Due Wednesday, May 14 at 8:15 PM
Assignment: Build a Flash project employing advanced scripting and timeline architecture, suitable to be included in your professional portfolio. [Translation: go out with a big finish.]
I've indicated a number of options below. Please note the specific requirements spelled out in each.
General Specifications
Whatever you do, your project must include interactivity--that is, it cannot be simply an uninterruptible timeline. In evaluating your project I will strongly consider the significance of the interactive features you have used--how I am able to transform the project and in what ways those transformations are meaningful or interesting.
Constraints on visual dimensions and file size are largely suspended for this assignment. Please try not to put more than 25 megabytes into your Crow directory. (You may remove older files if necessary.) A portfolio piece should probably be deliverable on CD-ROM (250-660 MB) and viewable on a variety of platforms. Size of your object file (.swf) is up to you. Relatively large files--more than a megabyte--can be delivered with preloading or designed to accommodate streaming.
You may use effects specific to Flash MX, such as included video; so your object file export may use the MX setting.
Technical Specifications
- Though you may intend your project for ultimate delivery on CD-ROM, it
must be posted to the server and must run reasonably well over the Internet.
- You are responsible for testing your project in the Graphics Lab to be sure
it runs from the server.
- Create an index page (index.htm) within your assignment5
directory and include in that page the code to display your object movie.
- Export an appropriate JPEG from your project and include this graphic on your main Crow index page in place of the dummy currently installed for Assignment 5. Check to be sure the link is working. Remember that your index page must be correctly configured for your peer respondents.
Options
- Punctuated Timeline
- Taking as a model the Flash/video hybrid projects discussed this week
("Sleeper03" and "Turismo"), create a project that uses Flash controls to
break OR VARY a basic sequence of visual development.
- This basic sequence may be either traditional video (shot with a camera) or computer-generated animation. It need not be full-motion (24 frames per second) but may be something more like stop-action or Claymation.
- Support for digital video production is presently very limited at U.B. However, it is relatively easy to download AVIs, QuickTime movies, and other video content from Internet sources using the broadband connections in the Graphics Lab. Please avoid copyrighted and/or pornographic material.
- If you prefer to create your own content, consider building a basic cartoon using the standard Flash timeline; or you could create a flip-frame movie constructed of still photographs, drawings, or other artwork.
- As in the examples demonstrated in class, you must use frame scripts to interrupt the main line of development in order to present auxiliary material: either additional Movie Clips within the main movie or independent movies loaded into higher levels.
- Content is up to you, but you may want to think about either a tour, a demonstration/display, or a process analysis. This project could lend itself as easily to utility as to art.
- The examples use simple forward/back controls. Try to think of more interesting possibilities.
- This basic sequence may be either traditional video (shot with a camera) or computer-generated animation. It need not be full-motion (24 frames per second) but may be something more like stop-action or Claymation.
- Palimpsest or Pentimento
- Build a project that uses multiple, translucent layers or levels to
create a visually "thick" structure. Allow the viewer to dig into or through
these layers using at least one draggable mask.
- Include a series of hotspots (buttons or Movie Clips sensitive to rollover) that transform the current stack or replace it with another stack.
- This design could lend itself to various kinds of treasure hunt games, as well as other pathfinding challenges.
- See this year's demonstration projects on draggable masks and multi-level draggable masks for code examples. You may also want to look at draggable-mask projects done by students in 2001 and 2002 and included in the Selected Work collections for those years.
- Include a series of hotspots (buttons or Movie Clips sensitive to rollover) that transform the current stack or replace it with another stack.
- Emergent Structure
- Using duplicateMovieClip() or attachMovieClip(),
create a set of objects that proliferate according to some basic scheme or rule.
- See the "Emergent Structure" demo posted in Week 12 for code suggestions.
- Unlike the demonstration, your project must include some mechanism for viewer input or control--at minimum, a response to a mouse click.
- This project lends itself naturally to games and art concepts.
- See the "Emergent Structure" demo posted in Week 12 for code suggestions.
- Analog Design
- Using the proximity-sensing technique demonstrated in "Noisy Room,"
design an information browser featuring non-binary controls:
i.e., structures that respond to something other than a mouse
click--think sliders, dials, and Theremins.
- By "information browser" I mean an interface to some large and fairly well structured body of information such as a database, photo library, or Web site. Unless you can think of a way actually to reach out across the Internet to some particular site (difficult but not impossible), you may need to approximate or suggest this element of the project.
- "Noisy Room" uses audio for a reason: it's an inherently mixable medium. You're welcome to take this idea further.
- By "information browser" I mean an interface to some large and fairly well structured body of information such as a database, photo library, or Web site. Unless you can think of a way actually to reach out across the Internet to some particular site (difficult but not impossible), you may need to approximate or suggest this element of the project.
- Vanishing Points
- Taking Nicolas Clauss' wonderful "Cellos" movie as a starting point (see the
Contributed Links), design a project that uses motion along perspective
lines to create some interesting visual effects using the third dimension.
- It will not be sufficient simply to recreate Clauss' project. You must use the perspectival animation technique to achieve something other than what is done in the example.
- This could be an art project, or you could cross-pollinate it with the assignment above ("Analog Design") and think about an information-browser interface.
- It will not be sufficient simply to recreate Clauss' project. You must use the perspectival animation technique to achieve something other than what is done in the example.
- None of the Above
- You may of course propose an original idea. However--you must describe your intended project in as much detail as possible, and in writing, by April 23, and it must receive my approval.
