Rich Media Assignment - Description of work and Client brief

Hello, I'm back again. I've been given yet another assignment: A Rich Media Advert. The media advert is like a one of those banners you tend to see on other websites:

The picture above is of a website on how to create a 4 page website in flash using AS3, but what I'm interested in is the banner close to the bottom on the page highlighted by the red-rectangle and arrow; that is an advertising banner. For my project, I am going to take a screen-print from a website, choose a botton/banner from that website and create something that looks appealing to users.

The Client Brief below will tell you what my project will be...

Client Brief

Client/Client Contact information

Name - Julie surname removed

No. - Removed

Project 

Rich media advert promoting the British Heart Foundation's Hope Tank

Prepared By

Name - Ashley Churchill

No. - Removed

Email - Altercross19@hotmail.co.uk

Objective/Purpose

The Client is looking for individuals who have working knowledge in Adobe Flash and create them a rich media advert that looks appealing to both the customer and colleague viewers. The payment will be around £30,000 - £40,000

Project Overview

The project shall be a short flash animated video of the British Heart Foundations main website, filling up with water and having the promotional zebra-fish swilling around the page, as well as some of the websites features, such as buttons, pictures, text, etc. floating around the page. This project shall hopefully give a kind a creative feel to it.

Target Audience

The ideas for the advert are to intentionally promote the Hope Tank of the website, so the target audience is aimed at anyone of any age.

Meeting with Client 1 - Thurs 26/1/2012 - 3:08pm

Both the client and I got together and had a discussion on what ideas could be ideal for the promotion the Hope Tank. I proposed an idea of playing a stylish movie when the link button is pressed; the main BHF website fills up with 'water, being poured into a tank' and as the water level rises, the websites features, such as text, pictures, buttons, etc. will float around the page. In addition, the zebra-fish that is used to represent the Hope Tank will swim out of the button and around the page.

Julie has commented that this idea is sound but is curious to know whether the zebra-fish animation is the exact same on used for the Hope Tank or there is going to be a new graphically drawn one in the exact same style.

My response was I would try to use the Hope Tanks fish used on the site but that fails then I will try to create a newer animatic version.

The reason for Julies question was that she was concerned whether using the BHFs original zebra-fish would breach copyright but I re-assured her that it is used to promote the site anyway.

I have also drawn a draft demonstration of how the advert was going to play out.

At the end of the interview, I said that if she had any further questions regarding the advert, she will contact me sometime in the near future.

Schedule

Monday 30th Jan - start creating graphics.

Wednesday 1st Feb - import graphics into Flash and start animating.

Monday 6th Feb - Deadline!

The Prime Ministers Speech

http://altercross19.deviantart.com/art/The-Prime-Ministers-Speech-280724134

Here is my completed animation for this assignment :)

Research into Flash Movies

I'm back again with some more work for my animation assignment. This weeks work is research into different Flash Games, more specifically, web related ones.

Foamy the Squirrel

The animation in the series looks "fixed" in a sense because the majority of the motions are all Keyframe set (e.g. when the timeline moves from one Keyframe to another, the same or similar graphics are changed to make it look like it's moving, getting bigger, etc.) with a small degree of motion tweens. The graphics used for the animationsFoamy the Squirrel (also known as Neurotically Yours) is an animated Flash webtoon comedy series that depicts a foul-mouthed squirrel named Foamy, who constantly displays his hatred for almost everything, often ranting, aimed on society in general. Another main character in the series is Germaine, Foamys' "owner" as it would seem. Her persona within the series is often depicted as a stereotypical goth who likes poetry. Like her "raging, logical, pet squirrel," she also has distaste for society, mainly because she has constant conflicts with them, arguing she is nothing more than a sex object.

Bonus Stage

The animation in this series looks like it uses motion tweens for body movement and then changes graphics upon different variation of movements through Keyframes, such as when the characters are standing still, their arms are not shown until one of them raises and arm and changes hand postures.Bonus Stage is an animated Flash action/adventure/comedy (mainly comedy) webtoon series that focuses attention on the randomness, sarcasm, and parody moments of life. The series itself often uses computer game references. The series depicts three main characters; Joel Dawson, who is a spontaneous and sparky individual with a lot of intelligence (although none is used) and is always keen for adventure. Phil Argus, a goodie 2 shoes teen that always opposes Joel's need for adventure. And Ellie Strife, who is a charismatic teen girl.

Leo & Satan

The type of animation used in the series has a very strong usage of motion tweens, as shown on the characters’ movement, with small degree of Keyframes used for the lip-syncing and other various usages, such as movements that use different graphics. For example, when Satan grabs a garbage bin and jumps through the window on the episode “Trash Hazard.”Leo & Satan is a Flash webtoon comedy series that focuses on a mixture on childish behaviour and adult humour with minimal content. The two main characters in the series are Satan, who appears as somewhat of a complete idiot but is also easily angered by the slightest problems and could bring total annihilation if he chooses. And Leo a young boy and Satan’s chosen companion, who is very regularly frightened by his “sudden-angry-demonic anger” and also gets into trouble because of his idiocy.

Happy Tree Friends

Happy Tree Friends is a Flash webtoon series that is focused on gore humour. The series features numerous characters that resemble field creatures and animals, such as squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, beavers and a moose! When an episode is first watched, the person watching it may first think of it as a typical kid’s programme, up until where the characters start getting their skin ripped off, crushed by heavy objects and their blood and guts are smeared over the pavement.

The style of animation used in this series looks very well done, as though it was made with another animation program. It uses the bone tool and motion tweens very well and realistically, as well as the choice of graphics used on the Keyframe changes.

Anyway, that is my research on Flash Movies. Until next time...

Don't waste your breath and just fade away (Animation Project)

Hello everyone. I'm back and I have been assigned to another project: Animation.

The aim of the project is to create an animation that has some humour in it and must contain something political or celebrity-ish.

The assignment started a couple of weeks ago (yeah and I'm posting about it now!) and I have been doing some idealising. I have been given one idea regarding David Cameron, but I'm not going give away anything just yet. Speaking of David Cameron, I got a hold of my old graphics tablet and attempted to try and draw him. Here's what resulted:

            
















































At the moment, this is the original size but when I start doing some work in flash, I'll make it smaller.

That's about it for now. Until next time...

Adobe Flash Animation Tutorial: Bone Tool

On this document, I will be showing a tutorial on how to make an animation using the Bone tool in Adobe Flash. First, open Adobe Flash in ActionScript 3.0:

Next draw a simple image that will be used as your animation. Once you have done that, convert all of your images that you are using to animate into Symbols (Movie Clips). I have drawn a stick man for my project:

Next, select the bone tool and select the main area of where all the other objects pivot around. In this case, since my animation is a stick man, then the main pivot area is the neck.

From this, I can move the arms around in any direction I like without them straying from rest of the body. (unless you have the Transform tool selected) You may notice at this point that the body may move while you are moving the arms. To stop this, select the main pivot areas outer circle (with the Select tool selected) and it will highlight it. You will then have some new options in the properties window. One of those options is called Joint: Rotation and there should also be a box ticked enabled. Click the box to disable the rotation of the body. (Do this before adding the bone feature to the legs)  

("Just so you know, I'm using the arm to refer the Joint: Rotation because I had done the neck earlier and I can't see a way to redo it, probably because my shapes are too small!") Now that you have done this, you can now add the bone feature to the legs. Now to add some animations: go into the Timeline and you should notice a new layer has appeared called Armature_2 (or you may have noticed it when you were inputting the bone features)                                                              

At this point, add some frames in and manipulate your animation and you should have something like this:

When you now hit Ctrl + Enter, you'll see a small loop animation of this stick man waving.

Generator Complex game

I am back and after two weeks of working in Flash, I have finally finished my game.

The idea based for this game is to get a battery and place it into a generator without hitting any obstructions. If you get the battery into the generator, you win the level and you will be given the option to progress onto the next level, retry the level you played or go back to the main menu. Hitting an obstacle will cause you to fail the level and gives you the option to retry the level or go back to the main menu. There are currently ten levels to play and get harder as you progress.

The controls for the game are very simple: one left click over the battery and it will pick it up automatically. the battery will follow the cursor wherever you control it as long as you don't hit any obstacles.

As of now, there are lots of things that it lacks for it to be very well made and addictive game, mainly certain features that it is missing. In this case, it doesn't have a stopwatch in place to record a players time for each level or a life-point feature to record how many times the battery can get hit before it's game over There is also no sound applied to the game, so there won't be as much 'feel' to the game. If I had more time and the right resources, I would definitely add them in. 

That's all for now. Until next time...

The Hardest thing I've done before... (Flash Game - Generator Complex - Production)

After much time of practice and game tests using ActionScript 3 in Adobe Flash, I am ready to start creating my game. I have already designed some of the levels and imported them into Flash. So far, I am really proud of the result:

All I have for the main menu at the moment is a game title and three buttons, though only two of them work at the moment. The Play button goes straight into the game, starting from level one and the Levels button shows a list of the playable levels. I am intending to have ten playable levels, but so far, I have finished three of them for alpha-testing before going any further.

Here is the first level. The objective of the game is to get the green battery to the generator, without hitting any obstacles. If you hit an obstacle, the game is over. When this happens, a mini-menu will pop up, giving you the option to either retry the level again or return to the main menu. If you manage to get the battery to the generator, you complete the level and a pop up menu will appear. It gives you the same options as the game over menu, but you will also have the option to proceed onto the next level.

There may be a few bugs that I need to fix. One at the moment, is the hit test between the battery and the generator: I have made so that no matter where the battery touches the generator, it will automatically count as a hit and win the game.

I will hopefully be back more on my game. Until next time...