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About this project
The Gravitational Book Project’s purpose is to investigate the narrative opportunities offered by a new graphics engine in order to hack this new media called the e-book
Show list of needs
Task
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Minimum | Optimum |
|---|---|---|
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Développement des outils de navigation
Développement des outils suivants: boussole, niveau à bulle, pilote automatique, autocarte…
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$ 657 | |
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Dessin des vignettes
Réalisation de toutes les images du livre.
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$ 2,101 | |
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Mise en page, compositing
Organiser les dessins sur la planche géante, qui défilera dans la fenêtre de l'écran. Un peu de retouche d'image, le cas échéant.
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$ 1,051 | |
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Développement du moteur graphique annexe
Le prologue du livre gravitaire est lu "classiquement", en feuilletant avec l'index. Donc cela nécessite un second moteur graphique (beaucoup plus simple que le premier, le "gravitaire").
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$ 657 | |
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Développement compatibilité
Amélioration de la compatibilité avec différentes version android
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$ 657 | |
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Portage sur plateforme OSX
Portage sur plateforme OSX (apple).
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$ 1,051 | |
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Ecriture, illustrations
Recherches complémentaires en écriture et dessin
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$ 1,051 | |
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Lettrages sur ordi
Réalisation des lettrages
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$ 1,051 | |
| Total | $ 3,809 | $ 8,274 |
Necessary
Supplemental
General information
The idea is to create a digital comic novel that would be readable only with the help of this graphics engine rather than a simple translation of a comic book on a digital screen.
The principle is quite simple: The reader is facing a wide comic plate/page, of which he/she can only visualise a tiny fraction through the “window” of the smartphone or the tablet’s screen.
As he/she tilts the device, the gravitational force brings down the “plate”, which scrolls in the visualisation framework.
The reader flows through the wide plate. The whole project stake lies in the interplay between the twists and turns of the story and the movement of the scrolling, between a drama and its transcription into a complex pictorial structure, to be explored.
Speaking of movies, from a writing point of view, the composition of a frame is never neutral: i.e. a tracking shot and a still frame have different meanings, as for a cut-up editing and a sequence shot, etc.
Likewise, the Gravitational Book Project bets on the graphic expressiveness of its configuration: What will happen when a 1 meter long panel scrolls before the eyes of the reader? When the panels are arranged to fake a “shot / reverse shot” dialogue? What will happen if the page flips over throughout the exploration?
Two basic principles have been selected for the configuration of the Gravitational Book:
1 • One single page/panel
No cuts or any cross-fading between the “shots”: in reality, this is a very wide page (which could be printed on paper), not a movie or an animated fresco.
2 • There is only one possible way
This is a book, not a video game. The reader is responsible and has free will in the way he/she browses through the story (as he/she would do with a real book) but he/she is not to make any decision as for the process of the same.
Main features and goals of the crowdfunding campaign
Screenshots of a scanned comic are related to a graphics engine, responsive to the tilt of the reading device (tablet or smartphone). The coordinates of each screenshot are marked, as well as the path to follow that runs through each screenshot at a time.
- Drawings > scanning of drawings on paper
- Overall composition > Svg file formats generated by inkscape
- Graphics engine > encoded on openframeworks
Why this is important
Our motivation lies in our long time and common interest in comic books and digital media, and in the absence of satisfactory proposals combining these two cultures. That is why we have studied on a tool which, simultaneously to enable reading on a digital device, calls in question the narrative patterns inherited from comics in their original paper form (screenshot, strip, panel).
This search has materialized in some way with the Gravitational Book, and currently continues in other forms, particularly within the framework of the project Nouvelle Page organized by the Maison de la recherche et de l'imagination and developed in the fablab in Caen.
Once the ergonomics and navigation tools developed, others will be able to seize this narrative tool:
- Developers who would enhance the process or adapt it to other uses
- Authors to tell other stories using the same graphics engine, in their own way.
To sum up, the Gravitational could therefore be used as a laboratory to
- reconsider the comics at a time of digital culture: what will be the form of “ebooks”? What narrative mechanisms will remain if the paper book disappears?
- explore new narrative fields offered by this new tool which possibilities and limits are yet to be discovered.
- and why not, to launch a new graphic process trail, for other visual and graphic arts.
Ultimately, we hope that the main beneficiaries of the project will be the readers!
Goals of the crowdfunding campaign
- To go deeper, further, in our reflection process related to the writing and staging possibilities enabled by the engine we created. We will probably not be able to capture them all, but other authors and creators will in turn seize this opportunity when the engine is operational and easy to manipulate.
- To substantially improve the graphics engine, through sufficient finances for its development.
- Finally, to achieve a complete and broadcastable version of the graphic story of the Gravitational Book. This requires quite a huge amount of drawing works, including the composition of the global, large panel/page. The crowdfunding campaign, if successful, would allow us to carry forward the literary works, which is essential for the reader to grasp the graphics engine in a rich and entertaining way.
Why do we use the Goteo platform?
Because it was obvious to develop this project in the free culture dynamics promoted by Goteo. In fact the graphics engine is developed under the GPL license: The code will be available to be repeated or improved by others. Similarly, this existing code could also be used as is, by authors who would like to confront it to their own universe.
The perspective fostered by free licenses actually helps the broadcasting of diffusion this type project, altogether rather uncategorizable.
Raphaël Lerays: Formed as an architect and a scenographer, the question of transmedia seems implicit in most of the projects he elaborates. All these proposals have one thing in common: they tell stories, built upon various materials (space, video production, illustrated texts, comics, etc.).
Alexis Chabanol: Translator, he is the co-author, with Raphael Lerays, of the project Strip Trips: a digital correspondence, drawings versus texts (from 2010 to 2012, 216 issues). The Gravitational Book is a different format (one single story), and this literary configuration is unique.
Laurent Malys: Laurent Malys produces software and applications in various areas. His works explore how we interact with the machine, and questions the limits and abilities of human-machine interface systems. He promptly seized the project's graphic engine on which the Gravitational Book is built, and his knowledge have influenced some choices regarding the ergonomics of the prototype, and some features which could be added.
Social commitment
Shared materials
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Partage du code créatif
Mise à disposition du code développé pour le livre gravitaire.General Public License
Licencia Pública General de GNU para la libre distribución, modificación y uso de software