Hybrid Interface Design for Distinct Creative Practices in Real-Time 3D Filmmaking Michael Nitsche Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA, USA michael.nitsche@gatech.edu Friedrich Kirschner Hochschule fuer Schauspielkunst Ernst-Busch Berlin, Germany f.kirschner@hfs-berlin.de ABSTRACT TUIs have become part of a larger digital ecology. Thus, hybrid interface design that combines tangible with other interaction options is ever more important. This paper argues for the importance of such hybrid approaches for creative practices that use divergent collaborative processes. It presents the design, evolution, and implementation of such a hybrid interface for machinima film production. Finally, it provides initial reflection on the use and preliminary evaluation of the current system. Author Keywords Hybrid interface, tangible, machinima, filmmaking. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces---input devices and strategies, interaction styles; J.5 [Arts and Humanities]: Performing arts. K.8 [Personal Computing]: Games. General Terms Design, Experimentation. INTRODUCTION Tangible interfaces have become widely accepted, next to more traditional systems. As a consequence, interaction design has become a multi-facetted task where the question is not so much whether the interface includes a tangible part or not, but which kind of tangible and non-tangible interfaces have to be combined to optimize creative engagement. With increasing interface cultures, these investigations have to spread across digital ecologies that are defined not by single creative activities undertaken with a specialized interface but of shared creativity where “collaboration is distinctively concerned with the articulation of fragmented interaction” [4]. The design has not only to support the distinct interaction but also to facilitate the merging of them to creative collaborations. This paper presents Cinematic Interfaces, a project that combines object-based interaction and 3D tracking on a tabletop-like interface. The assemblage of these different approaches did arise from the individual creative tasks at hand: real-time CGI filmmaking. This form of real-time animation has been known as machinima. Filmmaking and machinima are good examples for creative interface ecologies because there is already considerable expertise in both, but the practices are often calling for different designs. For example, set design uses different methods than camera control or actors’ performances. The goal of Cinematic Interfaces was to combine different creative practices of filmmaking in such a way as to allow each practice to use its own “distinct” control schemas and still shape the complete output in real-time collaboration. CINEMATIC INTERFACES First, the paper briefly outlines the culture of machinima and why it calls for hybrid interface design. Then, it presents a prototype design and its implementation. Finally, it provides first qualitative expert feedback on the individual parts and an outlook for future development. Machinima as Creative Practice Machinima has been described as “animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3D environment” [6]. It is a digital art practice that emerged from gaming via hacking and expert playing into an own sub culture of animation [7]. It is largely based on real-time graphic rendering done with the help of game systems. Along the way, the different practices of these communities have shaped the tools and production methods in machinima. Machinima includes many creative practices from filmmaking: from camera control to acting, to editing, to set design, and directing, but it realizes them in the 3D video game engines available today. For machinima, these practices remain connected to the culture of gaming. The question, then, is how to build tools that balance the machinima-typical approaches and existing practices of filmmaking without extinguishing the particular quality of machinima as a game-based cinematic format. How can we support creativity across multiple disciplines that need to collaborate seamlessly in order to perform the particular art of machinima? As a particular limitation, machinima is a digital art form performed and developed by non-experts. Thus, the interfaces have to be accessible (affordable) as well as usable for non-experts. Existent Approaches A range of commercial video games ship with tools for machinima creation. These tools usually allow the player community to script and trigger particular cinematic Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. TEI 2013, Feb 10-13, 2013, Barcelona, Spain. Copyright 2013 ACM 978-1-4503-1898-3/13/02....$15.00.