CisLunarFreighter/Scripts and case studies

This learning trail is following a Problem based learning approach. Pick your "problem" or piece or production task and create and contribute it. Much development is currently taking place on irc.freenode.net; install an irc client and join us at #wikiversity-en or ##STC.

A Script is an outline for a story intended to be shot into an animation clip, short or film movie. There is an introduction to film script formatting Lesson:_Formatting_the_Script which is entirely applicable to animated shorts embedded in games. The same series of lessons covers storyboarding a bit later.Lesson:Thumbnail_Storyboard

We start with a story and then analyze and format it to make it easy to communicate with others in our production process. At the moment the only production process noticed interacting with this learning trail are the games cisLunarFreighter and Space Traffic Control but we expect a few others to show up soon.

Links to collaborative drafts (using our familar mediawiki tool) of story shorts which the community is actively creating.

 * /Radio CommunicationsCisLunarFreighter/Scripts_and_case_studies/Radio_communications



Final stories in frozen download PDF format.


Notice that when we wish to finalize a story we can publish it in a PDF on the Wikiversity server for readonly access while leaving the original to continue to evolve. This will eventually allow us to assign tracking numbers ... once we have set up a tracking system ... so people can easily communite via file pointers and tags. Authors will good final stories can also use the PDF format to publish using the Creative Commons license.

Scripts can be analyzed and mutated within the Wikimedia software but there are better tools for putting final scripts into industry standard formats. Proprietary Tools
 * Final Draft - Specialized editing tool to ease and enforce typesetting in film industry standard format. Someone could check it out for usefulness in game short and splash scripts.  insert link here to homepage

Open Source Tools
 * OpenOffice - Strictly a word processor with PDF print capability. All formatting is manual.

Menus and Gameplay Scenarios
A good idea of the form the final menus and gameplay will take is needed to initiate game design and programming activities. An excellent way to start prototyping a game is to layout the menus and playscreens in graphics so that the artists and programmers can start working off of common concepts and exchanging useful information.

The graphic menu prototype is designed to provide easy access to raw material for electronic cut and paste storyboarding opportunity as well as roll over graphics for buttons and preliminary sprites for prototyping and testing. The associated sketches attempt to provide an overview of possible missions within the game play context. Mirwin 08:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)







What can be Done with Scripts and Menus?

 * Pre Production is the project phase used for planning multi-media projects just as in big Hollywood production. This involves scripts, prototyping, budgeting, contracting, and many other planning activities.


 * Production involves the most resources and people as it actually creates most of the data products, sets, etc. required to assemble the final project.


 * Post Production is the remaining activities that must be completed in order to ship the product out the door to the customer. This often includes special effects and the various forms of audio and video editing and integration.


 * /Video clips
 * /Audio clips