Feedback

Feedback given:

To Aj: I really like your final piece especially the images and backgrounds used, I think the needing needs more work as well as you'r spelling/grammar and the timing is a bit off at times. Also the buttons at then end aren't very nice looking and one link doesn't work. Also I suggest maybe using a different font which would look less boring although I really like you'r speech bubbles.

To Adam: I really like your animation, the way the dragon changes size as it flies in/out is really good and give the impression of depth and distance. The animation could be more complicated though and maybe instead of using just one image of the dragon maybe three or four would be better and give a smoother and more visually entertaining animation. You could also develop the plot more and make the animation longer al well as adding some interactivity.

Feedback received can be found in the comments on my blog.

My work so far

So far I have experimented animating the maid and her dialogue in flash, I really like the idea of a next button as it means I don't have to time how long the words are on screen. Unfourtunatly I have to change all the actions because I need to add a load of frames at the beginning which was stupid of me to start halfway through the animation. I've also decided to have a blink each time new text comes up as when the button's there I have a stop command and it looks weird if the blinks are too far spaced.

Manipulating traditional assets

Today we made a pattern from scanned rubbing's taken from around the college, my first rubbing was from the ladies sign on the toilet door and my second was from the texture of a wall, I made them into patterns by using a  load of different photoshop tools such as levels, perspective, colour balance, flip horizontal, flip vertical, add noise and radial blur. I don't think I'll be using any of these effects though as the only part of my project I've drawn by hand is my storyboard.

Today we made the image of a seagull flying in flash to explore the possibilities of animating a movieclip. First we made one of the assets into a movie clip and went into it to add the rest of the assets (left wing down/up, right wing down/up and the body) on a layer each and had the wings up for 4 frames and down for another 4. We then went out of the movie clip and positioned the seagull at the left of the screen, we then moved it to the right side on a new keyframe on frame forty. We then tweened them and repeated the process but flipped the seagull around. I don't think I will use this technique though because I've already animated the blinking normally.

Evaluation of my final animation

Over this past month I have been working on an interactive animation in flash in iPhone format. When I first found out about the project I decided I wanted to make my animation like a Japanese dating sim where the same image of a person is used over and over but with different facial; expressions and a text box at the bottom. My plot was very loosely based around the characters Alice in wonderland, as you can still see in the maid with her pointy teeth and cat like eye's, the butler and the two floppy 'ear's' of his hair and the close to white hair colour, Lord Notfeld and his hat and the fact the character you play as is called Alice.

In this project I decided to do all the images used on my drawing tablet because it mixes the good points of digital and traditional. By having all my final images made digitally it made editing and accuracy (e.g. file size) very easy all well as quicker. It also made my work easier to store and share (e.g around the web) and the computer did a lot of the work for me like calculating my tween's and various filters. It also was able to work with the advantages of my drawing tablet to get the great control and drawing style that's usually found in traditional work. The only downfall of digital work is how easily it can be corrupted or for the coding to mess up, ruining the whole thing as well as the fact that there are set limits in digital work.

We did a lot of experimentations in flash throughout this project to teach me the skills needed to make my animation, for example one of the first things we learnt was hoe to make a tween in flash which can produce either a pan or zoom effect or in my case, I used this experience to make a masking layer above my text to reveal the text bit by bit. The tutorials also helped me develop my idea's for example the button tutorial game the idea for the next button and the tutorials also helped me realise what was possible and was wasn't.

Before producing my final piece I made a storyboard for the rough idea which really helped with my character design and gave me a guideline for the script as well as a feel for the characters personality, although I changed my butler design from the storyboard to my final I kept most of the other idea's the same.

My final piece took am lot of time and was very repetitive to make as I had a next button after every piece of text and the amount of layers was confusing, but the final product was really good. My idea's developed into a decent plot and the next button really helped as if it wasn't there I'd have to have a time limit of how long the text was on screen which no matter what would be either too short for some people and too long for others. I also think my simple animations were used effectively although if I could do this again and I had more time to work on it I'd try more ambitious animations because the images were a bit static and I would have zoomed in at parts but I had too many things on different layers. I also like that I was able to get a second ending in although I wish I could have don'e more. Also my animation was a bit short and if I had the time I would have loved to make it longer with more suspects and more development for the characters although I love the idea that whatever you choose you die.

All in all I'm really proud of my first flash animation even if it is a bit simple and I would love to carry along the animation route.