Improvements made to my animation.

Firstly, I changed my text box a lot from a curved orange box with an Alpha level of 75% to a white text box with an Alpha level of 85% (I didn't think that any Alpha level lower was needed since the background was visible enough at that level). I also incorporated this box with my 'next' and 'back' buttons but I have also importantly added a restart button that is linked in with the overall text box.

This screenshot is taken from my second scene although this doesn't really matter since the text box and buttons are all exactly the same size and positioned the same size on each scene.

Secondly, I have changed the synchronized blinking in the last scene, which was quite odd but each character now has their own blinking speeds and lengths etc.

The is the last scene where you see the characters standing side by side and blinking at the same time. As mentioned it's now fixed.

Thirdly, to fix the problem of having too much text in one scene I have created a fade in/fade out effect on the text. This was a relatively simple process and only consisted of creating a 'Motion Tween' and then changing the Alpha levels.

As you can see from the screenshot the text is fading out and immediately after the rest fades in. I've tried to time this as best a possible with the voice over.

In order to make my animation more lively and engaging I've tried to include more animations in my Flash though it was quite difficult to find different aspects to do so.

Ghosts that appear in one of the final scenes have now had the black outlines removed as the black outline didn't suit the visual style and they now move about.

Finally, I have included credits at the end of the animation (this also includes a 'Start Over' button). The credits are for recognizing who produced the work for example:

Looking at my crit of my Flash animation.

After displaying my animation on the projector this i the feedback I received:

Remove Black outline from ghosts.

Change my synchronized blinking.

Too much text.

Voice Over could possibly be a little too 'echoey'.

My animation could do with a few more animated flourishes to bring it to life a little more.

Move the ghosts to make them a little more scarier.

Make the box in which the text sits in a different colour for example an Opaque white.

Be sure to include a credits at the end of the animation.

These changes are easily done despite some being quite time consuming. I do however hope to have these done for tomorrow when I will be placing my animation on the server for other people to take home with them.

UPDATE: I have completed all the changes that came from my crit with the only exception of the voice over.

ActionScript used in my Flash animation.

As all my scenes are split into individual swf's so this means I have to load them all up one after the other in order for them to link together. Of course this event is triggered by the act of pressing a button in my animation. The ActionScript I'm using goes like this:

Start.onPress = function() {

 loadMovie("10_02.swf",0);

}

All this means is that when pressed the button which I have given an 'Instance Name' of 'Start' will  load the movie "10_02.swf" which, is in fact the name of my following scene.

Starting work in Flash.

Despite already having some experience in Flash I recently learned in class of a new method of structuring my animations in Flash. This consists of keeping everything on only one frame and making everything that you want animated a movie clip.

The screenshot above shows how my layer looks (along with my timeline). There are locks placed, which is simply allowing me to not edit anything other than I what I want to edit. Personally, I think using this type of method to produce Flash based animations (or anything to do with Flash) is very effective as it keeps the timeline clean and clear, thus eliminates any potential confusion from all the potential frames that appear.

One key part to the animated flourishes that will appear in my story is blinking. To make the characters more lively I think blinking is most likely the only way I can think of (apart from subtle movements of arms etc).

The screenshots above show exactly how I have done my blinking (I will use the same method for the rest of the characters in most scenes). As you can see it's extremely simply to do and doesn't take very long.  

Work (Design ideas - Sketchbook) Update.

In my Sketchbook split up my story into scenes and have been left with a total of 9 scenes all together though in overall when I go to build my Flash animation in Flash I will come out with 10 scenes as a start screen scene is needed.

I have also produced Brainstorms for each scenes in order to help me visualize what each scene will contain and also what will happen in each of these scenes.

Story Allocation.

There are currently 9 stories written which means there are people who are going to write their own 'Bertie The Pirate' stories. However, for others they have been allocated stories on which they must work on.

The story that I have been given is 'The Lion Gets a Fright' and as far as the other stories go this one appears to be quite short and fairly simple. This means I hopefully won't have too many problems animating the scenes required for this story.

Story:

"Yay, its sleepover night!" The Lion cheered as his friends Percy the Puppy, Kate the Kitten and Mr Croak arrived at his house. "My favourite night of the week" ribbeted Mr Croak. "What shall we do first?" said Percy. "Hmm, how about pin the tail on the donkey?" replied the Lion.

"Yeah!", said Kate gleefully, "Can I go first?" "Sure you can" said the Lion as he lead her into the middle of the room and blindfolded her. "Spin, spin spin!" they chorused, as the Lion twisted Kate around and around. "Ready?" the Lion asked, handing Kate the donkey tail.

"Ready!" Kate replied, and with that the Lion let go. Kate stumbled dizzily around the room, the pin of the tail stretched out in front of her. "Now, I know that donkey is over here somewhere" Kate muttered heading in completely the wrong direction.

Kate was heading right towards Percy, who was bending down, hunting for the marshmallows. Stopping right by Percy, Kate leaned forward and "Ouchhhhhhh!" screamed Percy the Puppy.

"What! What happened?" said Kate, ripping the blindfold from her eyes. Standing in front of her, wincing and clutching his tail, was Percy, the donkey's tail pinned right onto his own tail. "Oh Percy, i'm so sorry" said Kate, the Lion and Mr Croak chuckling behind her.

"It's not funny" said Percy irritatedly, "I think i'm going to have to go home." "No" Said the Lion, "you'll be ok in a minute." "No, I think its best I go home so my mum can bandage it up. I'm sorry Lion, hope you have a good night" and collecting up his things, Percy left.

"Oh" sighed the Lion, "What are you we going to do now?" How about we set up an obstacle course with tunnels of furniture to crawl through, huge piles of cushions to climb over and remote control cars, controlled by the others, to dodge.

The Lion and Mr Croak completed the track with fast times. Kate had to beat Mr Croak's leading time of one minute and nine seconds to win. Kate, a very competitive kitten, was determined to succeed. She sped off around the track, crawling and climbing with remarkable speed.

When she reached the dodging obstacle she tripped over the first remote control car yelped in pain. "Owwwwww! I think i've twisted my ankle, can you help me Lion? Im going to have to go home. "Not you as well" the Lion groaned. "I'm sorry Lion" Kate called as she hopped out of the door.

"What are we going to do now?" said Mr Croak. "Why don't we sit by the fire and tell ghost stories, you can't get hurt doing that." So the two friends sat cosy and warm by the fire, swapping ghost stories. Ten minutes later... "and they could hear a scratch, scratch, scratching coming from inside the cupboard and as they opened the door..."

"Stop!" Mr Croak interrupted, "I don't want to hear anymore! Im sorry Lion but im too scared, I can't stay here a second longer" and grabbing his stuff, he ran out of the house. "That's just brilliant" the Lion sulked, "What am I going to do now?"

Then suddenly, the Lion stopped in his tracks. He could hear a faint scratching noise coming from the cupboard. He stood silently. Scratch, scratch, scratch, there it was again. The Lion, a little scared, walked towards the cupboard, but then he heard an even scarier sound.

"Oooooooo, Oooooooo." "Who's there?" The Lion shouted, but he soon wished he hadn't, as three white ghosts appeared before him, empty black holes for eyes. "Ahhhhhhh" the Lion screamed and turned to run, but just as he did he heard three familiar voices roaring with laughter.

He spun back around to find Percy, Kate and Mr Croak in front of him, each clutching a white sheet, rolling on the floor with laughter. "What! When? Did you have this planned from the beginning? The Lion gasped. "Yep" replied Percy, and it was the funnest game we played all night!"

"Game!" the Lion said, "more like trick!" he shouted, turning away from them. "Oh, we're sorry Lion, we didn't mean to upset you" said Mr Croak, the laughter stopping instantly. "Got you!" The Lion shouted, turning back to his friends, a huge grin on his face. All the friends laughed together, the best of friends as always.

Commencing a New Project.

I am now beginning a new project and the new brief has taken quite a different direction compared to previous briefs. We are now partly working for a live client and for this live client we must produce a Flash animation based on a children's story that has been allocated to us.

We must also produce a website or rather a simple page with buttons and one other page that contains our 'swf' files from a Flash pieces.

However, as far as the project structure goes I still must produce blog posts, a sketchbook and an essay. So in the timeframe given there is quite a lot of work to be done.

Software that I will be using: