Ghost Ride

We have been told that we are going to be creating a 3D animated ghost train ride. We have to come up with a theme draw up the layout for our ride, design the surrounding the train as well as what the ride will included (ghosts, skeletons etc.).
For my ghost ride i decided that i was going to have a narrative based ride that would follow the story of jack the ripper, and the murders he committed throughout the Whitechapel area of London in 1888, i had the idea of this from a tour i went on in the London dungeon which you where guided round a told about jack the ripper, this combined with a ghost train ride that i have been on at Chessington i decided that this is what i wanted to do.

My ride will navigate the back alleys of London and go to the locations of where these women were murdered, a dark figure will be apparent throughout playing the role of Jack, i plan to have a misty setting, with howling wind throughout, this teamed with women's screams the blood i hope will set for a scary setting, you will travel to the locations of the five murders. Here is the pan for my ride with what will happen at each place, i am now creating what my train will look like.

eXistenZ

For our first lecture back we watched a film called eXistenZ, directed by David Cronenberg. The film surrounds world of video games and how the reality of life is being altered by these games and that the characters within the film feel more real while in the games than in their real lives. We were asked to examine the film and write a short statement on the films Narrative, Interactivity and Convergence.



Narrative:
The narrative of the film is quite different to any film I have seen before, it is quite all over the place and disjointed and at some stages leaves the viewer quite confused of what is reality and what is the game world, I believe Cronenberg did this to relate to the world that we live many in today and how with advances in technology many people fell more at home or safe when surround by gadgets which the have become to rely on. Throughout the film the characters go on a journey within the game to save the game from people who wish to destroy it. Surrealism plays a big part within the film, this i believe is due to its narrative and its sense of unpredictability. The film ends with you learning that what you think to be the real world and the game word are in fact both the game world, again I think this relates to the world and how people are dependent on technology.

Interactivity:
I think when talking about interactivity and relating it to the film, Cronenberg tries to show that how the characters become engrossed within the game because they are enjoying it, yet throughout they make it aware by talking to each other that they no it is a game and not real life, this is similar to how the gaming world is expanding and more and more people are beginning to play video games, which like eXistenZ they know isn't real but the enjoyment overcomes them and they almost become zombies in a sense. Where the film takes it to a next level is when what the viewer believes to be the real world is in fact the game world, this takes a direct link again to advancing technology.

Convergence:
The convergence within the film is the game world and real world coming together, Cronenberg cleverly links these to by creating the idea that the characters and living out two lives one in the game world which is clearly fictional, and their lives in the real world where nothing is strange to them and it could quite easily be their real lives, by linking these two lives again Cronenberg is making a direct connotation to how technology has advanced and how it is part of peoples lives.

Interactive Space: Finished

How that i had all my images i set about creating my interactive space using adobe dream weaver, this was quite monotonous but after a couple of hours i managed to finish it with completed captions, This is the link to the start: file:///C:/Users/joe/Documents/Uni/Design%20Practice%201/Interactive%20Space/Finished%20Interactive/index.html

I feel it works well, although some of the images are wrongly sized, but apart from that i like it. I tried to create one that had no demographic but after having some feedback it seems that was allot harder than i had thought.

Interactive Space Images

Interactive Space: Storyboard

Now that I had all my ideas together I decided to draw up my storyboard this would show all the pictures I was planning to take and how they would link together with each other and in turn create my Interactive Space, I would have a focal starting point with two choices from these my story would be created each decision of the user would change the story but all would result in eventually the same outcome.

Interactive Space: Practice

Having storyboarded all my images for my interactive space and taken the images I decided to use Adobe Dreamweaver to practice linking some random images together so I as clear how I would need to go about creating my final piece, with help from Simon and a brief tutorial I chose 4 images from the internet all money images and decided that as a practice task I would play around with the images and hotspots in order to get a rough idea of how I would need to link my actual images when it came to it. These are two of the images I used for my practice interactive space, I didn’t really have a theme or any ideas behind it, it was more for the practice to teach myself how to confidently use Dreamweaver.

 I found using Dreamweaver very easy, and with a template to work with i quickly was able to change the size and colour of my hotspots as well as changing there location, doing so I was able to create links from each image to the next which allowed me to work through a series of images with ease. Having done this i am ow very confident that when coming to complete my final Interactive Space that i will have no trouble in creating a fun and working story.

Interactive Space

Initial ideas:

Thought about doing a interactive space which involves the users, makes them take morale decisions which effect the overall outcome, this way it reflects the users personality. i decided to do a day in the life of for my interactive space having one main character which the story revolves around and the users will have to make a number of decisions throughout which will effect this characters day, essentially the user will be the character within the interactive space, because all the pictures will be POV shots.
              It will start with the user having to make two choices for the character each leading to a different storyline, throughout the choices they make will affect the story later on, say if they are nasty to another character within the story later on that character might get their own back which essentially would disrupt the users day, also if the side with one character rather than another this might benefit them later on.

How?:
I plan to storyboard my ideas and decide of all the shots I will take and how they are linked together, all my shots will be POV giving user a personal feel within my story, will also decide to have a few morale options which will relate to the characters within the story and this will affect the overall outcome. I plan for the story to have an eventual goal something that the user is trying to get to, as well as this their needs to be interesting conflicts throughout to hold the users interest