Chapter 8 – Part I Interactive Multimedia Authoring with Flash: Animation “Computers and Creativity” Richard D. Webster, COSC 109 Instructor Office: 7800 York Road, Room 422 | Phone: (410) website: 1

What is Multimedia Authoring? Process of multimedia production – Assembling media elements – Adding interactivity – Export project for distribution to end users Final product can be: – played back in a Web browser – a stand-alone executable 2

Common Types of Multimedia Production Business presentations Advertising kiosks Games Educational: training and tutorials Use of multimedia authoring program 3

Multimedia Authoring Program Allow you to combine text, images, audio, video, animation into an interactive presentation May have its own scripting language – to add interactivity Examples: – Adobe Flash/ActionScript – Adobe Director/Lingo 4

Multimedia Production Process 1.Collect media elements 2.Assemble media elements 3.Add interactivity – By scripting or computer programming – Example: Use ActionScript in Flash 4.Export the project into a format that your target audience can play 5

Media Elements Often created outside of the multimedia authoring program In Flash: – Use pencil and brush tools – Create vector graphics 6

Types of Media Elements Supported by Adobe Flash Bitmap images – Photoshop (PSD), BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF Vector graphics – Flash Movie (SWF), Adobe Illustrator Digital Video – QuickTime (MOV), AVI, Flash Video (FLV) Digital Audio – WAV, MP3, AIFF, AU 7

Export the Project Web playback – SWF file – Smaller size than stand-alone – Playable in a Web browser that has the Flash player – Windows, Mac OS, and Linux Stand-alone version Mobile apps – AIR app for iOS – AIR app for Android 8

Animation Like video A sequence of images – Create illusion of movement when played in succession Commonly used in multimedia projects Animation sequence is created as a sequence of frames Usually on a timeline 9

What a Timeline Looks Like in Adobe Flash 10 Frame numbers A layer with a seqence of frames Details about timeline is covered in Sections and 8.6, which are in the next two Powerpoints.

Types of Techniques to Create Animation in Multimedia Authoring Program Frame-by-frame Tweening Scripting 11

Frame-by-Frame By explicitly placing different visual content for each frame Each frame is a keyframe – A frame in which the content is explicitly specified. – Different from a frame in which the content is interpolated between frames. Like flipbook animation

Frame-by-Frame Example 13 Frame:

Frame-by-Frame Example 14 Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 3 Frame 4 Frame 5 Frame 6 Frame 7 Frame 8 Frame 9 Animation playing 2 fps

Tweened Animation Content in frames between 2 keyframes is interpolated These interpolated frames are called in- between frames. 15

Continuing with the Bird Example In tweened animation, – what you need to do: create 2 keyframes: frames 1 and 10 only explicitly place the bird at x=11 in frame 1 and x=20 in frame – what the computer does for you: Creates all the in-between frames automatically place the bird at x=12 in frame 2 place the bird at x=13 in frame 3... place the bird at x=19 in frame 9 16

Example of Bird Tweening Position 17 Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 3 Frame 4 Frame 5 Frame 6 Frame 7 Frame 8 Frame 9 Animation playing 2 fps

What can be tweened? Position (shown in the bird example) Rotation Size Color Opacity Shape 18

Tweening Both “Classic tween” and “Motion tween can be used to animate symbol instances. “Shape tween” is used to animate shapes 19

Example of Shape Tweened Bird 20 Frame 1 Frame 10 Frame 20 Frame 30 Frame 40 Frame 50 Frame 60 Frame 70 Frame 80 Animation playing 30 fps

Example of Shape Tweened Bird Position (tweened) Rotation Size (tweened) Color Opacity (tweened) Shape (tweened) 21 Animation playing 30 fps

Animation by Scripting/Programming Does not rely on a sequence of frames on timeline Dynamic: – Animation can be programmed to respond to the user's interaction – Animation can be different in a different play through 22

Frame-by-Frame vs. Tweened vs. Scripted Frame-by-FrameTweenedScripted Rely on a fixed sequence of visual content on timeline Always same animation every time you play Dynamic and interactive Require scripting 23

Frame-by-Frame vs. Tweened vs. Scripted Frame-by-FrameTweenedScripted Relative work in general required in creating the visual content longestshortest Choice of animation involving complex or organic motion such as walking and dancing may be Choice of animation involving continuous motion that can be interpolated 24

Animation Frame Rate Playback speed of the animation In frames per second (fps) Too low: choppy Too high: choppy if the computer is not fast enough to process and display the frames Maximum rate in authoring programs – not exceed the frame rate setting – not guaranteed to maintain the frame rate (slower computer may play at frame rate lower than the setting) 25

Adjusting Speed of a Frame-based Animation Suppose you have a frame-based animation and want to change its playback speed. General Strategy: Avoid eliminating frames if possible To speed up: – Increase frame rate if possible and keep the number of frames (preferred) – Keep the frame rate but reduce the number of frames (not preferred) To slow down: – Keep frame rate but add more frames (preferred) – Reduce frame rate but keep the number of frames 26

Example of Adjusting Speed 27 Frame 1 Frame 2 Frame 3 Frame 4 Frame 5 Suppose you have this 5-frame animation and you want to slow it down.

Example of Adjusting Speed 28 Suppose you have this 5-frame animation and you want to slow it down. If you reduce the frame rate and keep the same frame number:

Example of Adjusting Speed 29 Suppose you have this 5-frame animation and you want to slow it down. If you reduce frame rate and keep the same frame number: If you keep the frame rate and add more frames:

Flash - Most Essential Workspace Elements Tools Stage Timeline Property Inspector Library 30

Tools Panel Contains tools to select the visual content modify the content (like using the appropriate tools to draw vector graphics) – draw – scale – rotate – erase 31

Most Essential Workspace Elements 32 Stage

Where a Flash movie plays Background color can be set: – in Property Inspector, or – by choosing Modify > Document... Area outside of the stage: – Gray color – Objects placed there will not be visible when the movie plays. – Note that if a graphic is in the gray area outside the stage, that graphic will not be visible when the movie plays 33

Most Essential Workspace Elements 34 Timeline

35 Timeline and Keyframes Timeline – A stack of layers Content in a layer cover the ones beneath it – A series of frames across A circle in a frame: a keyframe – A solid circle in a frame: a keyframe with content on the stage – An empty circle in a frame: a keyframe without any content on the stage

36 Keyframes in Flash In this example: 1.Which frames are keyframes? 2.Which keyframes have content on the stage? 3.Which keyframes do not have content on the stage?

37 Frames and Keyframes Any non-keyframes frames subsequence to a keyframe has the same content as that keyframe

38 Frames and Keyframes Examples Keyframe: frame 1 Frames 1 – 4 has the same content as in frame 1 in Layer 1 on stage

39 To Create Keyframes in Flash Do any of the followings: Select a frame in the Timeline and select Insert > Timeline > Keyframe Select a frame in the Timeline and hit the F6 key Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a frame in the Timeline and select Insert Keyframe.

40 To Convert a Keyframe into a Regular Frame Do any of the followings: Select a frame in the Timeline and select Insert > Timeline > Clear Keyframe Select a frame in the Timeline and hit the Shift-F6 keys Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a frame in the Timeline and select Clear Keyframe.

41 To Insert Frames in Flash Do any of the following: Select a frame in the Timeline and select Insert > Timeline > Frames Select a frame in the Timeline and hit the F5 key Right-click (Windows) or Control-click a frame in the Timeline and select Insert Frame.

42 To Remove Frames Do any of the following: Select a frame in the Timeline and hit the Shift-F5 keys Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a frame in the Timeline and select Remove Frames.

Most Essential Workspace Elements 43 Property Inspector

Displays the information and properties that can be edited If a frame on the Timeline: – displays the frame property – If the frame selected is a keyframe, you can also assign a frame label and a tweening to that frame. If an object on the Stage is selected: – displays the object’s properties that you can edit, e.g., x and y width and height 44

Property Inspector 45 This object on stage is selected. Its x, y, width and height are displayed and can be changed by entering different numbers.

Most Essential Workspace Elements 46 Library

Stores symbols, imported bitmaps, and sounds to be used in the project. Symbols are explained in Section 8.6 and next Powerpoint. 47