she might frequent will become highlighted for further selection.

If the user decides to select Lisa’s apartment, they can choose from a variety of different rooms

If the closet is selected, other objects in the room will become highlighted upon mouse over, leading to other stories upon selection.  (i.e. if the sweater on the left is selected, a short animated clip will play detailing a date night at a bar where Lisa wore the sweater.

The same would go for any other room.  Clicking on the lamp plays a clip with an unexpected story line.

Watching random clips of Lisa would probably be fine.  However, my goal is to have each object or place tell its own story that links to a larger story.  Some of the content might not initially make any sense if the user has only watched a couple of clips.  Therefore, each video can be watched randomly and will start to come together once more of the story is told.

Reference sites

hbo imagine

the saddest thing I own

Interactive Fiction and the Comic.

Statement

My interests lie in storytelling, more specifically communal or collective storytelling.  Storytelling has been around for centuries and served as a way of record keeping (even long before written methods were used) and sharing stories.  From cave paintings to Internet web comics, sequential art is one of the oldest and most endearing methods of visual storytelling.  However, the use of sequential art in creating interactive comics or fiction is a fairly new trend and not as common as we think partly (a lot less popular then static comic strips) because of several components; story structure, content and interactivity.  Constructing a successful and fluid story can create several challenges for an author.  What approaches can be taken to multi-path interaction fiction.  How do we engage users/readers in a way that allows them to share, append, and manipulate images and text to continually share or update a successful story?

Background
Interactive storytelling in the oral tradition dates back to ancient times. One of the many examples includes the West African “call-and-response” storytelling traditions.  In this form of storytelling, the primary storyteller begins a tale (a call) and prompts a verbal reaction from the audience (a response) that can either be predetermined by the ritual or free formed. The storyteller and audience adapt the story to meet the demands of the audience.  Contemporary interactive fiction works in a similar way and refers to a work where the author comes up with a several plot pieces and provides the reader with multiple ways to connect or tell alternate stories.  The story structure is a branching scheme mapping out possible connections between plot pieces.  The Reader/User creates a thread by making choices at certain decision points within the story.  Interactive Fiction, Multi-path interactive fiction and Multi-path fiction all refer to works that utilize these conventions.  The story structure within a multi-path fictional narrative is a branching scheme, which has been used by authors of interactive fiction to map out several possible plot pieces. Authors can come up with many plots or “what-if” scenarios, while users are actively involved and guide the story with the different choices available to them.  The principles of interactive fiction have been used in a variety of mediums such as arcade games, DVD’s, books, digital texts and DVD’s. Digital and Print text have also been very successful in the past years such as the popular “Lone Wolf” and “Choose Your Own Adventure” children’s game book series. The author would usually provide the reader with several options with corresponding page numbers. For example, the main character’s phone rings, the author might present such options as “proceed to page 10 to answer the phone” or “proceed to page 25 to walk into the hallway.”

Comic refers to static sequential art also commonly known as the “comic book” or “comic strip.”  Artist and Theorist Scott McCloud uses the term “flow” in describing the ideal multi-path fictional narrative as being visually uninterrupted.  McCloud views a strong sense of flow as crucial to a successful comic reading process. Unlike video and animations, comics allow its readers to process visual information at their own pace.

multi-path interactive comic

branching structure

branching structures

Hapless Fame multi-path comic version 1.0

multidirectional comic structure

branching structure