EXERCISE 12 - INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA WEBPAGE

M U L T I M E D I A A R T S

Introduction

Multimedia has become an inevitable part of any presentation. It has found a variety of applications right from entertainment to education. The evolution of internet has also increased the demand for multimedia content.

Multimedia is the media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the user. Multimedia also refers to the use of electronic media to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term “rich media” is synonymous for interactive multimedia.

Elements of Multimedia System

Multimedia means that computer information can be represented through audio, graphics, image, video and animation in addition to traditional media(text and graphics). Hypermedia can be considered as one type of particular multimedia application.

Categories of Multimedia

Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. Linear active content progresses without any navigation control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation. Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as used with a computer game or used in self-paced computer based training. Non-linear content is also known as hypermedia content. Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. A recorded presentation may allow interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation may allow interactivity via interaction with the presenter or performer.

Features of Multimedia

Multimedia presentations may be viewed in person on stage, projected, transmitted, or played locally with a media player. A broadcast may be a live or recorded multimedia presentation. Broadcasts and recordings can be either analog or digital electronic media technology. Digital online multimedia may be downloaded or streamed.Streaming multimedia may be live or on-demand.

Multimedia games and simulations may be used in a physical environment with special effects, with multiple users in an online network, or locally with an offline computer, game system, or simulator. Enhanced levels of interactivity are made possible by combining multiple forms of media content But depending on what multimedia content you have it may vary Online multimedia is increasingly becoming object-oriented and data-driven, enabling applications with collaborative end-user innovation and personalization on multiple forms of content over time. Examples of these range from multiple forms of content on web sites like photo galleries with both images (pictures) and title (text) user-updated, to simulations whose co-efficient, events, illustrations, animations or videos are modifiable, allowing the multimedia “experience” to be altered without reprogramming.

Applications of Multimedia

Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, but not limited to, advertisements, art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, scientific research and spatial, temporal applications. A few application areas of multimedia are listed below:

Creative industries

Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from fine arts, to entertainment, to commercial art, to journalism, to media and software services provided for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia designer may cover the spectrum throughout their career. Request for their skills range from technical, to analytical and to creative.

Commercial

Much of the electronic old and new media utilized by commercial artists is multimedia. Exciting presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Industrial, business to business, and interoffice communications are often developed by creative services firms for advanced multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training. Commercial multimedia developers may be hired to design for governmental services and nonprofit services applications as well.

Entertainment and Fine Arts

In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia.

Education

In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the user go through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment.

Engineering

Software engineers may use multimedia in Computer Simulations for anything from entertainment to training such as military or industrial training. Multimedia for software interfaces are often done as collaboration between creative professionals and software engineers.

Industry

In the Industrial sector, multimedia is used as a way to help present information to shareholders, superiors and coworkers. Multimedia is also helpful for providing employee training, advertising and selling products all over the world via virtually unlimited web-based technologies.

Mathematical and Scientific Research

In Mathematical and Scientific Research, multimedia is mainly used for modeling and simulation. For example, a scientist can look at a molecular model of a particular substance and manipulate it to arrive at a new substance. Representative research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Multimedia.

Medicine

In Medicine, doctors can get trained by looking at a virtual surgery or they can simulate how the human body is affected by diseases spread by viruses and bacteria and then develop techniques to prevent it.

Stages of Multimedia Application Development

A Multimedia application is developed in stages as all other software are being developed. In multimedia application development a few stages have to complete before other stages being, and some stages may be skipped or combined with other stages. Following are the four basic stages of multimedia project development :

Planning and Costing : This stage of multimedia application is the first stage which begins with an idea or need. This idea can be further refined by outlining its messages and objectives. Before starting to develop the multimedia project, it is necessary to plan what writing skills, graphic art, music, video and other multimedia expertise will be required.

It is also necessary to estimate the time needed to prepare all elements of multimedia and prepare a budget accordingly. After preparing a budget, a prototype or proof of concept can be developed.

Designing and Producing : The next stage is to execute each of the planned tasks and create a finished product.

Testing : Testing a project ensure the product to be free from bugs. Apart from bug elimination another aspect of testing is to ensure that the multimedia application meets the objectives of the project. It is also necessary to test whether the multimedia project works properly on the intended deliver platforms and they meet the needs of the clients.

Delivering : The final stage of the multimedia application development is to pack the project and deliver the completed project to the end user. This stage has several steps such as implementation, maintenance, shipping and marketing the product.

Let us sum up

In this lesson we have discussed the following points:

i) Multimedia is a woven combination of text, audio, video, images and animation.

ii) Multimedia systems finds a wide variety of applications in different areas such as education, entertainment etc.

iii) The categories of multimedia are linear and non-linear.

iv) The stages for multimedia application development are Planning and costing, designing and producing, testing and delivery.

Lesson-end Activities

i) Create the credits for an imaginary multimedia production. Include several outside organizations such as audio mixing, video production, text based dialogues.

ii) Review two educational CD-ROMs and enumerate their features.

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iii) List five applications of multimedia:

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Intro to Multimedia Arts