mPire is mTropolis’ platform for delivering interactive multimedia titles over the World Wide Web. The mPire player is a Netscape Navigator browser plugin that allows mTropolis titles to play inside a web page.

Installing Plug-in Players

End users must have the mPire Plugin installed in the web browsers to view mPire titles. Installation instructions and the mPire plug-in can be downloaded at http://www.arch.columbia.edu/DDL/cad/AOI/S99/mpire/index.html

EMBED tag parameters

Use the HTML EMBED tag to place mPire titles on a web page. The basic syntax is:

<embed align="left|middle|right" height="integer" width="integer" pluginspage="http://www.arch.columbia.edu/DDL/cad/AOI/S99/mpire/index.html" src="yourfile.mfx" type="application/x-mpire" name="yourfile">

where align will align the mpire file to the left, middle or right of the page, height and width are height and width of the mpire file in pixels, the pluginspage specifies the redirection URL to the client’s browser in the event that they do not have the plugin installed, src specifies the URL of your mpire file, type specifies the MIME type of the file to the browser and name labels the mpire file.

!! Note that mpire plug-in players look for files with the extensions of .mfx, .mfm and .mfw. Your file name should end in one of these three extensions (e.g. yourtitle.mfx).

Compression Issues - Minimizing File Size and Download Time

Delivering multimedia titles over networks is complicated by the fact that many end users connect to the network at slow speeds. While faster connections such as ISDN and cable modems are starting to come into wider use, it is still a good idea to design your mPire titles so that they will be as small as possible.

!! Smaller files download faster!

The smaller a file is, the faster it can be downloaded. Keep in mind that end users often grow impatient waiting for a web page to display. The web gurus at www.webmonkey.com estimate that the average attention span of the web-surfer on a new web page is about 30 seconds. You have 30 secs to tell the surfer about your fantastic incredible multimedia mpire file, so please include some information on your page about the file size, estimated download time and a brief description to attract her to stay.

The table below lists the download times of mpire files over various internet connections.



Type of File	File Size	14.4 Kbps	28.8 Kbps	ISDN 64 Kbps	T1 1.5 Mbps
Simple mToon	50 kb	27 sec.	14 sec.	6 sec.	0.3 sec.
Small one-scene	250 kb	2 min. 19 sec.	1 min. 9 sec.	31 sec.	1.3 sec.
Project with small Quicktime movie	1.5 MB	14 min. 13 sec.	7 min.7 sec.	3 min. 12 sec.	8 sec.
Complex multi- scene project	10 MB	95 min.	47 min.	21 min.	55 sec.

Minimizing file sizes

Reduce your project draw area size

Reduce your project draw area by resetting it under the edit-> preferences -> project. Set it to 320 x 240 or even smaller if your project is complicated and heavy on media. Remember to set the draw area size BEFORE you place your media. mTropolis does NOT resize the elements automatically. The original pictures and movies must also be resized in photoshop/premiere, otherwise, the title will merely look smaller on the screen, but the assets will take up the same amount of space in the built file title.

Still graphics

Minimize the bit depth of still graphics. Sample your pictures at 4-bit (16 colors) or 8-bit (256 colors) in photoshop by converting the color mode to index color under the edit menu and choose the relevant bit depth. Remember to check the “remap 8-bit images for mpire title” box when you build your project.

mToons

Convert PICTs to single-cel, compressed mToons. To resize an mToon, you must resize the source images used to create the mToon and then recompile the mToon in the mToon editor. Note that you should never throw away source files for mToons, since you can’t resize a finished mToon - you have to resize its source and recreate it.

Compress all mToons with the mFactory Animation Codec by checking the “Uncompressed to mFactory Animation” during the build.

Sound

Resample sounds to the lowest acceptable quality. An 8-bit/11kHz/mono sound is four times smaller than an 8-bit/22KHz/stereo sound and 16 times smaller than 16-bit/44 kHz/stereo.

Video

Compress video to the smallest acceptable frame rate. Use the cinepak codec in Premiere to do this, and if your movie contains sound, reduce it to 8-bit/11kHz sound. Note that your movies may not be crossplatform, so remember to convert all movies to mFactory animation during the build.

The Build dialog box