Project 6 - Dan Silber

How does the design of your buttons direct the user to know what button to click?

The buttons stand out in the background which they were placed and also use bright colors with the action verb clearly displayed on each one. Color is in the same theme as the movie itself.

What state did you add the animated movie clip? What challenges did you experience?

Remembering to change the over text when duplicating, had to go back and do it again.

How does the design of your buttons relate your user's experience?

The design of my buttons are fairly simple and doesn't leave anything to the imagination or searching around the scene for the buttons. They also go along with the movie clip at the same time.

What challenges and benefits did you experience when adding actionscript to your movie?

Actionscript is fairly easy to use as long as you know the commands which get easier with practice. Very similar to any other code, symbols and descriptions.

Please share anything else regarding your experience.

Once you get the hang of it buttons are fairly quick and easy to make and end up being very useful.

Project 6 - Leo

6-1 .swf  6-1 html  6-2 .swf  6-2 .html

How does the design of your buttons direct the user to know what button to click?
I made sure that the buttons followed a standard left to right for the start and stop and then just used the text for the viewer to be able to determine which buttons to push.

What state did you add the animated movie clip? What challenges did you experience?
I added to the down state as that made the most sense for my animation of lighting strikes. By the time I got to this step,  I had already done several of the earlier steps multiple times so I was able to do this step without much trouble.

How does the design of your buttons relate your user's experience?
I used the bits of the logo as my buttons to tie it the movie and buttons together. I believe that the buttons are simple enough for the user and have a fun down state to play with to engage a user as well.

What challenges and benefits did you experience when adding actionscript to your movie?
I had some problems at first with realizing that so many of the lines could be added to the original frame. Otherwise the actions panel is very useful and easy to use.

Please share anything else regarding your experience.
I can see that the action script can be very intimidating in the future, as it is a whole new prog language, because of that I purposely kept it simple for the project.

Project 5

fla | swf

What specific use did the shape tween serve?
I used it to transform her hair into snakes
What challenges did you have using the Bone tools
The image getting deformed if I make too extreme an adjustment was really annoying
After creating the IK with shapes and symbols, which did you prefer? Why?
Symbols, because they don't deform.

Project 6 - Brooks Burwell

Link to my Project 6


How does the design of your buttons direct the user to know what button to click?
Each button has the word of what their function is.  Play makes the movie play, etc. I designed my buttons blue because it matched my animation best.

What state did you add the animated movie clip? What challenges did you experience?
The over state has a glowing animation, I had no challenges with this.

How does the design of your buttons relate your user's experience?
I think I could have designed the buttons better, but I wanted to make sure I could get them to work since I am new to most of flash.

What challenges and benefits did you experience when adding actionscript to your movie?
I learned that actionscript can be very complicating, but with the pictures you gave us of what to type I had few problems.  The only problem was getting my cloud nesting animation to stop and play when I wanted it to.

Project 6 - Amber King

Project 6-1

html | swf | fla

Project 6-2

html | swf | fla

How does the design of your buttons direct the user to know what button to click?
I tried to make them as straightforward as buttons can get by putting 'play' and 'stop' on them. It's the only text on the page so it should be obvious.
What state did you add the animated movie clip? What challenges did you experience?
I put the animation in the Over state to make it glow like the cigar in the animation.
How does the design of your buttons relate your user's experience?
I feel like it fits very well with the overall theme of the scene. I tried to make it not intrude any more than it had to.
What challenges and benefits did you experience when adding actionscript to your movie?
The most complicated part was tracking down all of the individual animations nested within the symbols and animations to make sure they would all stop and start when I asked them to, and then making the ones that have shorter animations repeat when they needed to so it all works.
Please share anything else regarding your experience.
I thought I had organized the project easily but then I had to go looking for everything again. I might have organized it differently if I had it to do over again.

Project 5 - Leo

swf | jpg | html

 

What specific use did the shape tween serve?
This seems to be a big timesaver for animations. I used it for both my laser and planet collapse.

What challenges did you have using the Bone tools
None, but I didn't try to get too fancy. Controlling the movements from one joint to another  would be very complicated with  more exaggerated movements.

After creating the IK with shapes and symbols, which did you prefer? Why?
Shapes, because at this point I'm still struggling with symbols ( I know that's really a big deal) but I need to keep straight where and what I'm working on when dealing with symbols.

What benefit did you find from the nesting an IK within a movie clip?
At this point none (see above) I think once it clicks in my head  it will be great to just throw in the clip and let it go.

Please share anything else regarding your experience.
Terms are an issue. I think I need a definition list/glossary for terms. The book is has almost no discussion and in the lessons,  and doesn't seem to refer to the terms as having any importance.

Project 5 - Amber King

| html | swf | fla |

What specific use did the shape tween serve?

It was far easier than doing a frame-by-frame to turn the UFO into a rocket. 

What challenges did you have using the Bone tools

I wanted to add more bones to the parachute and package but couldn't because I wanted to attach the bow to it as well. I'm sure there's a way to do it but I ran out of patience with it. I will say it's still easier than adding bones in a 3d program for the most part.

After creating the IK with shapes and symbols, which did you prefer? Why?

I vastly preferred working with shapes. It made more sense to me and I got hung up using symbols for quite a while. 

What benefit did you find from the nesting an IK within a movie clip?

I could have the strings on the bow moving on a different timeline than the parachute and it looked good because of it.

Please share anything else regarding your experience.

I really mismanaged my time with this project by not having a clear vision of what I was doing before I started and ended up having to remake the package and parachute three times before I got something I was happy with. Also, even using the shape hints I couldn't avoid big blank gaps when the ball turned into the rocket. It was frustrating.

Leo Mid-Term

A bit late, but as other people noted PCC was down right when I blocked out time to do this blog and as noted by my project, I wasn't in town after that time. So here goes:

SWF     layout pdf

 

As always I find the greatest challenge to be making sure I'm working on the right object/layer combination. I had many frustrating mishaps with putting things on the wrong layer, working with the wrong object  and out-and-out losing some things in the process.

I used this as a band promotion project, so my color choices were already there. I knew from the class exercise with text, that I wanted to animate the logo and that turned out to be frustrating but fun. I had to import my logo as separate letters, as it couldn't be broken apart in Flash, liked I hoped, with several false starts. When I finally got the look I wanted I was very pleased. The puffs of smoke can probably be smaller file wise, but I like the look and it was one of my biggest mishaps with losing things, so once I got it back (soft of) I let it be.

I used motion tween to change the size and location of the individual letters. When used simply motion tweens are very easy to use, but just messing around with it can cause huge headaches that I see will take time to adjust and play with to achieve the results I would want to become more complicated.

For both previously used object and classic tween, I used the robot-alien again to come on screen to instigate everything.

For the frame-by-frame I used the lighting brush (and probably went over-board with it) to create lighting strikes to the top of the screen in blue and red.

background blue: #666A85
background gray: #E8DFD6
Red: #FE0000
Robot Grey: #C9C9CA
Lightning blue: #DAFBFE
Logo Red: #671315

Project 5 - Brooks Burwell

Link to my Project 5

What specific use did the shape tween serve?
I created a tree that forms from a seed into a tree.

What challenges did you have using the Bone tools?
Some of the things I made were small so it was hard to move the bones how I wanted them. I eventually got everything to work though.

After creating the IK with shapes and symbols, which did you prefer? Why?
Symbols seems easier for certain things.  The monkey wasn't too hard to make move, it was harder creating the monkey itself.

What benefit did you find from the nesting an IK within a movie clip?
It's easier working on its own timeline than it is with other things on the timeline.

Midterm!

swf | fla

For my project I made the touching story of a man and his ghost dog wherein nothing substantial happens!  Challenges included figuring out how to put eases on classic tweens and not figuring out how to make the ghost dog's tongue not look awful.  I basically used all of the drawing tools (rectangle tool, oval tool, pencil, paintbrush etc) including the pen.  I made a heck of a lot of tweens since every scene the dog is in I made it fade in and out.  I used a custon ease for the scene where the dog is running to make it seem a little more ghostlike.  It was really hard to use the motion editor since my screen is so small compared to the ones at school.  I also cleverly(lazily) used the box from project 4 to make the ground in scene 3.  The classic tween was appropriate to use on the heart since I wanted the beat to go slow out then fast in which I cannot do with a motion tween.  A motion tween of my choice was all the tweens to make the ghost dog fade in and out!

I made the clouds using the oval tool and stipple stroke type then deleted all the strokes inside the cloud shape.  For the frame by frame animation parts I used the pencil or paintbrush tool with the onion skin on then bucket filled every frame with white afterwards.  It's a lot easier for me to do frame by frame animation at home since I have a drawing tablet.

I had a lot of hex codes since color scheme designer also gives hex codes for different shades of the same hue so get ready for a paste bomb (I didn't end up using all of them but I did use a lot)

*** Primary Color:

   var. 1 = #427480
   var. 2 = #3D5960
   var. 3 = #154753
   var. 4 = #7AB2C0
   var. 5 = #8CB6C0

*** Secondary Color A:

   var. 1 = #4F5C8C
   var. 2 = #474E69
   var. 3 = #1A285B
   var. 4 = #8492C6
   var. 5 = #96A0C6
*** Secondary Color B:

   var. 1 = #4D9B62
   var. 2 = #497454
   var. 3 = #19642D
   var. 4 = #80CD94
   var. 5 = #95CDA3

*** Complementary Color:

   var. 1 = #CF9B68
   var. 2 = #9B7E61
   var. 3 = #865422
   var. 4 = #E7BB91
   var. 5 = #E7C7A8

 var.6 = #E79B91

Midterm - Amber King

html | swf | fla

Concept Work

list of things I wanted to animate

showing what would light up when the sign lit

storyboards showing the change in lighting

As of right now MyPCC is down so I can't get in to get the list of what I need to talk about for the blog post, so I'm going from memory but will check back later and make changes as necessary.

Colors - I couldn't find a palette that was exactly what I was looking for, so I took an existing palette and tweaked it to my liking. Trying to keep it down to a limited palette ended up giving the piece an interesting visual style I think. My colors are: #FF6D37, #36200B, #985A42, #BD9C88, and #34CCFF. I also used white and varying alpha levels to create the illusion of more colors.

Symbols - I ended up making a lot of symbols because of the sheer number of motion tweens I made (some of which I scrapped but kept the symbols). Of particular note are the cards on the table, which is the symbol that I made, copied, and altered. All of the cards are unique symbols duplicated from the first card I made by using a rectangle primitive and changing the corners until it looked sufficiently playing card-like for my taste. Most of the symbols are multi-layered to allow for animation to show change in lighting.

Frame by Frame Animation - The rain in the window is frame by frame animation. The lightbulbs on the edge of the sign could also be considered frame by frame I think.

Classic Tween w/ Motion Guide - The smoke coming off the cigar was done this way. I used the motion guide to get the smoke to rise in the curvy way it does. The lighting and shadows on the glass are also classic tweens but they don't have a motion guide because they didn't really need one.

Motion Tweens - The light fixture is a nested motion tween. The bulb symbol has its own tween which is stacked inside the tween of the fixture. In retrospect I probably made that part more complicated than it could have been. The glow on the cigar is a motion tween that changes scale with a spring easing to make it catch the eye. The neon sign also has a motion tween that changes several filters with random easing to achieve the flickering neon sign effect. I applied the same easing to alpha motion tweens on the blinds, window, and left chair so that they would all light up from the neon sign at the same time. 

Midterm - Brooks Burwell

Link to my Midterm project

Here is my midterm project.  I couldn’t decide what exactly to do so I chose a beach scene with a bunch of little things happening.  I used many different colors because it is very colorful at the beach, so I won’t go and list every color.  I created many new symbols including my alien symbol from previous projects.   The alien was given the frame by frame animation because all I wanted him to do was walk onto the beach.  The classic tween with the motion guide was used on the seagull, I wanted to give it a zig zag flying look so this was my best option.  My three motion tweens are the waves in the ocean, the shark, and the sun.  My nested animation is the clouds moving inward and outward.  I used the motion editor for the sun and the shark symbols giving the sun a glowing effect and brightness change;  and changing the sharks alpha so it eventually disappears. 

project 3

Ok so I'm working backwards right now but I figured since it was fairly recent I should still give feedback on project 3.

Favorite feature that flash presented in project 3?
It was good and bad for me to be able to bring pictures in from other places. I am currently in a relationship with photoshop and had to remind myself "you are learning flash right now".

After seeing how to create layers for your timeline, please discuss how you manage your layer panels in future projects.
I have worked with layers and folders in other programs so I was already familiar with a lot of there basic functions. The lock feature is quickly becoming my best friend. I also appreciate being able to hide the layers. I am currently working on my organizational skills when it comes to file management.

How will you organize your library.
I'm trying to get in the habit of renaming symbols as I go and creating folders for linked items. Also making an effort to match layer names with names in my library.

Creating and editing symbols?
It was easy to create symbols and edit them.

Filters and blend modes

I used the alpha a lot to change opacity.

3D

I liked using the 3D tool for text and just in general. I found it easy to maneuver and can see how it will be a good tool to be familiar with in the future.

Because I didn't allow myself to get to carried away changing pictures in photoshop a played around a little more in flash with the drawing tools/erasers/paint/pen tools. I was really starting to get the hang of the pen tools and had some fun making graffiti on the bathroom doors of my background.

Project 4

      Hey everyone! I'm sorry I've been behind with my blog posts. Blogging is a very new concept to me and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I do know that I am loving this class so far.  I fell behind because of illness etc. so I had to work pretty hard this weekend to get caught up. But now that I've caught up Im finding myself actually excited for the midterm(yes I said that). It has also been fun being able to see all of your projects.

       In project 4 what was your favorite tweening type?

      I can't really say what my favorite tweening type was but I didn't play to much with classic tweens.           I think I was just happy to have any kind of motion.

     What problems did you have using various tweening tools?

     I found myself starting over a lot! Especially when I was trying to animate my Alien. I think this happened the most when I was trying to nest an animation. So to answer the next question, I originally was working with my alien symbol when I was trying to nest an animation. I kept getting to mixed up and there were body parts floating everywhere. I will have to keep practicing. 

    What easing did you use?

  I tried many different eases throughout my trial and error process but I think it was the slow ease that I actually kept in the end.

  What filters and blend modes did you use?

 I used the blur feature I wish I would have used a glow on my floating question marks.

 

 Did you have trouble with the 3D tool?

I think the trouble I had was not using it to much. I loved the 3D tool!

Overall I'm pretty happy with my first flash animation. I feel like I had to cram a lot of info in the last few days but the program is pretty easy to catch on to. The book is a great help and now its just a matter of taking the time to practice with these tools more. I'm  excited about my midterm. My biggest challenge will be trying not to take on more than I can handle. I find that the more I learn to use the adobe programs the more I try to cram into my projects.

Project 4 - Brooks Burwell

Link to my Project 4

Sorry I am a day late posting this blog. I've had my project uploaded for a few days, I just forgot about the blog posting until this morning.


What was your favorite tweening type? What did you enjoy most in this module?
I like the nested motion tween, I think it is really fun to work with editing each symbol in its own timeline.

What challenges did you have using the various tweening tools?
I had some difficulty with the nested motion tween, but once I figured it out it was my favorite tween.

Did you use onion skinning to assist with your frame-by-frame animation? How did you feel it assisted you?
Yes, I did.  It helped me a lot, if I didn't have this assistance it would have taken me twice as long trying to remember where my character was on the previous frame.

Which symbol did you use in the nested animation? What challenges did you have creating it?
I used the coral in my animation as the nested animation.  I didn't have any challenges, just trying to figure out how it all worked at first was difficult for me.

What easing did you use for your motion tween?
Slow ease I believe.

What filters or blend modes did you use? Please identify the tween that you applied these modification.
The blue fish had a glow and blur effect.

Did you have any issues using the 3-D tool to create your animation?
No issues. Pretty easy and fun to use.

Projects 3 and 4

 

Click here for a link to my project 3 directory

What was your favorite feature of Flash presented in this Module? Why?

Symbols!  Because  it is very useful to be able to change all of them on your stage and at different points of the timeline.

Describe your experience importing bitmap and Photoshop images. What was your impression of the results of using the trace bitmap feature?

If you have a realistic image I don't think it works so well but I edited the colors of the image I used to be alien-like and I sort of like the results.

After seeing how to create layers for your timeline, please discuss how you manage your layers panel in future projects.

I'll definitely keep them neat and tidy like I always do in this class (not so much for fun personal projects)

Please discuss how you will manage your library assets in future projects.

If there gets to be too many symbols in a bigger project I'll probably use folders  but for now two symbols is manageable without folders

What challenges did your encounter creating and editing symbols?

I get a little mixed up with the difference between a movie clip and a graphic

Discuss which filters and blend modes you used in your project.

I used a green tint for my alien but no blend mode since that wasn't specified to be a requirement.

How will you use the 3D tools in your future projects?

I don't think I will use it on text to be honest, it makes the text rather blurry and bad looking, maybe I'll use it on other things but not text.   I realized this mistake after using it again for Project 4

Click here for Project 4

What was your favorite tweening type? What did you enjoy most in this module?

I like motion tween more than classic.  I liked playing around with the eases!

What challenges did you have using the various tweening tools?

I couldn't figure out how to alter the motion guide using a classic tween.

Did you use onion skinning to assist with your frame-by-frame animation? How did you feel it assisted you?

I didn't because I was just shifting a box around to make it look like it was joggled a bit, however, I have used onion skin with some personal projects and it's very helpful.

Which symbol did you use in the nested animation? What challenges did you have creating it?

I used two actually, lid1 and lid2.  I had a lot of trouble with lid 2 since I couldn't just use free transform to draw the lid down for the tween like the other because it was rotated to the side a little.

What easing did you use for your motion tween?

I used bounce .

What filters or blend modes did you use? Please identify the tween that you applied these modification.

 I used brightness on my alien tween in one of the middle frames to make him look like he was flashing a little (there's a lot going on in that tween I apologize) 

Did you have any issues using the 3-D tool to create your animation?

Once again I didn't like the text being blurry but I didn't feel like doing something else.

I rushed these projects a little but I still like how they look for the most part, except blurry text and the ugly confetti I made.
Also I apologize for the format the blog is giving me errors so I couldn't bold the questions for some reason?

Project 4 - Dan Silber

1. 
   

What was your favorite tweening type? What did you enjoy most in this module?

All the tweens are pretty fun but I enjoyed the blur and glow types the most. The most enjoyable part of this module for me was learning how to bring the flash projects to life.

What challenges did you have using the various tweening tools?

It wasn't too difficult just tedious at times. It was also frustrating when I have to start all over.

Did you use onion skinning to assist with your frame-by-frame animation? How did you feel it assisted you?

I did not use the onion skinning. At least I do not think I did but its possible.

Which symbol did you use in the nested animation? What challenges did you have creating it?

I used a lunar eclipse it was easy to create but timing the glow and movement along with keeping the original after the animation but a little difficult.  

What easing did you use for your motion tween?

Used the bounce ease.

What filters or blend modes did you use? Please identify the tween that you applied these modification.

I used the blur mode for my alien tween and lunar tween. I also added the glow mode to the lunar tween as well giving the moon a nice glowing effect. 

Did you have any issues using the 3-D tool to create your animation?

I enjoy the 3-D tool it is very easy to use both with the manual adjustments and precision adjustments. 

Please share anything else regarding your experience.

Im enjoying Flash more and more every week and like building on what was previously learned. I also enjoyed learning the motion editor and creating animation. It is fun, addicting and very tedious. It can also be frustrating until you get the hang of it. 

Amber King - Project 4

Project 4 (html | swf | fla)

What was your favorite tweening type? What did you enjoy most in this module?
I like the simplicity of the motion tween. It seemed to 'just work' for me. Working with the motion editor was very fun once I got the hang of what it was for.

What challenges did you have using the various tweening tools?
The hardest thing for me was getting the motion path to work. Fortunately, google is a good friend of mine and helped me .

Did you use onion skinning to assist with your frame-by-frame animation? How did you feel it assisted you?
Oh yes. I used the heck out if it. The animation still ended up looking very sketchy but that was more by design than by accident. Being able to see where the last few frames were at a glance was pretty much essential to making the walk cycle.

Which symbol did you use in the nested animation? What challenges did you have creating it?
I made a walk cycle for the alien bug. The biggest challenges were figuring out how many frames to use, trying to use more than just the legs/feet, and the fact that the legs aren't separate from the body (should have thought of that ahead of time). Pacing the movement with the walk cycle to make it look believable was also challenging.

What easing did you use for your motion tween?
I used a couple of different custom easings I made to speed up and slow down the animation where I needed it to be so that the moon and stars would move in a more believable fashion.

What filters or blend modes did you use? Please identify the tween that you applied these modification.
I had the alpha change over time for the stars and the moon so that it would look like morning was coming when the sky changed.

Did you have any issues using the 3-D tool to create your animation?
It was more difficult figuring out where to put it than using it at all since the whole thing's rather two dimensional to begin with. I like how subtle it is though.

Please share anything else regarding your experience.
I learned that it's important to think ahead to what you will be doing with something when you make it. Making the legs attached to the body of the alien was a big mistake that made that part a lot more complicated than it had to be.

Leo Project 4

Here's my project.

• What was your favorite tweening type? What did you enjoy most in this module?
  Motion tweening made the most sense to me at this point, I haven’t quite grasped classic tweens yet. Motion was still difficult but I enjoyed doing it.
  
• What challenges did you have using the various tweening tools?
  Screen space at home, and trying to convert to the right symbol but still work on the correct one.
  
• Did you use onion skinning to assist with your frame-by-frame animation? How did you feel it assisted you?
  Not much at this point, it may in the future but I really was too involved with everything else.
  
• Which symbol did you use in the nested animation? What challenges did you have creating it?
  The flame animation across the screen. It was always a challenge to make sure I was working on the symbol and not an instance.
  
• What easing did you use for your motion tween?
  shaking the background, much like the book exercise
  
• What filters or blend modes did you use? Please identify the tween that you applied these modification.
  I did an alpha fade in of a white flash.
  
• Did you have any issues using the 3-D tool to create your animation?
  When animating the issue was the Horizon not behaving the way I wanted. I’m not sure that I get the horizon setting with text.
  
• Please share anything else regarding your experience.
  Too much information in this module for me. I had to abandon a lot of ideas in order to complete all the steps.