Introduction

Contact DetailsDr Judy Robertson

Judy.Robertson@hw.ac.uk0131 451 8223

Rm EM G29Second Life name: Jxr Greenwood

OverviewDefinition of multimedia and active research

areasStructure of module – what you’ll learnAssignment information

What is multimedia?The combination of different media into one

application:TextStill imagesSoundVideo

Can involve multimodal interfaces (speech, gesture, touch)

Can involve ubiquitous computing (computing in the environment beyond the desktop)

Can involve interactivity, remote distribution, collaborative working

Focus is on user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) rather than Quality of Service (QoS)

Your experience?What sort of MM stuff have you done before?

Using MM?Creating MM?At uni?As a hobby?

Multimedia Grand ChallengesACM SIG MM identified three grand

challenges for multimedia researchers to solve:Make authoring complex multimedia titles as

easy as using a word processor or drawing program;

Make interactions with remote people and environments nearly the same as interactions with local people and environments;

Make capturing, storing, finding, and using digital media an everyday occurrence in our computing environment

From Rowe and Jain (2005)

Challenge 1: make authoring complex multimedia titles easy Researchers need to develop tools to make it easy for

average users to make compelling multimedia with different types of content, e.g.

A physics teacher could make simulations and animations to illustrate dynamic behaviours;

A travel agent could make material advertising tourist destinations including pictures, videos, sounds, live link to people at a remote location;

A family member could create a timeline of an important event such as a wedding, documenting the proposal, engagement party, wedding.

Of course, tools already exist for authoring in particular media, but:

They don’t support different types of media; Professional tools are too hard to learn, but end user tools

are too restrictive All data types should be first class citizens

Challenge 2: Make remote interactions the same as local interactions This involves:Distributed collaboration

Multimedia meetings between more than 2 remote participants are still hard to set up, expensive and frustrating;

It’s hard to remotely work with the same tools (e.g. view & co-construct diagrams remotely)

Immersive 3D virtual environmentsChallenge is to sensitively integrate novel input

and output technology to make the experience seem real (or hyper real)

Could be better than being there!

Visiting virtual worlds“I always look at the game worlds we build as

other places for us to go. … Most of them are hell and almost none of them are heaven. We’re creating hells for our children to live in.”

Henk Rodgers (Edge, 1999; p75)Double Life play station advert

Challenge 3: Make manipulating digital media as an everyday occurrence It should be an every day occurrence to:

Capture √Store √FindAnd use √

digital media.We have huge capacity to capture and store data.

But how can we easily make sense of this huge heap of content?

We need to be able to search audio and video content from archives – the problem is automatically identifying what is stored in non-textual media.

The vision for this classThe class will terraform the HeriotWatt

Second Life island

?

What is Second Life anyway?It’s a massively multiplayer immersive 3D

virtual environmentPopulation: 11,175,710 (Nov 2007)Total hours spent: 24,625,902 (Nov 2007)Thriving arts and educational communitiesGrowing business opportunitiesDemo

Second Life economy250$ to 1 linden dollarYou get 2000 Linden dollars to start withYou can sell and buy virtual land and objects/services

US$ exchanged on Lindex (in millions)

Who uses Second Life: age

Who uses Second Life: gender

Why are we using Second Life for this module?There’s something for everyone – you can

specialise in different aspects of MMIt lets you build in-world – you see immediate

consequences of what you doEveryone in the class can work together on

the same big projectIt’s an expanding, current development in

user generated content and social networkingMaybe you’ll become SL millionaires and give

me a cut

Second Life and MM grand challenges

As you get to know Second Life, think about this. Does it:

Make authoring complex multimedia titles easy as a using a word processor?

Make interactions with remote people and environments nearly the same as interactions with local people and environments?

Make capturing, storing, finding, and using digital media an everyday occurrence in our computing environment?

SL mature contentSecond Life has many areas which have mature

contentIf you want to avoid them, stick to regions which

are rated PGPlease share only snapshots from PG areas on

the class websiteI have given you a list of safe educational places

to visitThe HeriotWatt island where you will work is

rated PG and your practice areas will be private to this class

What you will learn…about the current research issues in

multimedia…how to design and evaluate multimedia…how creativity works…how to take charge of your own learning…how to evaluate your own learning…how to evaluate your own work and that of your

peersRemember: it’s an open ended topic; there are

seldom “right” answersThink of the lecturer and tutors as mentors

Technical skills you will learnSecond Life:

Content creationTerraformingScripting

Photoshop:Texturing

PremiereMovie making

Module activitiesLectures

None! – It’s a practical courseTutorial

Everyone has one hour of tutorial with me a week.Mostly group work and hands-on activities

LabsOne hour face to face labOne hour lab in Second Life with help from tutors

When would suit you to have this? Please fill in the survey on the Vision page

Reading/homework exercises

You’ll like this module if......you like:ExploringBuildingCreating

(drawing/sounds/music/video/programming)Finding things out for yourselfComing up with your own ideasThings that are open ended

You won’t like this module if...You like step by step instructionsYou like assignments to give exact

specificationsYou like to be told exactly what to doYou don’t like trial and errorYour favourite programming environment is

emacs with a command shell :-)

Learning resources“Creating your world:

the official guide to content creation in Second Life”Weber, Rufer-Bach and Platel

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal

Countless video tutorials and in-world tutorials

Learning resources onlineThis module will use the Vision learning

environment.https://vision.hw.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp(Use university login and password)

Course announcementsLab worksheetsClass wikiBlogsDiscussion forums

Assessment: 100% courseworkSubmit an individual portfolio containing:An area of land in the Heriot-Watt Second Life

island (group work) (25%);A multimedia tutorial to help other students learn

about Second Life (25%);A fun interactive Second Life exhibit for visitors

to the Heriot-Watt island (25%);A learning log (15%).A review of other students’ multimedia work

(10%);

HomeworkRead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_LifeRead about the SL community standards:

http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php

Any questions?