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

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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.