This week’s lab (which is due 04/14) is more free-form where you have the opportunity to really explore Flash and see what it can do. With this lab, you’ll experiment with more complex animations. I highly suggest you do the flash tutorials that come with the application – you can find them by clicking on the Help menu. In addition to working with nicely timed animations, you will be scripting in Flash’s ActionScript.
Create a navigation page (similar to a DVD menu) that allows the user to choose from at least 5 buttons/icons/links. Four of these icons should send the user to 4 separate animations (complete with sound). The 5th icon, when clicked, should send the user to my blog BorkWeb.com. At the end of each animation, give the user a navigation menu allowing them to view the other animations or return to the first screen. The 4 animations should be more in-depth than what we did with the previous Flash lab and can include graphics from other sources (i.e. you don’t need to do all the image creation right in flash…you can get pictures or make your own in Photoshop). Here are some animation suggestions:
- Two balls that bounds around a room, bouncing off of each other.
- A presidential spoof
- A kid being attacked by a giant mosquito
- A monkey dancing across the screen
- ….be creative
You can add to the above requirements to suit your needs (but don’t detract from them). Have fun with this one. Here are some suggested sources for learning about more complex Flash animations:
- Here are some simple tutorials at W3 Schools
- Flash Kit has an awesome set of tutorials on a crap ton of topics
Now, in order to create the menus and navigation; stopping and starting movies and playing from various locations needs to be done with some ActionScripting. Here are a few resources to get you started:
- ActionScript.org has some great tutorials on ActionScripting
- Here’s one for looping backgrounds
- Here’s one on working with variables
- Here’s one on drag n’ drop
- Here’s some documentation very similar to the Java API
- Check the help in Macromedia Flash (the application for simple start() stop() and loop() commands for controlling the movie)
And don’t forget about the quiz next Tuesday (4/11)