Visual Media Creation
The options for visual media creation are limited only by your
The next step is to create visual media that will be displayed as the learner listens to your audio lecture. Using the script that you wrote, begin creating visual pieces to accompany each por- tion of the lecture. As you assemble a series of images, you will likely find that your audio script requires revisions here and there. Remember as you create your media that your learner will need at least several seconds to absorb each new piece of visual information.
It is important to save your images in GIF format. Gif is the only image format that sup- ports streaming. (Animated gifs are supported as well; however, to obtain the smallest pos- sible file size, you may wish to use short Flash animations rather than animated gifs.) You don’t need to do anything special with the gif files themselves; you will learn how to synchronize the images with the audio when we create our SMIL file later on.
Your final tutorial will run in a Real Player window of a specified size. Before you begin creating your media, be sure to establish the size of your tutorial. DO NOT plan on using the entire screen for your presentation. In order to keep download times reasonable, you’ll need to restrict the size of your tutorial to around 500x350 OR LESS.
The final determination should be based on the quality of server you will be using to host the tutorial and the type of media that will be pres- ent. For example, Real video requires more bandwidth than Flash animations, so a tutorial containing a lot of Real video should be smaller on the screen than one containing Flash.
Image Creation for Beginners
Perhaps the easiest and fastest method of creating visual media is through the creation of PowerPoint slides. You may create an entire presentation in PowerPoint and then save your slides as gif images.
(The precise method for exporting your slides as images may vary depending on the version
of PowerPoint you use. Refer to the PowerPoint help documentation for further directions.)
More on Image Creation
If you are familiar with PhotoShop, Fireworks, or other image creation applications, creating your visual media can be a lot of fun. Although streaming your media allows you to use larger file sizes than would be reasonable on a stan- dard Web page, you should not neglect image optimization. If your final presentation is too large, it will take a long time to load, and may not play as smoothly as you’d like. Since you are saving your images as gifs, optimization means reducing the number of colors as much as pos- sible without significantly reducing the quality of the image. Refer to the help documentation of your image creation application for details.
Flash Animation
Flash animations can be played through Real Players 7 and 8 as well as the RealOne Player. If you would like to animate sections of your tutorial, Flash provides a
First, sounds that you create in your Flash movie will not play through Real. Create silent anima- tions and synchronize any audio using SMIL.
Second, don’t spend too much time perfecting the timing of your Flash pieces. As with video, Flash segments will need to be synced up with the Audio portion of your tutorial later on and this will likely include some tweaking within thep. 7
