LOOSHKIN

Ladies and gentlemen,
quite possibly the most embarassing thing I have ever created:
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~v5armstrong/loosh3.html

My text assignment is going much better than the cat one. I am just having a little trouble linking my buttons so they work in succession.
Sadly, it is going to have to be late. I'm sure I could turn it around if I just had a couple more hours and figured out how buttons worked. I tryed going back to what Leon showed me in class and copying and pasting but it just isn't working out.

IN PROGRESS: TEXT ANIMATION

My text animation is going slightly better than the cat one. I am getting a better grasp of how symbols can work with each other and within each other. Also, the Motion Editor panel was nice to learn about. I'm just dipping my toes in with the blur tool. So far I am assembling this animation with different scenes that will be linked together through buttons that the user clicks to move forward through the poem's lines. Right now I have the intro and first line done. Keeping it simple, again. But for me, in this class, simpler is most definitely the way to go. The fewer frustrations I run into the better for my morale. When I can't do something or figure something out with Flash I get super flustered. But when things are working for me I stay excited about the project... probably a pretty standard pattern of emotion. Anyway, here is a shot of the end frame of the Intro scene:

The images that will be in the background of each scene are light paintings I've taken at various shows I've been to in the past year.

IN PROGRESS: FLASH ANIMATION

Third time's a charm (i hope).

As you may or may not remember, I've been having a devil of a time finishing this animation about my cat Looshkin taking drastic measures to curb the kitty population. Well, again the concept has evolved to something simpler, and more realistic in terms of completion. As I have a really hard time understanding the ins and outs of Flash software I am taking a primarily frame by frame approach to the project, as not to be daunted by the bone tool and movie clips and tweens. They are still in there, but less so.
The new storyline is basically Looshkin's antics as she playfully chases a butterfly, only to eat it at the end. Here are the images I am using:

You can see what I have so far here.
Still awful. But I am kind of embracing the primitive awkwardness at this point and find it kind of comical. Clearly I am some sizing issues in this iteration of the project. When I made the graphics in Illustrator and transfered them to Flash I thought that they were too big on the stage, so I started making them smaller. But between alternating going about sizing adjustments on the stage and from the symbols themselves I just kind of catapulted myself into a vortex of sizing problems which got me to the ridiculous animation you just saw. Hopefully with some of Leons help it won't be too difficult to correct.

NEW PROJECT: TEXT ANIMATION

Our next project involves animating text from a poem, lyrics, or other written work while incorporating buttons for viewer interaction. I found the poem that I am using in an issue of Annalemma, a relatively new lit/art mag. The poem has no discernable title, author, or even beginning or end but the lines I am using are as follows:

The youth of today speak tersely and without merit, only to be heard. The youth of today grossly under-appreciate themselves. Yhe youth of today, like the youth of yesterday and the day before that, are grossly under-appreciated. If you wanted to dance with the youth of today, they might allow this. But do not dance the waltz with the youth of today. Do not dance a ballet or a polka or an Argentine tango. The youth of today do not know these dances, nor do they wish to know them. No, if you wish to dance with the youth of today you must dance like your shoes are made of red-hot tin. Dance like  your arms are made of thin strips of tissue blowing in a hurricane.

I think this text will lend itself well to animation and I hope to have a better handle on this project than the last, which, btw, is killing me.

IN PROGRESS: FLASH ANIMATION

So... this animation is due tomorrow and I am nowhere near done as I just had the best idea come to me last class period. Also I am bedridden so my productivity is momentarily stalled. I am exhausted, in the true sense of the word. An all-nighter (stupid, stupid) compounded with illness last night has made me completely useless today. After somehow managing to attend class/work/mtg/class in full-zombie mode i am succumbing to screams of my body to Please Sleep, which I intend to do after I post the (very rough) sketch of my animation. You probably wont understand a bit of it by watching so let me explain.

Looshkin (my cat) wants to go outside
I let her out
she plays with a butterfly
she is a cult leader and all her followers drink the magic milk per her instruction and die
Says in LOLspeak "I can haz poplation controll?
she trots back home
Gulps up the butterfly
Meows to come back in
Winks to the camera.

The last scene will be text stating "X amount of cats and dogs are put down every year. Please neuter your pet."

So, I humbly present my flash quite obviously in-progress flash animation:

... Okay I WAS going to post it but vimeo uploader is down so I guess I'll just leave a screenshot placeholder instead and will upload it tomorrow. Good night.

 

{Edit 11.11.09: Vimeo is up! so HERE is the Very Rough sketch.}


Kitty Kontrol from Valerie Armstrong on Vimeo.

IN PROGRESS: FLASH ANIMATION

I must admit, that I really had to force myself into signing up for this course. Flash and Dreamweaver have defeated me in the past, leaving me wading water in a pond made up of my own tears of frustration. Not quite, but still it's pretty much a hate-hate relationship.
However, in these fast times it is important to diversify one's skills, especially on the electronic front. When it was time to register for fall classes I put aside the tempting option of losing myself in the satisfaction of making a perfectly crafted book in Bruce's Book Concrete and instead dove into the murky waters of ART 3710: New Media.
We have officially passed the halfway mark for the semester and I am glad to report that I am still alive, and not so scared anymore! Though not they are not quite as intuitive as the Big Three CS programs, I no longer dread opening up Dreamweaver and Flash.


Which brings me to the next item on the agenda for New Media: Create a one minute Flash Animation.
 I am choosing to do an animation on what my cat, Looshkin, does when I am not around. Currently, she is laying across my forearm as I type. Silly girl. I can only imagine the antics she gets into when I am at school.

JASPER MORRISON: REFRESHINGLY NORMAL DESIGNER

via spotd.it:

The most important skills a designer should have?

A good pair of eyes and a brain which is good at making random associations.