Due Wednesday, April 17 at 5:30 PM.
Background: Build a movie in which you use ActionScript to achieve unpredictable or emergent behavior. Here are a range of possible projects. Some call for only minimal scripting--essentially, you may adapt existing scripts; others require you to develop techniques not yet covered in class. Done at the highest level, any of these projects could receive top marks.
If you choose a minimal-scripting approach, however, I will weigh content much more heavily, and will expect you to integrate the scripting technique thoughtfully with that content.
Options:
- Minimal Scripting: Draggable Mask Implementation
- Adapt the draggable mask technique shown in the
dynoMask demonstration, substituting
your own masked and unmasked graphics. Thoughtful
adaptation of technique to content is crucial for this option.
- Minimal Scripting: Screensaver
- Randomly animate several objects within a rectangular boundary.
Think about ways these objects can change, either in appearance or behavior,
under given conditions (i.e., when they reach a boundary). Consider
adding sound. Content is important for this option as well; though
I am willing to consider it less important as you script more ambitious
behaviors for your objects.
- Moderate Scripting: Refrigerator Poetry
- Simulate the famous fridge-poetry toy--re-arrangeable tiles containing single
words that can be grouped in various ways. You will need to learn how to make
symbols draggable. For best results, go beyond what is possible in the physical
world and think about ways in which the contents of your "tiles" could change
under certain conditions.
- Advanced Scripting: Arcade Games
- Implement one of the classic games of the 70s and 80s: for instance:
- Pong: digital ping-pong with one racquet controlled by the player, the other by the machine;
- Breakout: basically
Pong with obstacles which the bouncing ball can knock out;
- Space Invaders:
a game in which you maneuver a cannon along the baseline of the screen to
blast enemies as they march toward you);
- Asteroids: a game where you blast moving
hazards from a moving or rotating platform;
- Or any kind of sprite-driven linear-obstacle game where you try to pick up good objects and avoid bad ones, as in the Fallout demonstration project.
- Pong: digital ping-pong with one racquet controlled by the player, the other by the machine;
- Original Concept
- You may propose your own approach but you must clear the idea with me in e-mail before March 25.
Technical Details:
There are no specifications for screen size or aspect ratio. Play length and complexity of your project are up to you; generally speaking, greater is better in both respects. Try to sustain the user's interest as long as possible.
I suggest you work within a single-movie framework if possible. (We haven't yet discussed multi-movie construction.)
For a single movie, object file size (.swf) must remain within 3 MB. If you segment your work into multiple movies, none may exceed 1 MB. For a project with multiple components, the starting point must be the movie and page indicated below. Subsidiary elements should be named consistently.
Name your source file yourLastName.assn4.fla and your object file yourLastName.assn4.swf. Store both .fla and .swf in your Assignment4 folder on Crow. Create a page called assignment4.htm within the Assignment4 folder to contain your Shockwave movie.
Create a representative thumbnail graphic of your project, size it appropriately, and include it on your Crow index page. Link the thumbnail to assignment4.htm.
Include any notes you feel appropriate on your index page.
Examples
You might want to have a look at last year's projects for a sense of what's possible on this assignment.
