interface ideas
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
I met with a few of the people at Sedso Design tonight to go over a proposal for turning a printed piece that they had designed into an interactive website for a client who was a contestant on iron chef and owns a few restaurants. While I was there, I showed them the current incarnation of InteractMix with the new control scheme as well as each scenario screen. We discussed and sketched out a few ideas to keep each screen consistant, and figured that it would work well as one large space with the introduction in one area, and then pan and rotate into another part of the same background to present the next set of controls. They had suggested doing the same with the remixing screen, and I explained that each remix screen would be based around the album artwork. The idea we ended up agreeing on is to reduce the amount of information on the song selection screen by having one song presented at a time, with navigation to browse through the other songs, which works better if more than 5 songs get added, in how the song selection screen wouldn’t have to be modified to fit additional songs. From the song selection, the screen would zoom into the album artwork with the remixing controls appearing. after the remix is done, it would zoom back out to the full background of all the screens, then rotate to another area where the user would start placing objects in their music video. This also frees up areas that were originally going to take you from screen to screen and does so in a way that allows the user to know where they are at in the process without specifically telling them so with text. I’m planning on posting more screen shots soon after trying this idea out, so hopefully it makes more sense then.
Updates
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve been focusing a bit more on designing the website for the actual senior show this past week, and don’t have too much to report on the actual project itself. I’ll have some updates either later today or tomorrow, but as of now I’m basically just coding everything to get it working, then working on adding the remix tracks, and finally going over the design of each interface to tighten things up. I’m holding off on adding any new features that weren’t previously discussed, since there is a lot on my plate right now to get done, and I’d rather have a working project than a project that includes all the bells and whistles, yet doesn’t function at 100%. The mini critique last week helped me out in realizing I need to eliminate a lot of the text, yet still have it self explanatory so that I don’t have to be leaning over the user’s shoulder explaining each step of the process.
Feedback
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
Did a brief presentation yesterday to get feedback on the new user controls and screen setups. Its still a bit text heavy, and there’s a few things I’m going to be cutting out and redoing. Right now, I’m focusing on making the new controls for the visualizer work, as well as working on adding drag and drop capabiliies. The next part I’m planning to tackle is to figure out the bug in my code that won’t allow you to change the vocals AND the drum part (I think I have both sets of buttons setting their values to the same variable, so the playback only plays 1 of the 2 tracks). There’s still some other button issues to work out, and after that I’ll be working more with the audio to build the complete nine inch nails remix portion, and then start on the umphrey’s mcgee part.
Last night I met up with a professional graphic designer while checking out studio / office space that I might be renting with a few other freelancers over the summer, and I showed him the beta version of my project. He had some really good feedback and also commented that it is too text heavy. He said that he will help me out with any graphic design issues and is providing great feedback as to the visual direction of all the screens. I’m planning on leaving the design alone for now to focus on the scripting, and fine tune the design after I get everything working 100%.
Updates
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve come up with a few sketches of what I’m planning on doing for the gallery space (although haven’t scanned them in to post). Today we went over the overall layout of everyone’s projects, and some good points were brought up about how to change my initial idea to have it more of an open area, rather than just screens on a wall. I’m also going to be using iMacs rather than laptops, and still plan on using one large LCD screen. The iMacs are going to be setup on 4 podiums, all facing inwards so that everyone else will have to walk up close to see whats going on. Chris Garvin gave me the idea of having all of the electrical cords hanging from the ceiling and almost making a “tent” frame out of the wires - kind of to embrace the wires rather than trying to hide them. Even if the project does work out online, I’m still planning on running everything locally rather than online so that people won’t have to deal with load times in the gallery.
New user controls, intro screen, and instruction help
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
After talking with Katherine today, I came up with the idea of having a tool bar at the bottom which would display necessary instructions on certain screens. It will also serve as a place to select photos, movie clips, etc.. to include with the visuals. That helps out with the issue of using the keyboard and should avoid some confusion. Checkout the shots below and let me know what you think:
Please leave me some feedback or tell me in class what you think of this! Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized Got a lot of good feedback during the presentation yesterday. I’m glad to get fresh pairs of eyes to take a look at it, since I know the control scheme inside of out, and haven’t realized that its going to be difficult to grasp for a first time user. I’m working on creating an additional intro screen to introduce the concept of the site, as well as have the instructions explained one step at a time on each screen. Rob came up with a great idea of instead of just having next and previous arrows to navigate, to create a sequence of buttons for each step so that they can jump from any screen they need to, as well as know what step they are on. I’m thinking of adding in a “how to” video to the front page, although most likely won’t create that until the project is closer to being finished. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized I finally figured out the hardest part of the actionscript coding that is the most important aspect to the project. I had to combine about 4 different tutorials to figure it out, but managed to make it so you can preview each track and select it, then have your selections play back for the visual screen. As of writing this, I only have it set for the drum parts but plan on having the entire nine inch nails track fully remixable (is that a word?) by next week. I’m having fun playing around with it and will post a beta version online for everyone else to checkout for feedback. Other than that, I’ve designed a new interface for the main screen. You can preview the song, goto the artist website, read their bio, or buy the album. Here is a screenshot below:
Click the image above for a larger version. I’d really appreciate people’s feedback on this, in terms of the content, colors, style, typography, etc… what needs improvement? what would you like to see included or taken away?
About screen
Visualizer adding movie clips screen
Yesterday’s presentation
Got it working + new main screen