unanimous response. He then asked who hasn't and I was one of the three who awkwardly stuck their
hands out. The thing about this unit is that I understand that there is very little focus on flash
basics, like creating graphics etc. Instead, today's lab is probably going to be all there is to that,
and after this it is going to be very actionscript focused - and so will have to play catch-up with
the non-programming aspects of flash. The good thing about that though, is from what little of it I've
seen so far, actionscript seems very similar in syntax to java, so I might be able to pick it up
intuitively.
Specifically what did today was create a very basic menu system, where clicking on each button brings
us to a different (static) frame. The idea of using addEventListener seems like just a simplified
version of event triggered functions as in Visual Basic.
This is what I have managed today.
We have also been asked to choose right now from 1 of 3 possible games we should design as the major assignment that will be ongoing throughout this semester. A madlib generator, which I will not want to do on account of being boring; a Jeopardy style game; or a battleships style game - with the annoying twist of not being allowed to have violence in it (which pretty much means that it isn't quite battleships anymore). I cannot decide between the latter of the two for now.
--SCRATCH--
Diff betwen AS2 and AS3:
-in AS2, AS may be triggered by a frame in any mc, and also by the loading of an mc
- in AS3, AS can only be triggered by a frame in a mc
Use layers to sepearate different elements and control whihc is in front
-also lock all layers other than the one you currently want to edit to avoid acidental edits
-have a separate layer for all the AS triggers --> to keep things tidy, above everything else
keyframes
-defn:??
-may be labelled (given a name)
-press F5 on timeline to extend the number of frames before keyframe
drawing in flash
-drawing behaviour is very different from phtoshop/mspaint
-1. intersecting artwork --> occurs when you draw more than one object on the same layer
--to avoid this: draw elements on separate layers, or group artwork together, or turn thm into symbols
(which auto behave like groups)
-2. selecting artwork --> cannot drag and drop normally, because flash treats fill and individual
lines spearately
--workaround: double click on the fill to select the entire object, double click on outline to sleect
entire outline, or hold down shift
-3. manipulating the shape of the artwork usign the selction tool
--drag and curve the lines --> useful for sketching
-->how do you create a new point on the outline?
--drage to points
text tool
-three types
-1. static text - never changes
-2. dynamic text - contents maybe changed using AS (or read from)
-3. input text - same as dynamic text, but allows user to change the value
-HTML styling is available for dynamic and input text types (very basic)
--howeer bewary of using this is input text because you must parse out the html tags
symbols
-flash maintains a store of reausable artwork & objects
-press F8 to convert your currently selected artwork into a symbol
-three types:
-1: graphic
-2: button
-3: movie clip
-registration point: the positional reference point of the object
tweening: in between -ing (animation term)
-three types:
-1. motion tween (blue)
--between 2 keyframe with the exact same object, but different positions
--CS4diff: now has inbuilt motion guide
-2. shape tween (green)
-- between 2 keyframes of raw artwork, and morphs it
-3. classic tween (purple)
--CS3 version of motion tween --> can still manually create a motion guide, and is more precise
-note dotted lines in the arrow of the tween mean that the two keyframes it is between do not match
games:
-OOP optional
-context sensitive help/help screen
-tute level
-avoid: repetition, technical isssues, too easy/hard, copy of another game, poor ending, weak
storyline
madlib?
jeopardy?
battleships?
storyboarding
mock up designs
paper design (flowchart)
prototype -->develop & test as you go --> navigation --> demo (proof of concept)
alpha test it --> use others to test it to see if they can spot something you've missed
use camel case --> preceding g for global vars
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