GDT 260 Animation for the Web: Winter 2002

Assignments

Assignment 1: Exquisite Corpse, Flash Style

This assignment is broken down into 3 parts:

Drawing due 2.5
Animation due 2.14
Preloader due 3.7

The Exquisite Corpse is a surrealist game in which paticipants collaborate on a drawing. The drawing surface is divided into as many horizontal sections as there are participants. Each participant can only see a small portion of the drawing created by the previous participant. Each participant then fills his/ her section of the drawing, integrating it with the previous section, covers the new section, and passes it on to the next participant. The result is a surrealist piece that changes dramatically from section to section, but hopefully has some interesting relationships between the various sections.

We’re going to do a version of this in Flash, with a theme of genetic engineering/ evolution. Each person will create a drawing of an animal or plant that is fairly normal. Everyone will then trade drawings with someone else, and then tranform one drawing into the other, creating a midpoint where the two drawings create an altogther new creature. Everyone will then get a full set of transformed drawings, piece them togther into one movie, and create a preloader at the beginning.

Assignment 1.1

Create the drawing of the plant or animal that you’re going to start with. Make sure that you carefully consider how you’re grouping elements and arranging them on layers. Remember that you’re going to be changing this creature into something else, and that someone is going to be transforming something into yours.

Publish your movie and post it to your webspace. Put your .fla up there too.

Assignment 1.2

Give a copy of your .fla file to another class member. I’ll determine the swapping method so that there aren’t any closed loops in the movies.

The entire animation sequence should be saved as a self-contained movie clip. In other words, there should only be 1 frame on the main timeline, but as many as you need on the movie clip’s timeline.

Start with your own drawing at the beginning of the movie clip. End with the other drawing. Make sure both drawings are exactly centered on the movie clip.
At some point in the middle, make a new creature that’s somehow halfway between the two creatures you started with. Be creative and come up with something interesting.
Create the appropriate shape or motion tweens, and make sure that they look good as they run
Publish and post the .html, .swf, and .fla

Assignment 1.3

Download all drawings
Combine all the movie clips into one movie.
- Each movie clip symbol should exist on the main timeline for only 1 frame.
- Use ActionScript to start and stop the main timeline, while allowing the individual animations to play. You can target the main timeline by using "_root".
Create a title scene, soundtrack, and preloader.
Publish and post .html, .swf, .fla

Homework 3.19

Choose one of the following pairs of Flash sites. Write a brief comparison of the two. Which do you like better? Why? What are the differences in approach to animation? to color? to audio? to the feel of the design?

Or choose your own…

Be sure to indicate which sites you’ve chosen to compare. Mark up your critique as an html page, either by hand or in Dreamweaver and FTP it to your webspace.

Due: 3.21

Assignment 2: Choose Your Own Adventure

Create a Choose Your Own Adventure - type movie that allows for linear narrative, but turns that narrative back on itself. Your movie should periodically require the viewer to make a choice between 2 or more options and take them to a different point in the movie based on what they click. The movie can loop back on itself. For example, start off at frame 1, where you’re given a choice between 2 options. Choose one, it goes to frame 2, where there are 2 more options. Clicking one takes you to frame 3, clicking the other takes you back to frame 1.

There are many different options for this project; it doesn’t have to be a text-based narrative. You can tell a story through drawings, photos, or animations. Some examples include:

Approach it as a game
A maze - there’s only one correct path to the end
A true Choose Your Own Adventure story with only text. Make sure the design is appropriate to the story.
An abstract piece playing with form, color, and sound
Telling a story that actually happened to you, but creating different scenarios based on choices that were made in that story

The important part of this assignment is that you give the viewer the opportunity to interact with the narrative, which basically means that they’ll jump around in the timeline.

Important criteria for this project include:

There must be at least 4 decision points
There must be at least 8 distinct views/scenes
Your movie must play back smoothly
If there’s a wait of more than 10 seconds for the initial frame to load, create a preloader
Your final .swf must be less than 400k, preferably much less

Homework 4.2

Write a short description/ critique of your favorite Flash website. Discuss why you think it’s successful. Now that you have some experience working in Flash, discuss what, if anything, you can tell about how the piece was constructed, and what lessons you can take from that. Mark up your critique as an html page or create a simple (or as elaborate as you feel inclined to do) Flash movie, and FTP it to your webspace. Make sure you include a link to the site.

Final Project

Create a Flash website, with all content and navigation done within Flash. Use an interesting mix of static content and animated/ interactive elements.

In projects 1 and 2, we used a more-or-less linear naviagtion/ narrative system. In this project, I want the navigation to be non-linear: you can get to any section from any other section.

Subject matter is entirely up to you. You could do a portfolio site, a site to showcase your music, or a site about something else that you’re really into, like an overview of techno music, or a site about bmx racing.

I will be grading on the following criteria:

There must be at least 7 "pages", each of which is accessible from any other page, unless they are sub-sub pages
You must use both animated elements and static elements
The movie must playback smoothly throughout, unless the user has clicked to a different page and is waiting for it to load.
Any time something is loading, whether it be the initial load, or another page, something interesting must happen on screen, ie. a preloader that’s interesting
Everything must load quickly. Optimize! The final .swf can be as big as it needs to be, but I don’t want to wait for long
There must be actual content on the pages. Choose subject matter that you’re interested in. I don’t want to see a bunch of "blah blah blah goes here…"
The design must be interesting, original, and appropriate to the subject matter

If you have an idea for a piece other than a traditional website, I am open to that, but you must discuss it with me first, so that we can work out an appropriate set of requirements.

Chris Cassell Dot Net