Making an interactive video quickly and easily is now easier than ever with the help of AI. Here’s how team member Ellie created an interactive Egyptian experience using Chat GPT and Canva’s AI image/video generator.
Using AI to generate the Script
To start, I asked chat GPT to write a script for an interactive video. Away it went, and I was pretty happy with the outcome. Something that would normally take hours to come up with was done in less than a minute. You can check out the unedited, original script here. I cut out the Medieval Europe option to keep the video simple but the rest is pretty much completely unchanged from the original script.
Using Canva’s AI to create the content
I read through the script and went onto Canva to start using their AI to generate the content I’d need. I mostly generated videos – but it’s worth noting that the AI tool isn’t great for generating movement in a video, it’s mostly panning/zooming an image. This would still work for my video though. I described each scene and came up with all the scenes I would need for my video. I downloaded them into different scenes as MP4 videos, making sure the video duration was long enough for the user to read any text/make any decisions.
Using Near-Life to make it interactive
Now I could get onto Near-Life and start uploading the media. With the content uploaded, I put the first scene into the first node and highlighted the ‘start’ button. This made it interactive, so I could direct it to a new node. Then I put the second scene into the new node I created. I used Near-Life’s features, such as buttons and hotspots, to add interactions where I wanted. I continued to build the video this way.
Adding the Buttons
Adding buttons on Near-Life is easy. Simply click to add a button group, decide the text that will appear on the button (such as ‘START’), and set it to take you to a different place or trigger something to happen. When the end user clicks on the button, it will take them wherever you’ve set it to take them. You could also use it to trigger a different overlay. For example, clicking ‘HINT’ might trigger an overlay to appear that gives the end user a hint. Triggers work for hotspots too.
Adding Hotspots
Hotspots come in different forms – text, images and shapes. With hotspotting text, you can make the text you write interactive (it’s similar to when you hyperlink something on a document to take you somewhere else when you click it). Images are the same, you add an image on the screen which will either take you somewhere else or trigger an action to happen. Hotspot shapes allow you to highlight an area on the media to make interactive. Let’s say you have a piece of media that shows a living room. You could highlight the space over the door to make it interactive, and then set it to take you to the kitchen when you click on it.
Final touches
With all the interactions added and the video complete, all that was left to do was play it through and ensure there weren’t any issues, share it with the team for feedback and finally, share it with the public.
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Click here to learn more about how Canva and Near-Life work well together, or click here to get started for free.