Week 12

Our last week of classes, and final full week to finish our project.

Since we spent every day Monday to Friday in the Mac labs, we made stacks of progress. Every scene, save for scene 2, is 100% complete. Scene 2 just needs a voice over which we plan to record on Monday.

Jason has nearly completed developing the Flash version of our movie, which is a great achievement.

As for myself, I created a fully functional DVD version of Aether! Using DVD Studio Pro, I managed to set up the entire film, complete with QTEs and player decisions.

The way it works is like so:

• The first scene from the film plays normally.
• When scene with a decision occurs, the scene transitions seamlessly into a DVD menu, with the two choices available.
• The player can select either choice, and the corresponding DVD track will play next.
• For Quick Time Events, a clip will play, then transition into a DVD motion menu. Because it's a motion menu, one of two outcomes can occur:

1. The player pushes the correct button within an allocated time frame, and proceeds to the next clip.
2. The player fails to push the button in time, resulting in the DVD menu 'timing out' and playing the 'failure' clip.

• If the player gets to a failure clip that results in death, the movie returns to the main menu.

After spending all day authoring the DVD, I burned it to a disc and tested it at home on my DVD player...

SUCCESS!

The movie plays superbly. There is some slight lag as the DVD accesses the different motion menus, but it's nothing that detracts from the experience. I'm really happy with how it's turned out.

At the start of next week, we will burn the final product to DVD, with the Flash version as DVD-ROM content.

Our presentation is on Wednesday, and as such this is my final blog post. I hope you've enjoyed following my 2010 Semester 1 Studio Project.

- Zak Ford