CMP1014 Creative Technologies 2006

Lastly it was time to export the finished file. Under the publish setting the html and swf files are automatically clicked as this is part of the brief on the files to submit. I took of the loop icon on the html files, as I don’t want the whole thing to be played over and over again. I then clicked publish and got the files that I needed, the fla, swf and html. But the html files needed to be changed. I opened notepad and changed them myself. I changed the background to black to fit the theme, and then changed the padding and margins to zero so that it fitted in the browser without needing to scroll.

Implementation went according to plan for most of it. I created 3 scenes. Using the tutorial and the help from the workshops I quickly created the pre-loader. I made the document 700 by 600 pixels so that it would fit in the browser as this is one of the briefs requirements. The picture, i.e. the logo I imported and got form the website. If I was actually going to publish this on the website, I would have to download a fan kit or ask permission to use the pictures, but as it’s not going to be published and is not a requirement of the brief, I will not. I had a problem with the pre-loader at first with the bar not filling up as the percentage loaded and this I tested using the bandwidth profiler. I overcame this problem because I forgot to put the instance name of the bar to “loadBar” sot he action scripting to work properly. Other than this the re-loader went well.

Now the second scene. I recorded parts of Buffy using some software and edited it into Premier. I used a mixture of slow and fast shots but timed it to finish with the music that I edited in from the original Buffy theme tune. When the music stops, the Buffy title comes together and then holds for a few seconds and then a blackout, just to add a bit of tension to the user. Then it moves onto the interface. I didn’t want to add much again to this scene, the reason being I didn’t want the file to be too big as the user would be waiting around a while if they were on dial up for example to load up the flash document. I set the music to be synchronised with the shots but only to lay once, by selecting start at the beginning and stop at the end of the keyframe. When I didn’t do this the music track seemed to repeat it self once even when I set it to repeat zero times, it didn’t really make much sense but I overcame the problem like I said.

The last scene, the interface. I seemed to have the most problem with these. The buttons I created in flash as flash in a vector based system, so I tried to limit the use of importing pictures to a low, when I could create objects using flashes tools I did, in case it needs to be made lager or even smaller. The four buttons I decided to make are: - Home, Introduction, Actors, and Official Website. The last two are going to be links to the official website and the actor’s part of that website. The problem I was having and even the demonstrators didn’t know why was that they were created in exactly the same way, a button then a movie clip for when it was hovered over. The Home button worked when I tested it but the others wouldn’t. The problem was that the way buttons and movie clips but they were registered as being the opposite. The button had a button image in the library but had a registration of a movie and vice versa. It was really weird; it was simple to solve just change the setting, but no one knew why this had happened!

The pictures I added into the scene and looked at how long the song was and divided that by the number of pictures so that I could evenly place the pictures in the timeline and when it reached the end I simply put in the code to go back to frame one of the same scene, so it would loop the pictures, but then set the music to loop at start, not event or a new instance of the music would be over the top and therefore not exactly sound good. I choose the use the music of Buffy fighting with another person, as this started off slow but got slightly faster in the beats, jot over the top and then gradually reduce in volume ready to be repeated, as this is what happens when you look at movie title screens, they play then get quiet and then repeat, so I simply repeated this action.

All the buttons, music, sound effects, clips letters and words were each used in different layers and then positioned. You will be able to see this clearly when the Buffy.fla file is opened and the library is clearly organised in folders so that it made it easy to reuse the some icons, buttons, images etc.

Design

My idea that I am going to use is of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is because I went on a run of watching 3 series! As it’s very popular and many people enjoy Buffy, I thought that it would be of a good topic to base my assignment on.

My flash assignment comprises of three sections, a pre-loader, a 10-20 second clip and then finish on an interface in which there are several links to other pages or external websites. I will for now, just use two links that will work linking to external websites.

My plan is to have the pre-loader having five things to make it quick to load up but to make it simple. This will have a logo of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, text saying “Loading” and then underneath the loading percentage ad I will be using action scripting to enable this, and lastly a bar underneath comprising f a bar that will fill u as the percentage increases so that when its 100%, the bar is full.

The next scene will be the 10-2 second clip. I decided on having Buffy clips that will be quick shots, from which I will edit in Adobe Premier and then export in a resolution to fit nicely on the page but making sure that it’s in 12 FPS to match the flash document. I will then import this into the library on flash. This scene will also have the letters B, U, F, F and Y scrambled around the page and will move while the clip in going until they align in the centre of the page. The words “The Vampire Slayer” will just stay in the same place. To make it look slightly better the words and the letters will be in black and gradually change into white, as the Buffy words are typically white. I will use part of the part introduction theme music to match the pace of the shots and also because everyone who has watched Buffy will know the tune.

The last scene will be the interface. I will keep this simple so that the users don’t have to fight their way around the site, they can simply go on and find what they want. There will be a background image, again that I will edit in Adobe Photoshop so that the images comprises of the logo in the top right with Buffy in the bottom right, but with Angel to the left with the words Angel underneath. I will black out the picture of Angel and the words so it’s just Buffy and the logo, as this could look very good, so that the buttons for navigation is in the top left which is black. It makes the page not look so cluttered.
I decided that in the bottom left of the page will be a circulation of the picture of the main actors throughout the series with a decent amount of time before the picture changes, like 3 or 4 seconds. The sound effects will be a click on the buttons and a sound track in the background, not sure on this but maybe of a fighting scene or some slow type of music, I will see which one suite it better. After the music stops it will quieten down and then repeat itself.