:: Action Scripting III ::

I decided, to continue my idea of bugs in nature. I ventured with using the fireflies. Plus, for kicks I integrated a lovely Bug Zapper to roast them. I think this has a lot more interest than my original idea.

:: Action Scripting II ::

In this project, I tried to integrate the idea of nature and the habitat of bugs. Initially, you select one of the bugs and then enter a little nature 'game' room. Once in the room, you can move the leaves onto the flower, rub the stamen, and even move the other insects around. All of the commands of On-Press, On-Release, On-Release Outside, Rollover, Rollout, Drag-Over, and Drag-Out have been applied to this piece.

:: Quiz No. II ::

• Diff bx frame events and event handlers
The events respond to 2 primary events, events to the timeline and events related to the user. You can assign action to the timeline through a frame, the button, or a movie-clip. The event handlers are a way of executing events to a user. with On/Release, On-RollOver, OnPress, etc. Action-scripting itself is a process not an event.

:: Action Scripting ::

So, I was trying to involve the rotation, the x,y, and even the alpha coding, but for some reason I can't get the dragonfly to do anything. I was able to utilize the onPress and onRelease fine. I think I just need to work with it some more. I was trying to look up how the code was layed out for the different actions, but I kept running into trouble when placing the code on my Actions palette. I think I might be missing a semicolon, or i have too many spaces.

:: Revised Final Landscape ::

On this revision, I incorporated the other characters in the water with the crocodile. I removed selected areas of foilage that were mostly distracting the overall piece. The shape tweening in the intro was changed from the 'obscure plant' to a more abstract shape. The FPS were changed in areas as well. I made the intro a bit faster and then changed the easing of the crocodile, turtle and fish. I think this has a nicer and smoother transition. A mask was added in making the water rise so that it is no longer just free floating. I decided to keep the foreground water and just lightened it up a bit. I think the revisions make this piece much stronger.

:: Final Landscape ::

Seeing that flash has certain limitations without the support of action-scripts in an animation I decided to keep my design a little more basic. Having more elements individually animate caused a bit of an overload for my file. That said, I changed pieces of the foilage to be buttons within movie clips. As you roll over certain pieces they either expand, glow, or animate. This was a difficult choice but I think it plays out much better. I also included masks with shape tween elements to add a little pop and sizzle. There were other concepts and elements that I wish I could have added, but I think that will mostly be done better with the aid of action-scripting.

:: Assignment Write-up ::

For starters,

when creating my animation, I realized that most of my vector files containing strokes had way too many points. And when trying to animate in Flash, it caused the system to crash. Next, I converted all the files into (png-24) files and assembled the layers from there into flash. After converting the bitmaps to symbols. I began animating on the crocodile. I created the instance of having all his main joints moving with the rotation tool. Once I arranged the pieces to seem more realistic, I created a motion guide. Along the motion guide, I chose to ease in and out and rotated the crocodile to make it more interesting. From there I added an action-script to make the croc stop and hover. This is to later add interaction with him.

The other animation is with one of the shrub symbols. In symbol edit mode, I  transformed the size and eased in and out to make the shrub seem to physically breathe. 

:: Quiz No. I ::

1. A symbol is on a main time line. When going into Symbol edit mode or 'double clicking' you can change the instance of that symbol. The instance is within a separate time line all by itself The Instance is within the symbol. 

2. an empty frame is called an empty keyframe, which means nothing is drawn in. The other is called a keyframe, which is a holder of information

3. Scene animators work on frames in Flash, others might use flash for action-scripting for web design layouts. Some even use Flash for broadcasting design as well.

4. You can only motion tween a symbol. Not a Shape

5. A shape is different in that it can be broke apart and morph, basically it can tween from one shape to another unlike a symbol. A symbol can motion tween but not morph. In flash if you select a symbol you will see a blue stroke around it. If you select a shape you will see a layer of little squares covering the shape.

:: Revised Digital Landscape 2 ::

After playing around with the idea of transparent figures, I decided to give a small sampling of one of the pieces of foliage morphing into an exotic bird.

:: Revised Digital Landscape ::

:: Digital Landscape ::

Images
A. Research Images

:: Paul Cooklin ::
paulcooklin.com



:: Sandeep Menon ::
http://sandeepdesign.blogspot.com/2008/02/digital-landscape-painting.html



:: J. Todd. Allison ::
http://www.spacetaker.org/artist/?artist_id=357



B. Make Something.

We as modern artists are faced with the same issues as the ancient classical masters, the landscape painters were. We can for example attempt to meticulously duplicate the natural world in a manner comparable to photography. We can, however, also interpret landscapes in a surrealistic manner or that of impressionism. We are thus altering and modifying reality in a still recognizable way, but inspire the imagination of the careful observer. He or she may be impressed by our choices of colors, patterns, and motions. This may or may not accomplish things nature is capable of doing. We can even go so far as to interchange characteristics of the natural world {ie having trees sway like a church choir}

For this assignment I chose a perspective within a natural world that would not exist naturally, but could be imagined to exist if, for example a tropical pool was sliced in half. It is not possible for an artist to get a visual of a world simultaneously below and above water without creating an imaginary slice straight through the middle. The slice does exist in the shape of a simple model in the shape of an aquarium By means of a simple piece of glass. The simultaneous observation of nature into media such as water and air is virtually impossible even to highly evolved creatures such as crocodiles who can only view one at a time. For that reason I find this particular chosen model of the natural world particularly fascinating. I experimented with ideas focusing more on the abstract realm but didn’t find it as interesting and exciting as creating a scenario imitating the natural world in much the same style as modern three dimensional animation. Even though it is two-dimensional it is highly suggestive of a three dimensional universe. Geometric shapes of imaginary ‘future-scapes’ are the most immediately gratifying subjects when working on this assignment. However, I find the fluent motions and organic curves of the natural world are a much more challenging frontier.