I have my final flowchart. I feel this helped me out a lot on the structure of my final peice. I firstly started with putting in all the frames to flash and getting them how i wanted to look. I then put in buttons on each frame that needed them. From this i named each button. Once everything was in place i had to go through the arduous task of linking each frame, and defining each button name to where they will link to on my storyboard. Using the flowchart helped me tremedously with this as i knew exactly where each frame was going.
If i do another flash project again, be it a website or a animation i will definally draw up a flowchart again. As this is very helpful to know about what happens on each frame and where they link to.
This is my final result. It is a Tram and Bus map, that users can interact with. They can go to 5 different tram stations in Nottingham city centre. Each of these stations they can zoom into the map. Also once at each station, they can get off the tram and see a photo of the area. There are also 4 different destinations on the map that the user can go to. This being; a pub, theatre, gig or even go home. Each of these destination will end up in the user having something happen to them.
I think my user interface is really usable. I think most of it seems to be clear and the user can search through the map at ease. I think i could have done with re-doing the map my self, to make links more obvious and make other objects less obvious so it does not clutter the map. But i used a map that Nottingham city council use. I wanted to use my own images so i went around each of the destinations and took my own photos. Some of them i found hard to take, which were generally the photos where something happened to the user. For this i used FlickR.
I also would have liked to have spent more time on the buttons, because a lot of them are plain text with a mouse over shade. I also didn't think about use of colour either, i kept to a greyscale when creating the text which i could have incorperated a colour scheme into the whole peice.
My final product doesn't use story in depth. I started off with more of an interation kind of interface but then added the addition of journey with the 4 different tasks that the user got up to. I also think i coud have added animation but our breif did not state this was necessary.
Finally i think i met the breif and i gave the user a sufficient interaction with my interface.
I have now finshed the main part of my Interactive Narrative in Flash, and i have a produced a flow chart of how the main structure works. I still need to do refinements and add a couple more frames. I will show my extened work on my next flow chart.
Well after the hitch of learning Flash in Flash 8 and learning actionscript 1.0. Then realising at Uni we are using CS3 and actionscript 3.0. I went about 'obtaining' Flash CS3 and getting my head around actionscript 3.0. Its still seems the same concept like any script, but its written a bit different, i think i have picked it up quite well.
Once finding my way around Flash again i thought of a couple idea's, but some i thought would test my skills too much but heres a couple initial ideas;
a) To have a computer screen and you were designing a logo in Illustrator, and you had the choice of colours for the logo. When you were happy with your colour you could go to print and then choose where abouts you want it on the page, and then see the final product with your colour and your position.
b) Having to go to a destination, so you get in your car and then you get to the end of the road and you have a series of directions, each taking you different places. Every time you get to the end of a road or some kind of junction you have a choice of where to go next. The trouble with this is getting the camera mounted in my car to take pictures at the same angle as the rest would proove difficult although i was keen on the idea.
c) I had the idea of the London tube map. And at each station in central London you could click and go to that station, you could either get off the tube or stay on the tube, if you got off you would see a photo of outside the station or a famous monument related to the stations location. If you didn't get off the tube, you could just go to the next stop and get off. I was keen on this idea but i didn't want to just get photos off the internet for the part where you get off the tube. I wanted to use my own.
After discarding this location i chose to use this idea but on Nottingham tram system as its the same sort of thing. I chose to focus on the 5 inner city stops; NTU, Royal Centre, Old Market Square, Lace Market and Nottingham Station. These were the last 5 stops that the tram goes. Now as this was the city of my study it would be easier to use my own photos of each of these locations and personalize my Interactive Narrative.
Ok, maybe i was being a bit quick to make a judgement that Interactive Narrative will be a breeze because ive used flash in depth. I've jut had a play about in flash and found out that everything i had leart i have forgot. So 2 years and not touching flash once, wasn't the best idea. So here is a quick thing i have come up with to jog my memory. I have made a vector of a bird in Illustrator and then made it change colour at a click of each number. Very easy and quick, but thought it was a good idea to try out flash again. I will play about some more to help me remember everything.
I know its another useless plug, but this is another collective website for artists and designers. Some of those involved in the collective have some stunning work, heres some that i like;
China Mike This is a collaboration that CM and Mr Jago (previous post) did as freestyle on a club wall in Newcastle, i really like how its come out considering its freestyle, and i think think both artists style complement each other.
Heres another collaboration with Mr Jago that they did in a Newcastle pub. Its the section above the door frame and the dog/pig. I really like this too.
Gavin Strange aka JamFactory This designer does a whole host of media including; Website, graphic, illustration, photo and video. I am keen on a lot of his work and he has work with many big companies too.
This is a cover design he did for 'Computer Arts' magazine.
Check out this artist from Bristol, England. In his work he has come from various forms of art and created his own style which all include aspects of graffiti, hip-hop and comic's. Its messy and colorful which has derived from street art and i love it. He has done work for some very big companies those of which i like; Addict, Casino Skates, Nike, Puma and Box fresh, also many many more. He's definally worth the time of day so check out his stuff..
Harry Brown comes out tomorrow. Im a big english film fan. Love Snatch and Lock Stock, also many other english films. Hopefully this will be on the same level. Also a fan of Plan B so looking forward to this..
Quick plot taken from Wikipedia "Described as a "modern urban western," the titular Harry Brown (Caine) is an elderly widower and former Royal Marine who has lived to see his South London neighbourhood overrun by violent gangs, drugs and crime. When his best friend Leonard (Bradley) is brutally murdered and the gang leader (Plan B) responsible walks free, Harry finds himself snapping. Soon, his desire for revenge leads to the vigilante facing up to the young thugs, with terrifying results".
Just found this great website. It seems to be a portal to web and graphic designers. There are some very interesting designers on here, with great work in their portfolio. I hope to show you some of the designers that interest me from this portal and some of their work. Definally check this website out as there are a vast range of different designers.
For our Interactive Narrative project we will be using Flash. To many this is a new program and to most it is an irritating program. Luckily i have used it in depth a couple years ago at college. I got on really well with it, but im a bit rusty at the moment. Here is what i made in my FMP at Leamington College. I created a company called Harter Skateboards and i did everything with the branding of this company.
This is the final Flash website i made (also created a HTML version too).
This website involved making a pre-loader for the website, which i used my brand logo for, i made it fill up to show the progress of loading. I also wanted to incorporate as much of the urban culture as possible. So i added different motion tweens of dripping paint. I was very pleased with the overall website, as this was my first fully flash website. Im very keen to start this new project and revive my previous skills.
Now we have finished our 'One Shot Short' project we have now moved on to the next one which is Interactive Narrative. Our first lecture was telling us about what we have to do. We were learning about Narrative and the context of narrative and how we can make it interactive. We were taught the difference between Plot and Narrative. These are two different things which i was finding hard to get my head around. Plots are within the Narrative.
So the Brief is to create a flash interface that tells a story that you can interact with, using the minimum of 10 frames which can include anything you want to narrate the story. The narrative needs to be the primary concern in this project, but also the interaction was key within the story.
We were told there and then to think of different concepts for our story. I found this hard at first but after looking at previous years work, i got the jist of the brief and thought of a couple ideas.
Here is one of the best examples i found, it narrates a great story, and also lets the user interact with what happens in the story, its also very well presented.
To help get ideas of different examples i thought of questions that you ask yourself in everyday life and then thought up stories from these questions for example; Getting cash out of a cash machine, what to do; night out/stay at home ?, how much to drink/what to drink ?, which turning do i take ?, deal or no deal ?
These are just a couple of questions you ask yourself everyday without noticing it. This gave me a couple ideas of a story that i can tell..
Just like to say the lecture this morning was really interesting and i was really liking the guys work (can't remember, pronounce or even spell his name). Just a shame about the interpreter, no offense, but Jools' question was really quite simple and she was having trouble to interpret it to the guy. Not that i could do any better, oh well. Would like to see more of his work if anyone knows his name ?
Just signed up to this competition, seems to be pretty big and connects education and commerce to the creative sector. This provides us the opportunity to showcase our work.
Well this conference was quite interesting, but a little vague. I think some of the points made were interesting. They know that not everyone wants to plays games for the story, but just for a sense of achievement to beat the console. For those that want to enjoy the story, they want them to get more involved into the game. So a suggestion of episodes was a good idea, but along as money doesn't become the forefront of the idea. Its the fact that gamers want to know the next episode once they complete the game. They want to know what happens next so it keeps there addiction alive. When games are made, as soon as the game has come together, they want it all to be released, but now the sense of getting it released will have to change to hold some of the story for the next episode. This will make the gamers want more..
I think there is still along way to go with the future of gaming, but to get ideas out in the open in conferences like this, makes the industry think where its got to go, and what gamers want to get involved.
Well here is the finished product for my first project. The quality isn't the best at the moment as we have never been told the best export settings for Youtube. I will however find out the best quality to export to and re-upload to Youtube.
I am extremely pleased with the final outcome. When shooting, our ideas got a bit crossed and we ended up with something that we weren't quite looking for, but we as a group persevered at and thought it could work really well with the right editing. I went home after the filming day a little dubious about it.
We then met up at our next session and had a good group discussion about what we could do editing wise, and what sort of music that can be added, and basically thought the whole edit through. We found it difficult to all edit at one computer. So we went away with the task of doing our own edit, meeting up, and doing a final collaboration.
When we came together as a group we looked at my edit and used that as a basis for the final one. A few suggestions were made and we came up with our final edit there and then.
Watching it all back as a group was the final step to achievement and i think we all went away happy with it finished.
Do NOT buy this game, you will struggle to get your work done, and blogger updates will NOT get done. Sorry for those that have the PS3. Maybe next time..
