I NTRODUCTION Rawesak Tanawongsuwan

A common-sense description of multimedia might be: the ability to combine the creative possibilities of radio and television programs, newspapers, books, magazines, comic books, animated films and music disks into one set of computer files accessed by the same piece of software to provide and integrated seamless experience, where user input to some extent determines the manner in which the material is accessed. It is therefore interactive. The computer’s ability to have rapid access to the files which constitutes this material makes the linear model of the radio or television program seem old-fashioned and limited. Interactivity, where the user to some extent determines the text or, more accurately, the order in which the text unfolds, offers great creative potential. It also offers a great creative challenge, with the possibility of an interactive movie very likely to give the traditional script writer something approaching a migraine headache to the power of 5. Digital Multimedia, 2nd edition Nigel Chapman & Jenny Chapman Prologue “The Creative Challenge” by Brent MacGregor – Edinburgh College of Art

I NFORMATION IN A VARIETY OF FORMS Information can be conveyed in the form of text, still images, Web pages, slideshow presentations, video, sound or interactive tooltips.

S TATIC & T IME - BASED M EDIA There is a fundamental distinction between time- based and static media: time-based media exhibit change over time; static media do not. Video, animation and sound are time-based media. Still images and text are usually considered to be static media. Each medium has its own characteristics, leading to distinctive strengths and weaknesses. Always choose the most appropriate medium for your purpose.

D IGITAL M ULTIMEDIA The same story, information, etc can be represented in different media Text, images, sound, moving pictures All media can be represented digitally as a structured collection of bits Manipulated by programs, stored, transmitted over networks Digital media can be combined into multimedia

D EFINITION Digital multimedia: any combination of two or more media (text, audio, images, drawings, animation, video,…), represented in a digital form, sufficiently well integrated to be presented via a single interface, or manipulated by a single computer program

L INEAR VS N ON - LINEAR Users can interact with digital multimedia in novel ways, leading to non-linear structures.

L INEAR STRUCTURES IN CONVENTIONAL MEDIA

N ON - LINEAR STRUCTURES

D ELIVERY Online Network, Internet Offline CD-ROM, DVD

T RADITIONAL M EDIA P RODUCTION Access to production of traditional media highly restricted Books: distributed through publishers, subject to editorial scrutiny; barriers to newcomers Film: very high cost; studios prefer safe bets Music: mostly distributed by few labels controlled by small number of multinationals; hard to break in to the business TV: video production relatively low cost, but access to broadcast rigidly controlled

W EB S ITE P RODUCTION Potentially anyone with Internet access can have their own Web site ISPs provide free Web space Free and inexpensive tools are adequate WWW has potential for revolution in access to the means of production and distribution of digital material

C ONTROL OF C ONTENT All sufficiently complex societies seek to control what people may see or hear, either by explicit policing, economic or other means Rapid growth of the Internet and its potential for disseminating unacceptable content has given new impetus to debates about censorship Complicated ethical issues with no enduring conclusion or consensus despite thousands of years of debate

D IVERSITY WWW is global network, hence material reaches many different societies and cultural and religious groups within those societies Many different models of censorship – none, rigid centralized control, self-regulation, … Unrealistic to expect a single model of censorship to be acceptable everywhere Difficult to assign responsibility for disseminaton of content on Internet

C ULTURAL D EVELPMENT Takes time for conventions about content and consumption to become established 1895 footage of train arriving at station Early animations and trick films shown as part of vaudeville acts at the same time as narrative films were being shown in cinema Established forms translated into new medium (e.g. newsreels based on newspapers)

M ULTIMEDIA S OFTWARE T OOLS Music Sequencing and Notation Digital Audio Graphics and Image Editing Video Editing Animation Multimedia Authoring

D E FACTO STANDARD

P OPULAR ONES Image Photoshop, Gimp, Illustrator Video Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro Graphic APIs DirectX, OpenGL, Java3D Animation 3D Studio Max, Softimage XSI, Maya, Renderman, Blender Authoring Flash, Director, Authorware

W HAT DO TECHNICAL PEOPLE DO IN THIS FIELD ? ACM, IEEE ACM Multimedia ACM Siggraph Game conferences Technical conferences in computing & engineering