Multimedia Authoring

Multimedia authoring: creation of multimedia

productions, sometimes called movies or presentations.
The tools by which various media components are brought
together (integrated) into a structure and flow.

Multimedia Authoring Metaphors

Scripting Language Metaphor:
use a special language to enable
interactivity (buttons, mouse, etc.),
and to allow con- ditionals, jumps,
loops, functions/macros etc.

Multimedia Authoring Metaphors

Slide Show Metaphor: A linear
presentation by default, although tools exist
to perform jumps in slide shows
Example: PowerPoint

Hierarchical Metaphor: User-controllable

elements are organized into a tree structure
often used in menu-driven applications.

Iconic/Flow-control Metaphor: Graphical

icons are available in a toolbox, and
authoring proceeds by creating a flowchart
with icons attached

Iconic/flow-control Metaphor
Example: Authorware
A leading visual authoring tool for
creating rich-media e-learning
applications for delivery on corporate
networks, CD/DVD, and the Web.
Drag and drop icons to create logical
outline
Flowline metaphor

Iconic/flow-control Metaphor

Frames Metaphor
Frames Metaphor: Like Iconic/Flow-control Metaphor;
however links between icons are more conceptual,
rather than representing the actual flow of the program

Card/Scripting Metaphor
Card/Scripting Metaphor: Uses a
simple index-card structure - easy
route to producing applications that
use hypertext or hypermedia; used in
schools.
Examples: Hypercard, Supercard.

Cast/Score/Scripting
Metaphor
Time is shown horizontally; like a spreadsheet:
rows, or tracks, represent instantiations of
characters in a multimedia production.
Multimedia elements are drawn from a cast of
characters, and scripts are basically eventprocedures or procedures that are triggered by
timer events.
Director, by Macromedia, is the chief example
of this metaphor. Director uses the Lingo
scripting language, an object-oriented eventdriven language.

Developing Multimedia
Presentations
Phases for MM presentations development:

Storyboarding
Flowcharting
Prototyping
User testing
Media Production
Programming
Debugging
Distribution

Some Useful Authoring Tools

One needs real vehicles for showing
understanding principles of and creating
multimedia. And straight programming in
C++ or Java is not always the best way of
showing your knowledge and creativity.
Some popular authoring tools include the
following:
Macromedia Director 8 and MX
Flash 5 and MX
Dreamweaver MX

Macromedia Director
Director is a complete environment for
creating interactive movies
Uses the movie metaphor
Stage
Cast
Each instance is called a sprite
Sprites can have behaviors attached

Score

Macromedia Director
Many predefined events (such as mouse
events)
Score has one horizontal line for each
sprite and vertical frames
Behaviors (both predefined and user
defined) are written in the Director scripting
language - Lingo
Both cel animation and tweening are
possible

Macromedia Flash
Flash is a simple authoring tool that facilitates
the creation of interactive movies.
A movie is composed of one or more scenes
Components that make up a movie are called
symbols

Included in movie by placing them on the stage

The stage may have multiple layers
The timeline window has one horizontal bar for each layer
Composed of a number of keyframes
Scripts can be attached to keyframes or symbols in a
keyframe

Macromedia Dreamweaver
Dreamweaver is used to build multimediaenabled web sites as well as Internet
applications in HTML, XML and other
formats
Supports WYSIWYG web page development
as well as support for JavaScript, ASP, PHP,
XML.
Contains a number of prepackaged behaviors
and is extensible