Module 3 activity 8

Hey this was fun!
Animating a verb....
So many more things to do to this -
drawing graphics to make flush look real - more graphics to create the splash landing - bubbles as they sink - adding sound - that would be interesting??? -
But this is only one step in the learning process and therefore I can not spend the rest of the year on this one activity!!!
(that's me being disciplined)

Module 3 activity 7

Well.....
this didn't go as well as could be....
As Chris commented: the movement of text should have been slower to give a better feel of relaxation - and should have stayed on the screen longer to give people time to see all the details.
And I agree.
I did think about both these aspects as I was constructing the ad -
However....
On this particular activity I was trying to get my first one completed on time!!!!
I started at 1pm and worked until 12 midnight to meet the deadline.....
I failed.
Had to call it quits at 12.20am.
AND
in doing this I broke all and every one of the heath and safety rules for working on computers.
Its a tricky space when you are creating, in any medium, the mind takes over and totally disregards the body.
Very Wrong and if you continue to work this way your body will fall to bits.
I know this because this has happened to me before -
BUT
I just did all the wrong things again in this activity!!!!!!
More discipline required by me!

Module 3 activity 6

Playing with the motion curve tool.......?

Module 3 activity 5

The more mistakes you make...
The more you learn....

This was a fun activity and slowly, very slowly learning more about Flash.


Changing colours



Movement using x y



Changing opacity


Rotating


Scale zoom and stretching

Module 3 activity 4

Very basic animation this one but all learning.
And learning the hard way when the short cut keys in the tutorials don't work - I had to do each frame seperately - laboriously slow.......

Module 3 activity 3

Fucking Brain Strain Extreme!!!!



working out how to upload this from my hard drive to blog was a ridiculous riddle.
3 Simple little steps but so many options on the way that went wrong!

See http://www.aleosoft.com/flashtutorial_blogger/

Points to check:
1. when choosing template for google page (free) make sure it has gadget box for documents so that there are buttons to allow uploads.
2. when looking for the url address of your .swf file when viewed on google site, ignore all the numbers that appear before your site info
3. important to get that equation they give you in the 'aleo' tutorial exactly correct.

Module 3 activity 2

Researching Flash Activity

So what is Flash good for? There are about a million terrific uses for Flash in internet marketing. Here are just three: Online training videos. Currently, I am developing a number of online training videos for a client. The videos are in Flash. Many of the training videos at my other internet marketing site are also in Flash. My stats show that people like short, online video tutorials. They spend minutes or hours watching these Flash movies — and they frequently bookmark them as a reference — and they come back again and again. Done well, online training videos in Flash are very effective for marketing and customer service as well as training. Online games. Flash games can be tremendously fun and they can spread like viral wildfire. They are great for branding when you associate your site with something positive – a place where people want to hang out and play. And because fun games often generate a wealth of inbound links to your site, Flash games can help with search engine traffic as well as with bookmark, word-of-mouth, and other inbound referral traffic. Other interactive tools. Design tools. Quizzes. Surveys. Show and tell. These kinds of Flash components let your audience interact with your site or your product. You can increase the amount of time people spend at your site when you provide them with interesting, useful, interactive tools. So what do these three good uses for Flash have in common? In a word, permission. Give your audience a choice — i.e., ask for permission. You can generate excitement for your online Flash component with benefits-driven direct marketing web copy. Tell your audience what to expect — if you have a Flash game, tell them how fun the game is and what the rules are. If you have an online tutorial, tell your audience what they will learn and how long your lesson is. The point is to use your words to sell your audience on experiencing your Flash component. Get them excited about clicking that link! Provide a strong call to action. Next, tell your audience that by clicking on the link, they get to play the game, watch the video, or work with the online tool. That way, they get to decide whether they want to experience your Flash component. You can even use your copy to provide other calls to action — bookmark this video, tell-a-friend, etc. This simple marketing technique can make your Flash component go viral! *from: http://battractive.com/blog/2007/03/26/what-is-flash-goodl-for/ What is Flash bad for? Flash tends to degrade websites for three reasons: it encourages design abuse, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction principles, and it distracts attention from the site's core value. Encourages Design Abuse Splash pages were an early sin of abusive Web design. Luckily, almost all professional websites have removed this usability barrier. However, we're now seeing the rise of Flash intros that have the same obnoxious effect: They delay users' ability to get what they came for. On the upside, most Flash intros feature a "skip intro" button. However, their very existence encourages design abuse in several ways. First, Flash encourages gratuitous animation: Since we can make things move, why not make things move? Animation clearly has its place in online communication. However, as my 1995 guidelines discuss, that place is limited. Second, one of the Web's most powerful features is that it lets users control their own destiny. Users go where they want, when they want. This quality is what makes the Web so usable, despite its many usability problems. Unfortunately, many Flash designers decrease the granularity of user control and revert to presentation styles that resemble television rather than interactive media. Websites that force users to sit through sequences with nothing to do will be boring and pacifying, regardless of how cool they look. Third, many Flash designers introduce their own nonstandard GUI controls. How many scrollbar designs do we need? Actually, we probably do need a new scrollbar design for online content; the current scrollbar was designed for office automation content that users wrote themselves. However, the specification of a new GUI widget is a major human-factors exercise. The current Macintosh and Windows scrollbars emerged after the world's best interaction designers worked for years testing numerous design alternatives. A new scrollbar designed over the weekend is likely to get many details wrong. And, even if the new design was workable, it would still reduce a site's overall usability because users would have to figure out how it worked. They know how to operate the standard widget. When you use standards, users can focus on content and their reasons for visiting your site. Deviate, and you reduce their feeling of environmental mastery. None of these usability problems are inherent in Flash. You can design usable multimedia objects that comply with the guidelines and are easy to use. The problem is simply that current Flash design tends to encourage abuse. Breaks Web Fundamentals The second set of issues relates to the very notion of using a plug-in rather than standard Web technology. In the future, multimedia features may well be better integrated with browsers and thus these problems will be solved. For now, though, the fact that Flash is not standard HTML creates a host of nasty usability issues: • The "Back" button does not work. If you navigate within a Flash object, the standard backtracking method takes you out of the multimedia object and not, as expected, to the previous state. • Link colors don't work. Given this, you cannot easily see where you've been and which links you've yet to visit. This lack of orientation creates navigational confusion. • The "Make text bigger/smaller" button does not work. Users are thus forced to read text in the designer-specified font size, which is almost always too small since designers tend to have excellent vision. • Flash reduces accessibility for users with disabilities. • The "Find in page" feature does not work. In general, Flash integrates poorly with search. • Internationalization and localization is complicated. Local websites must enlist a Flash professional to translate content. Also, text that moves is harder to read for users who lack fluency in the language. Distracts from a Site's Core Values Perhaps the worst problem with Flash is that its use consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing the website's core value by: • Frequently updating content (Flash content tends to be created once and then left alone). • Providing informative content that answers users' key questions at all depth levels (Flash content is typically superficial). • Identifying better ways to support customers by task analyzing their real problems (Flash is typically created by outside agents who don't understand the business). If Flash was cheap to produce and if all content creators could make a Flash object as easily as they write a standard Web page, then perhaps many of these problems would be alleviated. For now, they remain serious issues. I thus recommend that Web designers interested in enhancing usability and their site's overall business presence use Flash sparingly. * from: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/2001029.html

Module 3: activity 1

Finally!!!!
I have done something in Flash?????

Could have done more but then there are those bloody apples to contend with next -


And major brain strain to figure out how to get the image up here - hope I can remember what I did?

time to move on........

Module 2: Bringing it all together Assesment

So now the question is whether we have bought this altogether correctly???

(waiting for Chris to assess - this entry could change dramtically???)

19 July 2010
OKAY!
No changes to make......
The move on sign has been given!!!!!

Module 2: activity 11

Well I don't know how Chris estimated this activety to take only 6 hours?? Took me that long to work how to change my camera settings! Then the 1 million phtos taken to get the right one!!!

I totally gave up on the toast - that could have taken years to achieve?

So now I have my 3 favourite photos submitted for assesment.

Silky Water, The Jogger and Moving Vehicle

Then I have a couple of rejects that I also like which took forever to capture with a million thow aways!

And yes Chris cats are very hard to capture when moving but I nearly got one pouncing and half of one running?

Not so much silky water in this one but I love the bubble details.

'Manna falling from heaven' I thought was a good idea - which also entailed a lot of laughing BUT my very helpful assistant Lucy was not so impressed by having to climb ladders, fences and trees to achieve the image I wanted.

Good problem solving day!

Some times the smallest little detail done wrong can waste so much time trying to fix.

I now have a flickr stream that works - problem was that when uploading the images I pressed privacy button, WRONG! must be able to be viewed by everyone.....

So I had to go back and change each upload individually - wasted time.

I have also fixed the camera settings problems I was having so I can taking moving images with blurred background for module:2 activity 11 ...

thanks to Chris:

who examined the camera and explained that not all cameras use the same language which was why I couldn't get the same settings as he had suggested in the activity details.

Sometimes there are disavantages to distant learning - this problem would have been solved on the day if I had been in a classroom and talked to Chris straight away -

And it is not one that could have been solved in the forums either because nobody could see my camera or the instuction book.

right time to go take these photos and get this module finished!

Module 2: activity 10

Whoooo Hoooo!!!!!

Didn't think I would ever get this done????

Thank you Greg for all your help!

More Krap to follow later.......

Module 2: Activity 9 Part Two

Having trouble with this one!!


Method 1 was simple enough



as was method 2.

Method 5 was simple too once my tiny brain realised how to turn an image into a pattern to use as a tile??? Very slow mind today.

I confused myself when saving as jpg or gif - I couldn't decide which was better image?

This was my first effort and jus all wrong. - but fun to do.......

Method 4 is just a shit exercise. My computer is not letting me unzip the widebg file to do the exercise??????? There has to be a simple answer - I have had no trouble before. So after wasting half a day trying to work this out myself I have had to ask Chris. Still didn't work. Now have downloaded new programme to unzip - '7zip'.

It opens!!!!

I have made the page in photoshop but it doesn't come up on my browser like this -

I only have one thin line -

but Chris says move on and we learn more latter in the course?

Module 2: activity 9

This is my favourite:

Darktechdj background image:
http://www.myspace.com/darktechdj.

I like because: the actual piece of art work its self first. Then it has great dynamic movement displayed in a very clean clear monotone hue. All creating an exciting feel that you are about to experience some great dynamic music on this site.


The following two I also like - but a bit less purely from an artistic point of view?

Kanvas Interior Art background image:
http://www.kanvas.com.au/.

I like because: The minimal background is great use of white space and monochrome while quietly showing that this is a designed artistic site. Wisely used to allow the individual pieces of art work to stand out when viewed.

ThinkQuest background image:

http://libary.thinkquest.org/3120.

I like because: The image of out in space/the universe/infinity is similar

to the feeling you perceive when you are thinking deeply in your mind probing the universe on your quest for answers - it is infinity. Good connecting theme of visual and text.

Also interesting that although the 'thinkquest' background appears dark black and dense on screen it is only 2kb in file size where as the minimal background of Kanvas Interior Art file size is 21kb. 'Darktechdj' background is largest file of all - 120kb.

Module 2: Activity 8

It appears to me that the "green lifestyle" is nothing more than a "notion" obtained while sitting on green grass, ingesting other green grass under green trees while also drinking copious amounts of alcoholic liquid from green bottles which will probably make you feel green the next day.

The 'gif 256 colours' (670 kb) file looked like the contrast button had been turned up to 100% - and very grainy - so dismissed immediately even though the file size was similar to the 'jpg'.

I didn't see much difference between the 'jpg 50 quality' (617 kb) and the 'png 24' (2.84 mb) images only the size of the file, therefore I have chosen the 'jpg 50 quality' file to upload so that the web site would open quickly.

Had to resubmit this one to change the text on green mans head. Chris suggested it needed to be curved around - I agree and had thought about it but hadn't yet worked out how to do that in my new version of photoshop -now I have read the photoshop support tutorial I know how.
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/jennifer/text-wrap.html

.