Week Fourteen: Project Work Session

Today in class we will be working on project proposals for the Enchanted Forest Pop-Up Theme Park.  The project proposals are due before next week's class.  Here are the latest proposal parameters.  They have changed, so please review them.  The project scope document has also been revised to include these parameters.  You should review the project scope document to make sure you understand the larger context for what you are proposing.  You can see the scope documents on the Intergalactic Pinterest Page in the Course Links box on this blog.

Proposal Form
Proposals should take the form of a video pitch no more than 7 minutes long. The video should be accompanied by a one paragraph summary that begins with the one sentence elevator pitch.  The video must be submitted by the final day of class, Dec. 10.  The summary and links to your video should be posted on your blog. If there is an external reviewer, they should be emailed the summary and a link to the video as well before the final class date. Videos will be shown and commented on during the last day of class. In the video the following topics should be covered:

The Big Idea:  What do you want guests to get out of your designed space.  This is the guiding concept and should be reasonably concrete in expression and affective in nature.  It is not enough to want guests to “feel good;” the overall goal should be more specific.

The Story: What’s your story. How does your story intersect the narrative of the Enchanted Forest?  There should be a story arc, no matter how simple or small, that unifies your proposal to the space.  

The Experience:  Explain how the guest will be immersed in the idea you have.  The event/attraction you create might be either virtual or actual, but it should be as immersive as possible.

The Design:  Here are the details of construction, fabrication, engineering, programming, material culture, technology, lighting, performance, script….whatever you need to create the experience for the guest.

The Takeaway:  The material souvenir, the immaterial memory and the aspiration. What should the guest takeaway from your design?

Projects can be proposed by teams or individuals.

Week Thirteen: Building Sustainable Worlds

This week's class will feature a performance by Professor DeWitt's Punch and Judy Show.  A micro-scaled theatrical production, the Punch and Judy, like the Flea Circus, is a compact entertainment that has been a feature of fairgrounds and themed entertainment zones like Pleasure Piers and seaside resorts for over 350 years.  The Punch and Judy is an exemplar of how sustainable live entertainment has adapted and retained traditional elements in its history and is an opportunity to reflect on what makes a succesful immersive theatrical experience.

Tim Rumage will also be back to talk about sustainability and its relation to your theme park project.  In preparation for your work in-class this week you should have formed a "Big Idea" and its possibilities to develop as the heart of your project. 

Two Hour Workshop in Worldbuilding conducted by important Fantasy writer N.K. Jemison is here.  This is very worth watching. 

Week Eleven: Building Worlds Around Characters

In our first class for this semester we developed mapped a basic concept for an Oz space.  Oz is a transmedia world that is built to house magical characters of various magnitudes and sorts. This week we will be looking at the development of characters or character pieces that fit our concept of an Enchanted Forest.Costume Designer and Fabric Sculptor Sheryl Haler will be our guest presenter along with Keith Nielsen, Ringling College 2015 graduate, who is a New York City-based costume designer. 

Keith is working in film, television and theater, Keith maintains a strong sense of individuality supported with in-depth research and development that directly relates to character experiences within a script. Keith has been recognized by Ringling College with the honor of Distinguished Alumni. 

Some of Keith's film/television credits include:  TOMMY (currently in pre-production), THE VILLAGE, FRIENDS FROM COLLEGE, QUANTICO, WEST 40'S, MOZART IN THE JUNGLE, Untitled UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT (TV movie in post-production).   Theater credits for the Westchester Broadway Theatre include:  Anything Goes, Phantom, Man of La Mancha, and Mamma Mia.Keith has led various teams in a variety of client-focused tasks including branding, advertising, promotion and experience design.  Collaborators include:  Cirque du Solel, Hasbro, Explora Caribe and Microsoft Game Studios.Keith will be giving a presentation, followed by a Q & A, in the Morganroth Auditorium on Monday, November 11th, from 7 to 8:30 pm.  

It is recommended you attend his talk on Monday night.

To prepare for class this week, you might make a map of that you think should be in an Enchanted Forest.  There is no need to stick to conventional ideas about what that might be, but consider what is enchanting to you and how you would like to enchant others. Put some of these things on the map.

You can read the scope document for the Enchanted Forest Project on the InterGalactic Pinterest Page.

Bastille Day Parade 1989 designed by Jean-Paul Goude

Jean-Paul Goude's Designs for the Parade

Visual Anthropology Review by Peter Redfield of Celebrations of the French Bicentennial

"In modern spectacle then, we might see a corollary to traditional visual ritual, a transitory moment of separation and reintegration, a glimpse of an underlying social framework and the sacred edges of the profane. Ritual in traditional societies, spectacle in modern societies, each are portrayed as important events. Their importance is recognized by their audience and explicated by their interpreter. " ...Redfield

Week 7: Basics of the Built Environment

The order of visiting presenters has changed, you can consult the Course Schedule for the updated order.  This week we welcome guest presenter, architect and art historian Dr. Christopher Wilson.  We expect to make use of the map you made of your planet location by taking your player to visit several structures around the area you have designed. Dr. Wilson will provide us some assistance in describing those structures and infrastructure as we learn a few basics of architecture applied to the creation of built environments.

Writing Assignment from Last Week: If you missed last week's class you need to put some time in to catch-up because you missed the in-class instruction for making a hypertext game in Twine2.  Luckily for you, most of the basic instruction is available in the Tutorial on the Intergalactic Pinterest Link. You should read the "Visiting" Concept Document first and then do the "Visiting" Game Tutorial.

Assignment for this Week: Complete one of the options at the end of the Tutorial--go to a job, go to a sporting event, go to a ceremony, go to a family gathering on your planet--and describe it in detail.  Remember to come to class with your laptop or tablet charged and ready, we will be writing extensively in-class. 

Also, this week, you need to send me an image from your planet in the size of 200 px high by 400 px wide.  This could easily be a section of your planet panorama reduced in size and cropped. Also send me the name of your planet and the description of it you wrote for the planetarium show. Please email me these items before next class. 

Xtra Credit: There is a possibility for extra credit if someone wants to create an illustration of me (headshot 233px wide by 155px high) as a person of the intergalactic future to use on the Intergalactic Pinterest page.  If I use it, you get extra credit. Email me if you are interested.

Next week we will look to how objects and culture interact in a visit from Dr. Genevieve Hill-Thomas our art historian who specializes in global art. 

Week Six: Creating a Hypertext World

This week we will be setting up a hypertext game environment in Twine2 and learning how to manage some of the possibilities of choice in the program.

I am asking you to prepare for this week's session in two ways.  First to make a map of the location on your planet that you intend to represent in your Twine game.  You should pick a location on your planet that has landscape features that enables a community to sustain itself at that place.  The community you will be visiting will be human or human-like.  On your map include natural features and geographic elements that show why the community you will be visiting is located where it is.  Include on your map important natural features and any structures that are significant to the community you will be visiting.  

Second I would like you to undertake at least one of the tutorials below to learn the basics of Twine2. We will be working in this environment during class so please bring your laptops or tablets to class on Tuesday. Twine 2 is programmed in your browser.

Here is links to useful tutorials:

This is the most basic work through tutorial for the program to learn its basic function.  We will step through some of these basic functions in-class, this tutorial will help you understand those steps.

https://twinery.org/wiki/twine2:guide

This is a good tutorial in Twine2 about Twine2

http://selfloud.net/HarloweWorkshop.html

Basic RPG Tutorial 

Part One:
http://lambdamaphone.blogspot.com/2015/02/using-twine-for-games-research-part-ii.html?q=twine

Part Two:
http://lambdamaphone.blogspot.com/2015/03/using-twine-for-games-research-part-iii.html?q=Twine

How to Create a Space Exploration Game in Twine 2 (This is a good relevant Tutorial to what we are going to do)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvOPqJzXWgo

How to Have a Character ask they Player their name

http://twinery.org/questions/1453/how-could-i-have-a-character-ask-the-player-their-name

Tutorial for Macros

https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/2620/a-tutorial-to-twine-macros-if-set-and-click-for-twine-2-0-harlowe

How to link passages in If statements

https://twinery.org/forum/discussion/5166/how-to-link-passages-in-if-statements

How to make a combination lock in Twine2

https://www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-Combination-Lock-in-Twine-2-Harlowe-2/

Building an Inventory System in Twine 2

https://gersande.com/blog/designing-inventories-in-twine-2-with-the-built-in-harlowe-macros/

Twine Cheat Sheet

https://blogs.stockton.edu/textscape/files/2015/04/A-Twine-Cheat-Sheet.pdf

And is a list of Youtube tutorials by Dan Cox that seem useful

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTWJzxNdsIDHiYzGh-2Fd1w

And here is a longer list of Youtube tutorials for the most recent version of Twine 2.3 (Most of us will probably use Harlowe as the story format, it is the default)

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=twine+2.3


 Please watch and work through the program as much as you can before you come to class.

Week Five: Field Trip to the Bishop Planetarium

This week we are on a field trip to the Bishop Planetarium at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature. This is an excellent facility with a first rate dome theater on which we will be able to see our planet visualizations.  Please meet at the planetarium at 8:50 so we can be ready to start as close to 9 a.m. as we can.  If you can't make it please make sure your visualizations will be there by submitting them via your google docs to Howard at the planetarium.  If you have not done so, submit them now.

The Museum is located at: 201 10th Street West, Bradenton, right across from the Police Department. 

Next Week Assignment:  Next week we will be developing cultures and societies on our worlds through the vehicle of a hypertext game. 

For next week the assignment will be to make a map of the location on your planet that we will be visiting in the game your develop.  On the course blog for next week I will put several links to introduce the Twine 2 environment.  Before coming to class next Tuesday, follow this Twine 2 tutorial on YouTube

https://youtu.be/5yCZaQLb_Kw

it runs about 14 minutes. Follow the steps of the tutorial, next week we will assume you have tried the tutorial.  There may have been some changes to the interface since this tutorial was published, you should be able to figure out any problems.

Week Four: Fantastic Beasts and How to Make Them

This week's guest presenter is environmental scientist Tim Rumage.  Last week we talked about the physical systems involved in worldbuilding. This week Tim will introduce the life systems that are involved in planetary habitation. Fantastic creature are not built on pure imagination, they are created out of understanding of natural systems. This week we will study some of those systems and their possibilities.

Assignment: You should have constructed your planet skin for today using the pixel dimensions from last week's assignment (see below). Also, create a title slide with your name and the name of your planet.

This week we will be constructing the second image, a panoramic landscape on your planet that will contain some of the life forms you create. In constructing your landscape you should include planetary life that is the product of the various patterns and circumstances of ecological systems that you have set into motion on your planet when you created it. 

Once you have completed your images, record a wav file in which you tell us your planet's name and a description of its defining characterisics.  When you have your four elements ready

1. A title slide 2048 X 4096 pixels with your name and planet name. Make sure you name this file in the following naming convention (in which "studentname" will be replaced with your name): studentname_title.png  Make sure you save your file to .png format.
2. A planet skin 4096 X 8192 pixels. Make sure you name this file in the following naming convention (in which "studentname" will be replaced with your name):  studentname_planettexture.png  
3. A panorama in the image ratio of 8:1, width to height. A resolution of 32,768 X 4,096 is a suggestion.  Adapt as you need remember to use a transparent canvas and to make the image seamless. Small differences will be really blown up at this size so match the ends of your image as exactly as you can.  You should name this file:  studentname_panorama.png
4. And finally your sound file in .wav format should be named: studentname_audio.wav

Notice the file names are all lower case and include an "underscore" character.

Put all these files in a Google Docs folder folder and send an invitation to access your folder to: Howard Hochhalter the manager of the planetarium at the following email, HHochhalter@bishopscience.org  

The submission deadline is Friday Sept 20th please submit them to Howard by then.

Field Trip:  Next week our class meeting will be a field trip to the Bishop Planetarium located in the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.  You need to find your own transportation to the museum and a number of students in the class have room in their cars for riders. Please make sure you have a ride and clear arrangements as to where you will meet your ride to get to the planetarium.  We will start projecting images at 9:00 a.m. please try to arrive before that time at the planetarium door which faces the street in front of the museum. Free parking is available around the museum but watch the time limits which are usually 2 hours.  We will be finished before 11:00 in order for you to have time to get back to school for afternoon classes.

You can find a map and directions to the museum on the museum's home page, Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.

Week Two/Three: Planet Building

Because of the hurricane class cancellation, we have moved the presentation from last week to this week.  Unfortunately, this will mean we will only have one class on Fantastic Beasts and the preparation time for the first project will be shortened. This week we will have our first guest presenter, Howard Hochhalter, Manager of the Bishop Planetarium in Bradenton. Howard will attempt to present a crash course in basics of planet formation and astrophysics. This week and next week we will be preparing an assignment in vizualizing an exoplanet (a planet outside of our solar system).

I redone the reading for the second week and have added several new ones under week two.  Your assignment before coming to class on Sept. 10 is to read one of the books on planet building I have under Week Two resources.  Read this book as a resource before coming to class.

During the next class we will explain in more detail the Planet Visualization Project. Here are some of the details in advance, but the assignment for next week is to read the background book.

This Planet Vizualization project will extend over the next three weeks. This coming week we will prepare specifications for the planet we intend to build. Next week we will look at the basics of how to build an ecosystem on the planet you have designed. These designs will be output in two images: one to form a skin to wrap on the wire frame model of an existing exoplanet; the second, a panorama representing the 360 degree view from the site of our "landing." All outputs will be as png images. 

When you have finished the two images you are to write a description of your planet, its name and something about life on the planet. Post this description on your blog.  Record the description into a .wav file of one minute or less. 

Here are some of the basic instructions:

Planet textures wrap around a 3D wireframe sphere. The sphere/planet can be placed in orbit around one of the stars with known exoplanets that we have mapped into our system. We’ll just replace the texture of an exoplanet. This will allow students some control over the characteristics of their planet/solar system (type of star, planet’s distance from star, etc.)

The panorama (the “long skinny” format) will be displayed when we “land” on the planet. If the graphic is transparent above the land features (in other words, if the sky is left transparent) then stars, the planet’s sun, and other features will be visible exactly as they would appear from the surface of the planet. For example, if this is a planet around a star other than our sun, our sun would be visible in that planet’s nighttime sky as a star. Use a transparent canvas when you set up your image.

The first image should be at a resolution (image size) of 8192 x 4096. This image we are calling the planetary texture. Then, you should make a "long skinny" panorama, in an 8:1 (width to height) ratio. The center of the panorama will be at the front of the dome and what we are directly looking at, the rest of the image will wrap to either side. I recommend the "long and skinny" 8:1 image as probably producing the best result. A possible pixel set up might be 4096 pixels in height and 32,768 pixels in width. This file size might be out of hand is you go with a color depth over 8bit, but you may a deeper color depth might be ok. All images png file although that is recommended for all the files. The examples are jpgs. If you make a png, leave the sky of the panorama transparent so that the night sky or daytime of the location of the planet can be visible over the panorama.


After you have completed your images, put them in google docs box and email an invitation to Howard at the planetarium so they can pull the files from the box and mount them in the system. Don't try to email them. FYI the planetarium projects in 4k resolution, so file sizes will be big for best results.

Read about Five Earthlike planets nearby.

Writing Assignment:  If you haven't done so yet, post the map of your part of Oz on your blog. Add a brief travelogue description of your area of Oz including some of the important sites and some of the characters that live there.  One character should be imported from one of the canonical books by L. Frank Baum but the other characters should be of your own invention.  Where do your characters live and what do the live in.  Mention any other significant structures or natural points of interest. 

Week One: Mapping Imagined Worlds

First Offical Map of Oz from Tik Tok in Oz

The first class will begin with a look at constructing worlds as the container of characters and story. We will engage in some mapmaking as an introduction to basic Worldbuilding Theory and discuss several examples of the relationship between transmedia storytelling and worldbuilding. 

Worldbuilding principle of the week: "All maps are projections."

Assignment Before Coming to Class: Read one of the Books of Oz from the original canon. You will find resources for this on the Course Resource Page.  You have to use your Ringling username and password to access this page. 

Using any of the maps of Oz as a general container, such as the one reproduced above, select a specific area and create the map of a small village that exists in the area you have chosen. Use the Oz book you have read as a source to add characters to the map as well as potential locations but most of the characters you use or details you build should be created by you, not taken from Baum's work. Try to keep your locations and characters in harmony with Baum's world although it is possible to creatively depart in a number of directions, which is often the case when contemporary writers tell stories in the Ozverse.  

After you have created your map which should include some characters and where they live and other buildings and landscape features for your small area of use, write an entry for an Oz travelogue of your small village that describes the village and some of its most prominent inhabitants. Include some details of the most significant buildings and describe some of the domiciles of the important townfolk. Use at least one character from the canon to help populate the village but make sure it contains some orginal characters that you invent. Don't use a specific place already described in the books, do some building out of the canonical Oz World. 

Here is a link to several accepted maps along with backgrounds on them 

http://oz.wikia.com/wiki/Maps_of_Oz

At the top of the page are navigation buttons and search bar to access the knowledge base of the Oz wiki which includes information on the books and on the canon as well as a wide diversity of Oziana of all types and media.

Please bring your laptop or tablet to class with a copy of your map and description files on it.  In class we will create a blog on which you will post your work for this semester and we will post your map and travelogue entry then.

Check the course resource page in the Course Links box for this week's reading to help you complete this assignment. Look under the resources for week 2.  

Summary of Course Information:

The purpose of this course is to provide you with an introduction to some of the basic concepts from the liberal arts that are used to create believable narrative worlds. Projects in the course are designed to help you apply the concepts you learn.

Attendance Policy is the Ringling Institutional Policy.

There will be three projects for this course.  The first project involves the creation of an exo-planet in the "goldilocks" zone of a distant star. The planet will have its own planetary ecosystem and carbon-based biota.  Suitable in some way for human habitation. This project will take place over the first third of the course. Each student will be required to create a planet skin (in photoshop or other software program) together with a 360 degree panorama of the planet's surface showing some of its physical features and biota. You will complete this project by creating a title slide for your planet and an audio .wav file of 1 minute or less that will introduce your planet and its features.  We will visit the Bishop Planetarium where the images you have created will be modeled and viewed in the dome theater.  These images will be accompanied by a brief description of your planet's physical and biota characteristics in an entry you construct for the Encyclopedia Galactica.

In the second third of the course, the entry you have created for your planet, together with reduced size image files for your planetskin and panorama will form the starting point for a more detailed entry in the Encyclopedia Galactica, a Twine2 hypertext environment that you will help construct and which details a utopian culture/society that inhabits your planet. The work for this section of the course will be modeled in Twine2, an open source program. 

The third segment of the course will focus on the conceptual planning of a theme park experience.  This project will conclude with a presentation to the group of your concept for the park.

In addition to the completion of the three projects you are welcome to maintain a process blog on which you will post process documents each week, work completed in class, as well as any comments you want to make about the ongoing work of the semester.

The mid-term grade will be based on your work for the planetarium and a review of the process blog.  The three grades for the course will be posted on the course gradebook on Canvas. The final grade will be based on a portfolio review of the three projects and the process blog during a personal conference with the student.