thank you.

thank you all so much for the card, and for a very fun course! this was a great way to finish my time here at st. olaf. i'm going to miss you all, please keep in touch.

one last message for you.

-pat

another random sounder

here's the new one, with little sound "mines"

that droney sound thingy

in case any of you need another 'hit' of that random line/drone thingy, i posted a slightly prettier one on my blog...

more video tutorials

i've posted links to a couple relevant video-tutorials online; one describes tracing in illustrator, the other describes exporting a frame sequence from Quicktime. they are both posted under "examples" on the course website

in the Quicktime tutorial, ignore the requirement to export frames in the ".PNG" format; this is no longer necessary with the current version of Flash. Use the "TIFF" format instead.

i'll review some of this stuff tomorrow!

Art Imitates Video Games

short article: Design Schools working on exhibition of Sims-related artwork.

just to let you know i'm thinking of you...

...as you slave away at your dollies.

my GPS track log from my run this afternoon, saved as a google earth thingy. you might have to right-click to download, but open it in google earth (on the lab computers)

check out the soccer fields. i added a little bit to my usual run.

The Shape of Cinema, Transformed at the Click of a Mouse

article on NY times site

new demo .fla files in Class Materials

i've posted some .fla files in our Class Materials folder:

-"drag-and-drop-multiples" - the .fla in this folder is a working example of a drag-and-drop movie clip that replicates itself when dropped in the right place
-"drag between levels" - these files demonstrate the ability to detect a dropped clip on another level. the "workspacemovie" file loads the "objectsmovie" file into level 10
-"art228_homepage_FLAs" - these are the .fla files that make up our course home page. there's a lot going on in these, so venture into them at your own risk. we'll cover more of that stuff after break.

remembering your clocks...

i know you're slaving away at making your homonym animations...but i haven't forgotten my competition idea for our clocks. in fact, i've got a new idea for it.

so for tuesday, i want you to do one last thing for me in order to compile everyone's clocks together into a single .swf that i can present to our judge(s):

make your clock .swf conform to this movie standard:
-30 frames-per-second
-640 x 480 window size

-you may have already made it this format, if so, great.

this way i can use your clocks as i demonstrate a new loading-movie technique after we view your homonym animations.

get out and play in the snow a bit!!

demo movies, and snow.

i've posted more tutorials! good for a winter storm.

they're in the examples section of the course site, but here they are again as well:



sound in a button

setting up the iMic to work with Audacity

exporting from Audacity, importing into Flash

more demo movies!

i've posted a new examples page on the course site, with demo movies covering the scripted animation basics from today:

http://stolaf.edu/people/kelleyp/coursecommon/examples/flash/scriptedanim1.html

scripted animation - post-class notes

beware of the most common pitfall of scripting - THE MISPLACED SCRIPT!!

-when scripting a button to link to another .swf file, the script is attached to the button itself:


-this script was written with the button selected - note the "Actions - Button" at the top of the actions panel.

-also note there is no "a" mark in the frame.



BUT, when creating a function script triggered by a movie clip (in this example by onEnterFrame), the script is created in a frame on the main timeline, i.e., a frame script:

note the "a" in the first frame of the actions layer.

some pix from NY

hello again!

hope your class time with chris s. went well. he's a good guy.

we're having a good time here in NYC. at the CAA conference i went to an interesting session on motion graphics, i may come back with some funky new projects for us.

but i thought i'd toss some pix your way. today we were in chelsea and stopped by Printed Matter, a cool little bookstore that specializes in unique artist's books - books made by artists, as works of art in themselves. they've carried my flipbooks since 1998, and i had never been there, so i had to visit! (although i haven't kept them very well stocked as of late).








and here are some pix from yesterday's trip to the Metropolitan Museum - the big old place with all the Old Stuff.





a close-up of jackson pollock








my mary in front of james rosenquist's "gift-wrapped dolls" - oil on canvas














one of my favorite sculptures by rodin




i've always loved trompe l'oeil painting; i think it's the built-in humor as well as the amazing craft involved. this is one by john haberle (1856-1933), called "A Bachelor's Drawer." the detail is stunning, down to the clipped newspaper articles about the artwork itself.






and i just liked medea and her foot.

button demo movies & hello from NY!

hello from NY, where the granular ice-snow is deep, but not as deep as the art.

here are some demo movies i made on the plane. i hope to post some pictures from here tomorrow!






making simple buttons





using the hit area





creating a menu





linking to other .swf files from the menu





creating a "back" button to return to the menu

importing image (question)

i have a question regarding making a photo the background. how do you do it?
a thank you.

easiest way is to import the photo to its own layer, the bottom layer of the movie.

make the photo the same resolution (or close) as your movie, e.g., if the flash movie is 640 x 480 pixels, make the image that size before importing it. save it as a tiff or photoshop (.psd) file.

then select the layer, go to File->Import->Import to Stage (apple-R), and find your image. Flash will throw it on the stage. you can then tweak it with the transform tool if necessary. and remember that the stage area will effectively crop the image if its larger.

movie-demos for today...

here are a few screenshot movies rehashing some of today's stuff. these are all also on the course website under examples

---

basic motion tweening

1) create object
2) select frame 1, right-click, "Create Motion Tween"
3) create second keyframe later in timeline
4) make change in object in second keyframe (position, color, scale)

---

motion tweening with alpha change
starting with previous tween:
1) select object at one of the keyframes
2) click "Color" pop-up, select "Alpha," make adjustment

---

motion tweening with "easing"

starting with previous tween:
1) click in tween area of timeline - somewhere between the two keyframes
2) in properties palette, adjust "Ease" slider. Negative - starts slow, accelerates; Positive - starts fast, decelerates

---

shape tweening
1) create object
2) right-click a later frame, "Insert Blank Keyframe"
3) turn on Onion Skin for that frame to reveal previous shape
4) draw new shape in blank keyframe
5) select one of the in-between frames
6) in the properties palette, click the Tween pop-up, and select "Shape"

---

movie clips
creating a movie clip from a shape
1) draw a shape on the stage
2) right click the shape, select "Convert to Symbol"
3) check that "Movie Clip" is the Type
4) give it a name with no spaces or odd characters ( } ) ( ] \ " *); click OK
5) double-click the new movie clip to enter its timeline (note the top of the Timeline, showing that you're now 'inside' the movie clip)

---

movie clip animation
-starting with the previous steps:
1) inside the movie clip's timeline, create a shape tween (or any kind of animation)
2) click the "Scene 1" label above the timeline to go back to the main timeline
3) preview the movie (apple key-return)
-the movie clip's animation plays and loops, even though the entire .swf movie is one frame

flash file

here's a a simple movie clip animation.

hard drives - more info

more info and some links to specific hard drives i'd recommend. things to look for:

- "bus-powered" - this means the drive is physically small enough to get its power from the firewire or USB connection to the computer, and does not need an additional power cable. this is very handy for a drive you'll be carting around nearly every day!

- "firewire" or "1394" vs. "USB" - this is the type of connection to the computer. firewire, AKA 1394, is much faster than USB. the imacs in the lab have both kinds of connections. the speed of firewire is useful for copying over large files. most of the stuff we'll do with Flash will be small, but the images and video you may use for "raw material" won't be!

- whatever drive you get, think ahead about what computer(s) you'll be using it with. if you need it to work with a PC as well as with the macs in our lab, you'll need to format the drive as a PC drive. let me know if you need help with this step.

here is a proven bus-powered firewire drive (lacie 100GB drive)
same drive, different vendor
USB-only version of the same drive

and just to give you an idea of how $ works with hard drives regarding size and portability, here is a non-bus powered hard drive (requires power cord). it holds over twice the data, a bit heavier, but costs less.

posting Flash .swf files to your blog

to post your published .swf ("swif") files to your blog, you'll need to upload them to your st. olaf webspace first.

-make a new folder on your st. olaf space, call it anything you like (no spaces or strange characters). i made a new folder called "2007art228." i also put a new folder within that one called "blogmedia."

for example, i've uploaded the swif below to my st. olaf webspace:

swif file

- the URL for the link above is:
http://www.stolaf.edu/people/kelleyp/2007art228/blogmedia/test.swf

- i made the link by selecting the text "swif file" and clicking the link button at the top of the posting window. i then inserted the URL above in the pop-up window.

keyboard shortcuts for Flash 8 - LEARN THESE!

Standard (Mac) Shortcuts:

command-N: new document
command-O: open
command-W: close
command-Q: quit
command-S: save
shift-command-S: save as
command-C: copy into memory
command-X: cut into memory
command-V: paste from memory
command-Z: undo
command-Y: redo

Flash-specific Shortcuts:

command-+(=): zoom in
command--: zoom out
command-G: group objects
shift-command-G: ungroup objects
command-R: import (media) to Flash Stage
command-F8: create new Symbol
command-Return: Publish Flash preview
option-F9: show/hide Actions window

welcome to the art-228: computer generated imagery blog

here we go. i'll be using this to post notes after class sessions, among other things...