And now for some piccies - Flash

Going back over the sheet regarding this competency, I have noticed lots of mentions about the Online Media lab. I must go and make comments on the works uploaded there. It was a good experience, it is pretty cool to be working online with other people in real time (even if tones of voice cannot be considered and sometimes mistaken on the written comments.) I must link here to our wiki page. http://medialab.wikispaces.com/Team+B Our challenge was the online documentary. I came up with the two evolved mockups, which was good coz we really needed a visual basis from which to work off. Then I also simplified our concept down into the bottom two navigational sitemaps.

On the thought of comments, I am a very active comment-er on deviantARt, I have received 101 comments from others about my work, and have made 407 on other people's. It serves a couple of purposes. It provides interactivity with artists around the world, it promotes a sense of networking, it is an avenue to express your thoughts on other people's work, and it also serves to get your name and avatar out there on as many pages as you can so other people will be able to look at it and hopefully click on it and come and visit your site, and then make comments about your own work. It is certainly a way of comparing your work to others, and each picture you put up you wirte your artists comments on it and reply to other people's comments on your own work. Would this be suitable for CUVDSP02A/04 ?


Anyway, i wanted to post some pictures regarding how my Flash project was coming along. there are the two original drawings invovling how Mary and the Lamb might look, and some concepts about the interactivity and content.

interactivity.jpg

mary_sketch.jpg

So the basic idea was to have a Mary, and a Lamb. there will be an intro/title page that you click on to enter. then you go to play verse 1. As I drew, I always wanted to have the lyrics there, and the word would light up as the tiny sheep bounced on it, karaoke style. I have acheived this, but I really need to put music in (the whole thing needs more music, or rather, sound effects. children are very easily stimulated both visually and audibly.) i think the addition of music will be easy enough, we will have to see. There will then be quiz type questions (very easy ones) such as what colour was the fleece and how big was the lamb etc. I think i should have 'wrong' and 'correct' sound effects on them too.

Here is some pics form Flash. This is the intro page. I origianally had the title as a dark blue and when u hovered over a letter it would become a different colour. But I changed that to now every letter is a different colour, and they still change to another colour when you hover over (and they glow too when you hover over them - thanks to Matt ;p) Thhen I had the idea of the letters constantly changing to different colours on their own (and still changing again and glowing when hovering). But I don't yet know if that would just be TOO MUCH colour changing? I asked a couple fo classmates and they thought it was Ok ... will see what everyone thinks on Tuesday. The lamb opens his little mough when you hover over him (I will try and insert a "baaa" noise there - oh, he also glows too) and he wiggles his ears and moves his head - it's VERY CUTE! he is the active button to go to the next page.

lamb_intro.jpg

Page 1 here and Mary and the lamb come waddling on from each side. Hopefully I will get them to do things when you hover over them, i havent yet tho. I tried to animate the lamb walking, and it was just HIDEOUS. I realise I should have persisted, but I have enough to do on this thing without spending hours on the walking - and besides, the little kids wont care anyway. They do move into frame,. they rock back and forth, it's kina amusing actually! the text "Play the first verse" is all different colours and those colours move along the letters consecutively. I don't know if that is also too much. i don't know if I really like it. Anyway, you click on that to go to the first verse. Navigational buttons down the bottom (WITHOUT any bevels) take you back to the intro page on on to the first quiz.

lamb_p1.jpg

Here is the lyrics for the first verse, the little lamb bounces in time and the letters light up. It looks pretty cool in action :D
My only qualm is that the page looks really bare. Maybe I should make the words bigger. I did have a dancing sheep under the words but he took the attention away from the bouncing sheep.

lamb_v1.jpg

The quiz is very basic, you click on what you think the answer is and it comes up with "yes" or "no". And as I said, i would like to put in sound effects there.

lamb_q1.jpg

Well, that is as far as I have gotten. I do need to map out the rest of it exactly. I am happy with it so far and I'm also not. I feel it is still rather plain. Maybe i should have those little flowers on the ground grow bigger when you hover over them, maybe I should add a tree with a bird that is also interactive. I have the clouds moving constantly in the background so that there is always something moving.