The last few weeks I haven't stopped working and worrying about this project!
Doing a project like this out of term time was ridiculously hard as I couldn't get any help. I'm proud that I have finally finished this project but I am not pleased with it. It is probably the worst project I have done so far. Although I have learnt so much the HARD WAY! It has taken me a long long time to get parts of this project done that shouldn't have taken long at all, merely because I didn't have anyone to turn to for help!
Wednesday 25 August 2010
Interface
I then made my interface using Flash (making sure I opened an Actionscript 2.0 document!) I found this a lot easier than I thought I would as I had made the buttons in my story already, it was a similar principle. The Interface works! Apart from the few stories I don't have, everything is working ok.
Flash...
I have finally finished working in Flash and found it extremely difficult!
I have never used Flash before and to work with it over the holidays without help was a nightmare.
I copied and pasted my artwork from Illustrator into Flash, I then had to redraw the moving elements in Flash as I couldn't get anything to work! When I finally got everything moving in each .fla I added the sound (Which I found out I should've done before hand as this messed up all the timings of course!) I cut the sound using a program called Audacity, which was fairly straight forward to use.
I then had to link all my scenes together, this took me a very very long time. I had no idea how to do this, I watched loads of tutorials online and Andrews DVD but nothing helped...I then discovered that I was meant to be working in a Flash Actionscript 2.0 document not Actionscript 3.0, NOOOOOOO! So.... I then had to create all new Actionscript 2.0 docs, change the size, and copy and paste all the layers/frames in, then re save everything and make all new folders, which got very confusing!
Finally I sorted the button problem out and was able to use Actionscript 2.0 a lot easier!
I have never used Flash before and to work with it over the holidays without help was a nightmare.
I copied and pasted my artwork from Illustrator into Flash, I then had to redraw the moving elements in Flash as I couldn't get anything to work! When I finally got everything moving in each .fla I added the sound (Which I found out I should've done before hand as this messed up all the timings of course!) I cut the sound using a program called Audacity, which was fairly straight forward to use.
I then had to link all my scenes together, this took me a very very long time. I had no idea how to do this, I watched loads of tutorials online and Andrews DVD but nothing helped...I then discovered that I was meant to be working in a Flash Actionscript 2.0 document not Actionscript 3.0, NOOOOOOO! So.... I then had to create all new Actionscript 2.0 docs, change the size, and copy and paste all the layers/frames in, then re save everything and make all new folders, which got very confusing!
Finally I sorted the button problem out and was able to use Actionscript 2.0 a lot easier!
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Working in Illustrator..
I have decided to do all my drawings in Illustrator before working on them in Flash, below are screenshots of each scene...
Style...
I like the idea of doing really simple designs to go with my story, almost child like in itself. I was thinking about Roger Hargreaves's Mr Men books and had a look at them for inspiration...
Stories...
We were given a list of childrens stories to choose from, with the story we picked we have to create drawings and animations to fit with each paragraph... We were also given the option to write our own childrens story with the same characters included, I have decided to write my own (below)...
Bertie makes a cake
It was a cold, rainy day and Bertie the pirate was terribly bored. He sat looking out of the window wondering what to do. Bertie sighed.
Bertie suddenly remembered that it is Toby the tortoises birthday tomorrow and he had forgotten to get him a present! ‘I know’ said Bertie to Pecky the Parrot ‘Lets make Toby an extra special cake for his birthday party!’ ‘What a good idea’ Pecky replied.
After finding Berties umbrella off they went to the shops to buy some ingredients for their extra special birthday cake…
They got some flour, sugar, eggs, butter and cocoa. “Right, I think thats everything” said Bertie “Don’t forget the strawberry sprinkles!” said Pecky
When they got back to Berties house they started to make the cake, mixing up all the flour, eggs, chocolate and butter, it looked yummy! They put the cake in the oven and sat down for a rest, “Oh dear” said Pecky, “I think we’ve made a bit of a mess!”
Bertie and Pecky cleaned up the kitchen and decided that next time they would be tidier! Bertie’s Mummy always says that a good chef is clean and tidy!
The kitchen was sparkling clean when there was a knock at the door, it was Kate the kitten, she wanted to borrow Berties ball. “Just a second, I’ll go and get it” said Bertie.
Kate could smell something coming from the kitchen “Mmmmmmm, that smells yummy” said Kate. She walked into the kitchen and saw the extra special birthday cake, she just had to have a bite! One bite turned into two and then she realised she had eaten half of the cake!
Bertie walked into the kitchen and saw Kate the kitten with lots of chocolate cake round her mouth “That cake wasn’t for you!” said Bertie “It was for Toby the tortoises birthday!” Kate ran away feeling very guilty!
Bertie went to bed early that night and was very upset as he still didn’t have anything to give to Toby.
In the morning Bertie went down to the kitchen to have his breakfast and on the kitchen table was a huge cake! Even better than the one he had made! Kate must have brought another cake round while Bertie was asleep. “Toby will love this cake! Thanks Kate!”
Bertie makes a cake
It was a cold, rainy day and Bertie the pirate was terribly bored. He sat looking out of the window wondering what to do. Bertie sighed.
Bertie suddenly remembered that it is Toby the tortoises birthday tomorrow and he had forgotten to get him a present! ‘I know’ said Bertie to Pecky the Parrot ‘Lets make Toby an extra special cake for his birthday party!’ ‘What a good idea’ Pecky replied.
After finding Berties umbrella off they went to the shops to buy some ingredients for their extra special birthday cake…
They got some flour, sugar, eggs, butter and cocoa. “Right, I think thats everything” said Bertie “Don’t forget the strawberry sprinkles!” said Pecky
When they got back to Berties house they started to make the cake, mixing up all the flour, eggs, chocolate and butter, it looked yummy! They put the cake in the oven and sat down for a rest, “Oh dear” said Pecky, “I think we’ve made a bit of a mess!”
Bertie and Pecky cleaned up the kitchen and decided that next time they would be tidier! Bertie’s Mummy always says that a good chef is clean and tidy!
The kitchen was sparkling clean when there was a knock at the door, it was Kate the kitten, she wanted to borrow Berties ball. “Just a second, I’ll go and get it” said Bertie.
Kate could smell something coming from the kitchen “Mmmmmmm, that smells yummy” said Kate. She walked into the kitchen and saw the extra special birthday cake, she just had to have a bite! One bite turned into two and then she realised she had eaten half of the cake!
Bertie walked into the kitchen and saw Kate the kitten with lots of chocolate cake round her mouth “That cake wasn’t for you!” said Bertie “It was for Toby the tortoises birthday!” Kate ran away feeling very guilty!
Bertie went to bed early that night and was very upset as he still didn’t have anything to give to Toby.
In the morning Bertie went down to the kitchen to have his breakfast and on the kitchen table was a huge cake! Even better than the one he had made! Kate must have brought another cake round while Bertie was asleep. “Toby will love this cake! Thanks Kate!”
Treasure Island Toys...
New Brief...
Foundation Degree (FdA) Digital Media Design
AF106 Interactive Design
Assignment Weighting: 100%
Assignment title: Treasure Island Toys
Assignment Brief
For this assignment you will be working on a live brief, producing content for an online toy store called Treasure Island Toys, which you can find at www.treasureislandtoys.co.uk. This content is designed to draw children and their parents/carers to the site more frequently and for longer visits, to build brand awareness and loyalty. Treasure Island Toys sells things for children of all ages, but the target audience for this project is children between 5 and 7 years of age.
A series of characters have already been created by the owners of Treasure Island Toys, the central one being Bertie the Pirate (www.bertiethepirate.co.uk), and nine short children’s stories using these characters have been written. In order that there is a story each for this project, three further stories need to be written. Your brief is then to produce illustrations with animated flourishes to accompany one of these stories.
Many of the characters have been illustrated and some background artwork exists, but some of the stories contain characters and settings that there are not yet drawings for. You must create illustrations for your story that are stylistically in keeping with the existing artwork.
You can produce artwork in Illustrator and/or Flash’s drawing environment, and create the animations and interactivity in Flash. The stories must be created at 845 x 475 pixels, should have a voice over reading the story and the presentation of a suitable amount of text per page. You should be able to move to the next and previous page or start from the beginning from anywhere within your story.
Once you have produced an animated/illustrated interactive story each in Flash, you will design and build an interface that can display all of the stories. Your home page will carry links to all of the individual stories on separate pages. Each individual story page will carry a button back to the home page. Your story page home button should be created in Flash and use sound and animation. Other interface elements may be animated or static. You will build your interface in html and lay it out using css.
What you have to submit
• A sketchbook and blog of research, design development, problem solving, review and evaluation of work in progress etc
• A researched and Harvard referenced 750 word essay on an aspect of user interface design
• A CD/DVD containing folders of
• Working files for story development and interface elements (as ais, flas, psds)
• A completed interactive story (as swfs, with the opening swf named 00_X.swf, X being your allocated number, and placed inside a numbered folder)
• Fully functioning website linking all completed stories (with index.html at the top of the hierarchy and the story swf files placed inside the numbered folders)
• The website is online on the Courses web server
• The website and stories are submitted to the Remus submissions server
Deadlines
Crit for stories: Monday 19th April
Deadline for sharing finished story files: Tuesday 20th April
Final deadline for submission and crit for web interface: Friday 23rd April
Foundation Degree (FdA) Digital Media Design
AF106 Interactive Design
Assignment Weighting: 100%
Assignment title: Treasure Island Toys
Assignment Brief
For this assignment you will be working on a live brief, producing content for an online toy store called Treasure Island Toys, which you can find at www.treasureislandtoys.co.uk. This content is designed to draw children and their parents/carers to the site more frequently and for longer visits, to build brand awareness and loyalty. Treasure Island Toys sells things for children of all ages, but the target audience for this project is children between 5 and 7 years of age.
A series of characters have already been created by the owners of Treasure Island Toys, the central one being Bertie the Pirate (www.bertiethepirate.co.uk), and nine short children’s stories using these characters have been written. In order that there is a story each for this project, three further stories need to be written. Your brief is then to produce illustrations with animated flourishes to accompany one of these stories.
Many of the characters have been illustrated and some background artwork exists, but some of the stories contain characters and settings that there are not yet drawings for. You must create illustrations for your story that are stylistically in keeping with the existing artwork.
You can produce artwork in Illustrator and/or Flash’s drawing environment, and create the animations and interactivity in Flash. The stories must be created at 845 x 475 pixels, should have a voice over reading the story and the presentation of a suitable amount of text per page. You should be able to move to the next and previous page or start from the beginning from anywhere within your story.
Once you have produced an animated/illustrated interactive story each in Flash, you will design and build an interface that can display all of the stories. Your home page will carry links to all of the individual stories on separate pages. Each individual story page will carry a button back to the home page. Your story page home button should be created in Flash and use sound and animation. Other interface elements may be animated or static. You will build your interface in html and lay it out using css.
What you have to submit
• A sketchbook and blog of research, design development, problem solving, review and evaluation of work in progress etc
• A researched and Harvard referenced 750 word essay on an aspect of user interface design
• A CD/DVD containing folders of
• Working files for story development and interface elements (as ais, flas, psds)
• A completed interactive story (as swfs, with the opening swf named 00_X.swf, X being your allocated number, and placed inside a numbered folder)
• Fully functioning website linking all completed stories (with index.html at the top of the hierarchy and the story swf files placed inside the numbered folders)
• The website is online on the Courses web server
• The website and stories are submitted to the Remus submissions server
Deadlines
Crit for stories: Monday 19th April
Deadline for sharing finished story files: Tuesday 20th April
Final deadline for submission and crit for web interface: Friday 23rd April
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