Final Thoughts On Flash

So, after finishing off my project on Flash and spending a few days enjoying the sun, I'm starting to think about solidifying my reasons for thinking Audio Visual is the best option for me to go for next year.
Looking back on my Flash project, I'm still very pleased with it considering it's the one of the first big interactive projects I've ever undertaken with Flash. There are a few minor presentation points I think could do with sharpening up, such as when text changes size and appearance when the mouse hovers over it for example. In many cases the text becomes slightly off centre and doesn't look quite as good as it could do. I didn't quite get to grips with Flash well enough to execute some of my ideas as well, but this isn't a total loss as I feel I'll be able to approach any more work done with Flash with more confidence and ability now.
Of all the work I've produced so far, I think the ones I'm definitely most satisfied with were the projects in the first term, that included more filming and editing work. I think continuing in this direction would be the most productive and satisfying route for me to take, but I still need to give this a little more thought.

Flash! Ahhh-aaahh!

Success! After frantically trying to figure out why my videos weren't working in Flash when I put the box project online, I think I've finally cracked it! I need to go to 'Import video', then upload the film file that's on the Z:\ drive on the uni computers. I'd been doing this before with no luck, but if after this has been done, if I save the whole file as an entirely new one, also on the Z:\ drive, it all seems to work OK!
Here's another very rough prototype version -
http://maeda.ads.ntu.ac.uk/~n0183775/
The Audio and Sight games aren't on this one, I have in fact finished all of the different portions and segments of the project, but these are saved on a file that's currently sat on my laptop at home...d'oh! I'll copy the completed file onto my memory stick and come in and get it all sorted out tomorow, and then my project should be finished!

Nostril!

Here's an idea of how the 'nose' mini-game in my box project will look -




And here's the original sketch -


And off I go to craft this nose on Flash!

AV Presentation

Here are the slides for the presentation on a practitioner for the tutorial -





It's felt a little like two steps forward and three steps back with Flash today, as John helped out and showed me some handy hints, like how to make links change colour as you move the mouse over them and add videos, and I've managed to make things look a little better, but now whenever I upload the SWF file and try and play it, it refuses to show the video and says there's some kind of error...Yet the Flash file works perfectly if I preview it in Flash, and if I drag and drop the file into my internet browser....I don't have a clue why it's happening, but until I figure it out, I can't really put it up on the blog...
Here it is anyway, though, just to see if anyone watches it and can figure out what I've done wrong!

[Upload your own video]

Brained!

Here's an attempt at making the 'Brain' area of my box project -

The Avatar from the last project is in the centre, and then around the sides I'm going to place the other items and pixelation projects.

Mouthing Off...

Here's another idea for how the Mouth mini-game in my Box project will work -


Once you've opened up the head, click on the mouth to go the interactive segment. This one is slightly different than the one in my sketch, as when you click the burger I lunge in and take a bite. At the moment I think this looks a little clumsy, I wanted the image to flash up quickly and then disappear without having to be clicked, but it's a little too fast at the moment. As the 'eat' picture repeats a few times, you can get a reasonable view of it, but the final 'eaten!' picture is way too brief.
If there's any way of putting time lapses on things in Flash that'd be perfect, I think, but I may be getting a little ahead of myself here as I'm still very much in the first early stages of figuring out Flash!

Severe Facial Reconstruction

[Upload your own video]
Here's another attempt at a vague outline for the face. I still haven't quite figured out how to remove or resize borders, but it's getting there!

Opening Up The Face

Finally, Flash has finished downloading! Only took about 8 hours or so...!

[Upload your own video]
A very crude first attempt at making my face open it's eye and mouth once clicked. This wasn't too tricky to do after studying the code for the quiz for a little bit, after a few attempts I could actually figure out what mistakes I'd made this time and rectify them.

Hey Ho, Logo!

Here are the results of a nice little logo based pencil storm -


I think this one came out really well, I was trying to make it look like the text you get on the front of Jefferson Airplane albums and in Robert Crumb comics, and I think it looks pretty cool. I really like the idea of using a vaguely psychedelic logo, to fit with the surreal theme of the interactive games.


This one is OK, I'm not entirely pleased with it. I just wanted to try out logos that had more than three letters in them, as unfortunately my name doesn't lend itself enormously well to intricate, crazy lettering.


I tried to make the letters look like rooted, gnarly old trees here, but I don't think the Z is quite clear enough. I like the spindly, aged look it gives the letters however.


This one's kinda cool, I was trying to make it look like the band Carcass' logo -

I like the idea of recognised logos saying something different, as it's a little subversive but at the same time seems to being paying homage to it's source inspiration. Carcass were one of the first death metal bands I ever got into, and as I view my interest in music and especially metal as an extremely major part of my life, it'd be cool to include it here. However, I'm not sure that using someone else's logo as the main one for this project is an enormously good idea, and I also didn't do an enormously good job of the lettering. The E is hard to make out, and it looks like there's a T in there, making it 'Ketz'. Back to the drawing board perhaps?


Like the previous logo, this one was an attempt at spoofing a band logo, this time it's Obituary's -

The big problem here is that the symmetry, a big part of what makes this logo so effective, is totally lost when it's reduced to just three letters....which, I probably should have guessed before I drew it out...ah well!


This one was another attempt at making the logo a little more interesting than just my own name, and seeing how other words would fit around it. I don't think the lettering here is too great at tall, but it'll give me some idea of how it could look!

Once again, any more ideas will be put up on here!

Boxing Clever

Here are some of my ideas for the box project -


The 'box' is actually a large cartoon version of my own head. It's shown in the above doodle with it's eyes and mouth wide open, but I actually think the idea would be better if you're greeted by the drawing with it's eyes and mouth and shut, and then once it's been clicked, my scalp disappears to reveal a brain and the eyes and mouth open up. After this, the eyes, ears, nose and mouth will all lead to little interactive segments, and a careful click of the cortex yields my Avatar, pixellation, and some of the items I'd put in my moodboard.


The Mouth!

This idea is pretty simple, it basically just involves clicking on the burger to take repeated bites of it, until the whole thing is devoured, at which point you'll return back to the main screen.

The Ear!

Again, a pretty straightforward idea, where you click the guitar to let a beautiful chord ring out, and the musical note is sent into a nearby ear, causing it's owner great happiness.

The Nose!

Here, you're confronted by the sight of a character with an enormous nose, and you can either watch him bask in the luscious scent of a nice flower, or recoil in horror when faced with a particularly unpleasant waste disposal unit...the choice is yours!

Then, after the frivolity of these four senses (I should probably think of an idea for a game for Touch too, to involve all five), you can enter into -
The Brain!

Here you'll find things like the Avatar, pixellation projects, and some items I consider to have great personal value.

A Flash Of Inspiration

I've recently been playing the game Wario Ware, on the Nintendo Wii. The game consists of a large number of small, surreal mini-games which are frantically hurled at you, giving you a matter of seconds to figure out what you have to do, and then do it! The tasks you have to perform in each mini-game range from the mundane to the bizarre, after playing the game for about 5 minutes you could have already popped an old lady's false teeth back in, tuned a guitar, picked a nose, run a marathon, shook hands with a dog, or, even better, made Mario jump on top of a Goomba...! It's a very obscure, frantic experience, but one that is never less than hilarious. Recommended for large groups of people, as the multiplayer mode that has up to 12 people passing a single remote between them and using it in a variety of strange ways to play the games is good fun!




I liked the idea of small games that make pointless or everyday tasks seem surreal, exciting and funny, so I thought about how I could make similar small interactive games on Flash.
Once I think of some more ideas for this project, I'll post them up on here!

I'm trying to download a trial version of Flash from the Adobe website, but it's taking forever...after two hours it's still only at 17% done! If it's not up and running by tomorrow, I'll head into the Waverly building and see if I can make basic structure for the box/head!

Erase A Head...

Here's a very, VERY rough 3D version of the head idea for the box project.

The 'stuff' flying out of his head would be all the objects inside the box, kinda bursting out of his cranium. His face looks pretty daft at the moment, but I've still got a lot of work to do to him! I'm not even sure if this is the idea I'm gonna pursue yet, but I thought drawing it out in 3D might help me get a better picture of it.

Thinking Outside The Box!

Mmmm, a nice, mellow Easter break has come to an end, and it's back up to the fine city of Nottingham for more work and mayhem!
I sketched out a couple of really, really rough ideas for the box project. At the moment, these vague concepts are -
- the back of a truck, and a suitcase, to make it seem more like the objects contained inside are portable and active, rather than just heirlooms sat inside an old dusty box.
- erm, the inside of my mouth, or sat inside my recently lobotomized skull, to tie in to the identities project and to give the impression that the objects are actually a part of myself.
And here they are -

At this stage these ideas are all just in embryonic forms, but as they progress I'll post them on here.

Fluid Druids

I had a go at applying textures to my avatar, and even though I quite like the results, I think they actually detract a little from my initial design.

I personally think I've mutilated poor Super Ego's beard again here, but the Vessel looks quite interesting, almost like it really is just a big floating patch of nothingness, but I dunno, something just doesn't look right about it. The Soul looks suitably shiny, but it's gleeful grin is lost amidst the glare.

Here's a vague idea at how the environment will interact with the avatar too. The avatar hasn't been animated yet, but I've tried to make the planets surrounding it follow some kind of orbit. For the little red one (the Sun!), this looks fine, but I'm not sure if the larger blue one (the Moon!) is moving too fast and/or irregularly...


Plus, I revisited good ol' Box Monkey, and added some pleasing wooden textures to his little home -

Monkey Boxing

Today I had another go at designing the box for the second part of my avatar project. This box looks a little sturdier than the last, and almost looks nice and wooden too (I couldn't figure out how to apply the wood texture to the box, so it can still look better! I think some of the corners need chiseling down a bit as well). Instead of putting a poorly drawn version of myself in it, this time I opted to try and recreate that happy chimp on my mood board.


I also had a go at making a fairly basic environment, although not necessarily for my avatar as I'm still not sure where exactly a giant blob with 3 heads on stalks would call home... But here's my attempt at recreating a sunny afternoon on the planet Mars -

I also figured out how to merge two scenes together in 3D Studio Max, which is extremely useful! So, I stuck the avatar in Mars just to try this out and see what it looked like. The result isn't exactly what I'm looking for, but it''s not terrible either.

My attempt at making the avatar move about in this environment, on the other hand, is actually pretty terrible, heh! I quite like the idea of having the environment move with the avatar, but unfortunately I couldn't quite pull this off here -

Unfortunately, it's the older model of the avatar too, complete with the chunkier Ego and Super Ego's more exuberant beard, as I woke up late and in the frantic scramble to grab clothes, coffee and Weetos, I forgot my memory stick and could only access this older version.

Mighty Mood Board

I've just made a collage of ideas for my box project.

The objects and symbols surrounding me are in no way definitive, some of them I'm not too sure about, some I think may be too subtle and I'm positive there are some things lodged way in the back of my mind that I'll want to put in there! Some of the things I think are musts though, include the little Ozzy from the Vol.4 cover, the tent (for the love of camping!), and the philosophical chimp. I tried to include the Id, Ego and Super Ego from the avatar project too.
The background is a photo of an in-production sphynx (originally a cow, but creativity took it's course!) we made out of sticks and leaves when on a camping trip in a nearby forest, which is a happy memory for me. After I'd finished it, I had the idea of using Stonehenge as the background, which has the added bonus of not only holding happy memories but also being a very recognisable image. Maybe too recognisable however, which could dilute it's meaning a little... I'm not sure, I'll try it out and then, once again, post it up here!

More Avatar Madness

I tweaked my 3D avatar a little earlier today to make it look a little better.

Not much has changed, but the Ego's face is now mildly pointier (although his eyes look even more retarded, I'm not sure what went wrong there...) and I tried to put some fiery bits on top of his head, but you can't see them too well from this angle, the Super Ego's beard is fuller and not as lengthy, and he now has a mouth! I made it by inverting parts of his beard, so it looks a little crusty, but I kinda like it like that. His head is a little more withered too, and in general he looks a little more old and weary, which is cool!
The Soul looks a lot better as well, as this time his mouth actually resembles part of his face rather than just several bigs holes in a row...


I started thinking about my Box project today, although I haven't given too much thought as to what objects I'm going to place in there. Here's a laughably poor rough version with just my terrified head basking in emptiness -

I think I'll try making one of these mood board thingies to get some kind of idea of what I'll put in the box, and how I'll space it all out. I'll post it up on here once I've finished it off!