The final model

Once i had decided upon the decision to use two rings, i then sketched out a storyboard for it, and a rough design which i rapidly modelled in sketchup thanks to my knowledge of the component tool.

I decided to have an introductory and also an explanatory scene. I then decided on a colourscheme: Dark to reflect the content. I named the piece 'the enigma'.

The final flash piece was produced fairly quickly thanks to the good level of planning. I sketched out all of the scenes that i'd need, and then used a combination of .avi animations and still shots from google sketchup to string them together into a working simulation.

I did make some tweaks, like getting rid of the 'exit' screen idea. The user would just exit the browser the normal way if they wanted to stop using it, so it was obselete.





I feel that my final flash piece works well to illustrate my metaphor for the content of the book, the main themes i chose and the structure of it.

Going forwards:

I considered tweaking the flash file to make it more attractive and effective as the design is still in its first prototype. However, the aim of it isn't to be attractive: that just isnt the point so perhaps that is unecessary.

Thematic & Conceptual development

Stage 1: Exanding focus and considering alternate ideas. I looked at not only the original themes of the lamp-post and the tree, but also widened my focus to other central themes within the book such as the pools between the worlds.




Step 2: I decided to focus on the rings. I chose this because it is not only central to the story itself, but also to the main deception in the book. Storytelling in itself is concealment, and the rings true power is concealed by 'Uncle Digory'. I wanted my final piece to be a comment on the 'layering' of storytelling and i feel that this does so quite effectively.



Step 3: Initial storyboarding.

I've decided the order in which i want the user to interact with the piece, and as with my original solution, they do have a choice at certain points.

The user will be presented with a screen showing them two different rings: one green one yellow. They are prompted to select one. They choose one, hoping that it will open to reveal something to them. It won't (as i decided that both of the rings will be empty to emphasise the theme of deception, and to represent the way that the story sometimes builds you upto an event which turns out to be an anticlimax).

Deception: An academic paper

I decided to read up on different types of deception and found a paper by a 'Peter Goldie' of King College, London, titled 'CONCEPTUAL ART, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, AND DECEPTION'.

http://www.british-aesthetics.org/uploads/Peter%20Goldie%20FINAL.pdf

'Some works of conceptual art require deception for their appreciation—deception of the
viewer of the work. Some experiments in social psychology equally require deception—
deception of the participants in the experiment. There are a number of close parallels between
the two kinds of deception. And yet, in spite of these parallels, the art world, artists, and
philosophers of art, do not seem to be troubled about the deception involved, whereas
deception is a constant source of worry for social psychologists. Intuitively, each of these
responses might seem appropriate for its sphere, but it is not easy to see what grounds these
intuitions. I try to come up with some answers.'

There are various examples of social deception in the paper for both art and academia. The examples showed individuals creating deceptions to test how people reacted to them, to learn something about human nature or to make some kind of artistic or moral statement.

One thing that interested me was some references to the 'placebo' effect: the creation of a deception to test the absolute power of the human mind over the body. I also found it interesting the idea of 'qausi-emotions' which are responses to fictions, such as the feelings we get from reading books. Literary applications.

Conceptual research & Ideation

I decided to re-evaluate and redesign my model, with a view to focusing down my idea of layering and reapplying it to a singular theme within the book.

My jumping off point was one main concept which underpinned themes within the book: Deception and Concealment.

Why i chose this concept:

• From my research into the structure of literature i knew that storyteling in itself is essentially concealment i.e. the process of the unwravelling of ideas and events. This concept is crucial to my original model, although i took it very literally and tried to represent the concept of the layering of ideas.
  
• Heavy ties to the storyline:

1. Uncle decieving polly into wearing a ring which transports her
2. Witch hiding her true intentions and nature
3. Uncle concealing his true nature
4. Attempts to conceal the Witch from the british public
5. Temptation of Digory; concealing that there is a test, and if he succeeds he will be rewarded
   

I took this concept and reapplied it to two different elements of the book: the Lamp-post and the Tree. Both of these are critical to not only my chosen book, but to other books in the series. I came up with a few different initial sketches for ideas to represent the idea of concealment, all of which physically have the tree or the lamp-post in them somewhere.




Ideas such as using the lamp-post within abstracted formats to represent 'illumination' or concealment, and using layers of leaves in the tree to also represent this.

I then decided to do some quick research into the concepts to get some ideas and inspiration.

For 'deception': Masks, Faces (implied secrecy or infidelity), illusionary tricks of the eye, eyes, spider webs and foliage came up.

For concealment: army camoflague, hidden weaponry, and the concept of concealing objects within a book. 'Book safes', smuggling, steganography and hidden messages, 'bible code' and the symbolism of the book came up.

It was very interesting to me that it is not only various interpretations from textual analysis that can be hidden in a book: secret messages and physical objects can also be hidden too.

Art & Exhibitions:

'Concealment and Constraint' by Heather Cowie

Heather Cowie's sculptures are made up of hidden layers or 'skins' creating secret narratives which are only revealed through the sequence of images that accompanies each piece. As the photographs document the creation of the object, the object itself attempts to conceal that process from you.

http://www.mmu.ac.uk/news/events/114/

I love the idea of layering within a piece to give it meaning beyond what you immediately see.

I came across a material called 'balsa foam' at this stage of my research: used for sculpting and it is easily painted on. It also holds impressions and texture can be impressed upon it easily. It's something i'd like to look into using in subsequent projects.

http://layersofmeaning.org/wp/?tag=sculpture


The concealed 'hidden' work in picassos square painting which supposedly contains drawings, information and even fingerprints.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art--the-whole-thing-is-about-concealment-the-tates-picasso-exhibition-closes-tomorrow-but-for-one-man-and-his-picture-below-the-show-goes-on-iain-gale-goes-to-brighton-to-investigate-the-mysterious-case-of-the-fish-the-horse-and-the-fingerprint-1434249.html
I love this idea of hiding meaning to be uncovered.

Tutorial Session

I had my first tutorial session of the project, and found out a few things that i needed to do.

• Tailor the idea of layering and various levels of understanding to the book itself in its physical form
  
• Focusing on one specific theme: i am currently trying to convey the idea of different levels of understanding and layering within a book, and different perceptions depending on who you are and how you decide to read the book, but this is too general
• I am going to condense this idea into the to the idea of 'deception' and 'concealment' in the book, and likening this to the way that you understand the book: you learn different things at different times and you understand things based solely on the information that is being given to you.
• I am going to remodel it around the lamp-post or the tree. Both of these are central features to the series of the books, and especially important in the book i chose which is chronologically the first in the series.

The tree was my first idea as it is a symbol of rebirth and good trimphing over evil within the book. It also has layers of bark, and would be a good metaphor for the idea of concealment.

The lamp-post is an item that i had modelled before. It would be a good metaphor for illumination and deception. It has a light in itwhich could show or hide things around it, and it also would have layers of paint and when in Narnia in a following book (The Lion, the witch and the warddrobe), has layers of snow covering it.

Modelling Ideation & initial construction

Now that i have decided what i'm going to model (i will go into more detail later), i have to decide on how.

In a mapping project for last year, i made the 3D virtual world interactive by putting a google sketchup model into FlashCS5. I want to do this, but perhaps in a more sophisticated manner than before. Originally i only had zoom tags, but in this model i'd like to do a 3D pan, zooms as well as interactions with elements in the piece.

To do this i'd have to take lots of short video clips, and then string them together overlaid by action buttons. I am going to do a few mockups to just test the function and whether i can do what i am to do. I know that it might be difficult to overlay imagery in the way i want to, and i will look at a few tutorial videos on google to see if it is possible. The images might not be tranferrable into google, but i could quite easily add these in flash afterwards.

I want it to be possible to 'hover' over certain sections and for the section to respond.

Whilst making my first mockup, i realised that i had lost some of my knowledge such as how to use the 'follow me' tool, and also to hollow out a shape (as my model has a hole in the middle). I had to work out whatorder to construct it in as one i'd made the roof curve, i couldnt then split the object and hollow out sides as the push/pull tool only works on flat surfaces.

I used this video to learn how to use the 'follow me' tool.





I also wanted to remember how to duplicate objects (which i will need later for the slides that come in an out of the object as well as remembering how to hollow out an object. Luckily this was easily worked out with google tutorial videos and common sense.

The process of refamilarising myself with google sketchup:







Now to get on with the mockups

I started out doing it in foud sections, but i realised that once i'd cut off bits of create a dome, it all got stuck together and the pieces could not be seperated.

Also, i couldnt cut into it to create sections, and even if i worked out how to do this i'd have to make calculations on the dimensions beforehand.





Solution

I then realised that it would be better to create ' elements' and then string them together. i decided to split it up into right hand and left hand blocks. This means that i dont have to decide how many 'slides' to make beforehand and i can easily add or subtract it. I can 'group. these into objects, copy, paste and move them.

I designed these elements in my sketchbook, but i haven't really thought about dimensions at the moment. I am just trying to get the basic building blocks made to show basic function of how i want things to work in flash.





This is just the first building block: i still have to make the cover for the model, the slide that pulls out, and the part with the 'dolls house' models on the side.

I then built two other components using components of the originals. This is a rough outline of the process:



The large 'dolls gouse model' container is twice the width of the slide container so that when i copy them and align them, they fit neatly.



I copied a side with a curve on it, and then expanded it into the slide.



I slotted the slide into the right place. It has been make a few inches thinner so that it doesn't overlap.



I then joined them all together, and made them seperate components so that they could be moved.



Having these components allows me to easily expand or reduce the side of the model, and i am not restricted to how many slides i can use. It also allows me to reapply the format to other books if i desire.

I now need to create the 'cover' which will have almost a 'blurb' as i described in my notes. Now that i'm thinking about it, there's no reason why i couldn't have more than one 'cover' i suppose.


Now to put it into flash.

The last time i did this, i used 'scenes' which moved the angle, but now i want components of the model to interact. i am going to look up a few online tutorials to work out if, and how to do this. Otherwise i will have to manually move them, take a screenshot, then move on. This is fine except i'd like my final piece to have an animation/simulation of the slides moving if possible to make it seem smoother overall. However, for the purposes of this simlutation i will do it with screenshots as they are quicker to import.

Translating my model into the virtual world

I wanted to make my model three dimensional, as well as adding some content. I want the model to be interactive, and have controls to zoom in, out, look around the model and interact with it as you would with the real thing.

I first outlined my goals for the second part of the project to focus in on why i was making decisions, and to eliminate anything unecessary. I asked myself three questions:

1.How can putting my model into the virtual world enhance the experience?
2. Which features should i choose to change?
3. It is necessary to conform to the original framework/function?




Stepping back and asking myself these questions allowed me to focus on exactly what i wanted to do, and to find out why. I knew that i wanted a few things:

• To add detail which wasnt in the original due to lack of space/modelling medium
  
• Adding interactions which were difficult due to the size of the model
• Various levels of detail in different parts of the model: handing power back to the user
• Represent in some way the differences in interpretations: by different people or when re-investigating the model.
• I wanted to keep the apperance fairly similar, or at least the format. It is possible that a different shape could be more effective in the virtual world, and i will look into this
  

This is just preliminary, and i didn't forget the value of outside input on every stage of my ideation. This is criticism that i have recieved in the past i.e. limited production, and post production research, and not including this in the final design as much as i could have. This is usually due to running out of time, and i didn't want to continue making this mistake.

So, i decided to involve other people in more parts of the ideation process. I showed a few people my model to learnt what they thought of it i.e. if it was effective, what could be done to improve it, and if it was used in the way that i intended or some other way.

Before i did this, however, i had to ensure that my work was on track, so I decided to revisit my brief and research to ensure that my work was relevant and that i was going in the right direction.

Revisiting my previous research and process work

I revisted my research and reviewed my understanding of how books are read as this is what motivated my work. Each bit of information building a 'database' of characters which you change your opinions of during the course of the book. You can anticipate their behaviours based on what you know about them, and how well you identify with them is what draws you in. Narrative techniques such as the 'learning curve' i discovered in The Adventures of Sherlock Homes can cause you to feel behind a characters knowledge, creating intrigue, but the following landslide of information can shock and overwhelm and be very effective. Small sections of 'drips' of information can create tension. A book is read front to back usually, but i often find myself going backwards to re-read bits i missor really liked. If i am reading a book i dont like for educational purposes, i skim but this can also cause a lack of understanding. To combat this, books can use 'signposting', or an overview of the main things that i wanted to convey. The 'signposted' i.e. important themes/messages can be seen at a glance, and you can choose to focus on different sections as you please. This is subverting the conventions of the written word, and indeed even films or audiobooks. However, the model can be 'read' conventionally.

I realised that this 'diluting' of a book requires an 'editor', and perhaps different editors would prioritise different things. What if i allowed the user to be their own editor? Would this change the reading of the book? Yes. Books that allow the user input i.e. fantasy books which ask questions such as 'if you want the user to go here... skip to page...', but this wouldnt be an accurate representation of my model. Normal books are open to interpretation, and what it there is there.

The second half of the brief states 'The outcome will not be the recreation of the original physical book as a virtual interaction, but must challenge the notions of the very design of the book at all levels, including narrative, form and pace. It also may only be an aspect of your reading of the text and not the entirety of the book.'

I am quite secure that my design relates to the brief as it subverts absolutely everything that makes a book, a book, whilst allowing you to read it as you would a book. You can read the design quickly or slowly, go into as much or as little detail as you like, or even read it backwards or fowards.

Researching responses to my Model

I also decided to do a little bit of research into responses towards my model. I showed it to four people and got their responses. I put a 3 minute time limit on their interaction with the piece so that everyone had the same contact time, and to allow me to gain immediate and impulsive responses. I believe that the whole piece could be read in this timeframe. I did not explain what the model was of when interviewing two of my people, the other two i explained that it was a model of a book.

My list of questions was as follows:

1. What do you think that the purpose of the model is?
2. What did you learn from seeing the model?
3. What could i add to the model to help you understand it?
4. What could i add to the model that would allow you to get more out of it?
5. The model is intended to be a different way of obtaining information from a textual piece. Now that you know this, would it affect the way that you interacted with it?
6. If the model was virtual, what would you like to add to it to make it more engaging?

Some of my responses were as follows:







I then showed them my ideas for the 3D version of the model. My ideas were divided into two parts: one where i kept the original format, and the other where i didnt, but kept to the ideas that i presented in the original model





Responses to the virtual world model ideas pointed towards keeping the original format as it facilitated multi-level interaction. The idea of audio was well recieved, but i will have to look up audio-books for this as no films exist t the moment.

Also, i noticed form my feedback of the original model that it might be useful to have some kind of introductory screen to introduce the piece, much like a blurb in a real book so that the user has some idea of what they are interacting with as it is kind of an abstract concept. I understood that if a user is only interacting with one or two parts of the piece, it can be difficult to understand what it going on. I need to make sure that even at the shallowest level, a basic understand does come across. The pictrues and random words that are on the outside of my model, although they make sense to me and people who might have already heard the book, they dont necessarily convey much as i'd hoped.


I was planning on doing this with google sketchup; and importing various videos into flash then putting control handles.