INSCAPE is an integrated suite of software tools, especially designed to meet industry’s need to create interactive applications for use in simulation & training, edutainment, game, cartoons, marketing, live performance. It provides a unique approach for the implementation of your real time 3D application, as well as for the authoring of 2D interactive stories. The INSCAPE system supports a wide range of devices (tracking system, Wiimote, tactile surfaces, spacemouses, HMD and much more thanks to the evolutive architecture) and multimedia content can easily be authored thanks to an intuitive interface.
Description:
Interactivity is a key feature of virtual reality applications and new multimedia services. However, the storytelling of these non linear forms of content requires today not only artistic skills but also expertise in specific technical tools, even including software programming. Whatever the form, be in simulation and training, video-games, edutainment, art and culture, the process for creating interactive content poses new challenges for authors and production teams. Indeed, this process calls for the combined knowledge of different domains such as cinema, 2D or 3D modelling, animation, cognitive and computer sciences. The INSCAPE system, which is developed in the frame of the European Commission’s sixth research framework programme, proposes an innovative approach for planning, authoring and experiencing interactive simulation. This visual system tightly integrates state-of-the-art components developed by a consortium of fourteen European partners in close collaboration with end-users coming from different sectors (live art, television, simulation, cartoon…). INSCAPE features an unprecedented collection of tools enabling the rapid and intuitive creation of interactive stories and making this complex authoring process accessible to any category of user. With INSCAPE, the user can initiate the creation process by authoring a traditional storyboard with textual and pictorial elements. These elements can define scenes, actors, comments, dialogs, motions, as well as pictorial sketches of the story environment. The acquisition modules can be used to reconstruct virtual environments from panorama pictures and capture motions from movies of real performers. The editing modules enable both the creation and configuration of 2D or 3D story elements such as characters, props, backgrounds as well as their different animations. Also, INSCAPE enables the creation and manipulation of sound assets containing dialogs, music, sound effects that can be, in the next creation steps, automatically mixed, spatialised and blended according to both the story scenario and atmosphere. The author populates the story environment mixing 2D or 3D models, edits the behaviours of virtual characters and props, adds dialogs, music, sound and visual effects. Thus, he can progressively and intuitively set-up a complex scenario. The interaction and behavioural schemes can be edited by drag-and-dropping and configuring predefined templates; the INSCAPE interface enables the author to customize scripts or to create new ones using visual programming techniques, or for the most expert users, using the Lua scripting language. With the story graph editor, the story can be visually split in different storylines with interdependencies and sequencing constraints. This graphical representation of non linear structures enables the easy definition of the interactions between the story elements, the user inputs and the different possible ways to unfold the scenario according to user inputs and character interactions. The innovative approach of interactive storytelling proposed by INSCAPE offers radically new possibilities for end-users to express their creativity and quickly transform their mental images into stimulating content. In the end, INSCAPE’s challenge is to deliver a system that will stimulate and support creative people in building compelling interactive narratives to engage audiences and stimulate both imagination and skills.
