Critique/Final Evaluation of Animation

Interactive Animation has been a very interesting and challenging module. Being an exchange student, there have been different principles taught which has helped me broaden my knowledge and skills with not only animation but primarily with the Adobe program Flash. It has also been difficult changing my thinking and working processes to accommodate the way the modules are taught here. For example, when it comes to animation, I had no idea how to use Flash, let alone how to animate images and other graphics.

Looking back at my time in this module, I have noticed a great improvement in my skills and knowledge of Flash. I now know the difference between tweens, buttons, and movie clips and how they all work. With the new skills that I have learned in this module, I will be able to create other animations and use Flash as a creative outlet for future projects. Plus, I can use Flash to create fun and interesting web pages and I can update my digital portfolio to showcase my skills and knowledge of the Flash program.

Through research, I have also been able to look at examples of animations that successfully create an interesting interactive stimulation. I found the interactive animation at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to be the most stimulating as I realized that there are multiple outlets for an interactive animation.

The final outcome of my project is quite successful as an interactive animation. In order for the viewer to come to a final outcome (a recipe) they need to navigate through the garden by choosing two vegetables that they want to use in a recipe. Since the animation is projected to children, the selection of the recipes were chosen with the mind-set that children are usually picky eaters, therefore, the recipes are quite simple and not overly difficult to make. Also, because there are potentially dangerous tools used in cooking, it is strongly recommended that the viewer, if it is a child, have adult supervision while cooking. I also made some slight changes from the storyboard to improve my animation. I included the names of the vegetables and how to pronounce them and I also changed the cookbook scene so it seems like the viewer is in a kitchen. Overall, I am very pleased with my final animation.

FINAL Animation

Here is the final product of my animation:

file:///Volumes/My%20Passport/Interactive_Animation/Garden_Patch.html


Here is the final screen shots of my animation:

The Welcome Scene


The Garden Patch Scene


The Cookbook Scene

Animation Update 11.05.2010

I am almost finished! YAY! Here is what I have been working on:



I finished the 'Cookbook' scene and I think it looks a million times better! Plus it gives the viewer the sense that they are suppose to be in the kitchen.

I also have been working alot with writing the action script this past week. After Chris helped me set up an Array, he showed me how it actually worked in the action script and what it could do in the animation. Essentially, an Array allowed me to sync up all the possible vegetable combinations with the appropriate recipe page. Once I understood how it worked, it was quite easy to go through and link everything up.

In addition to finalizing the action script, I was also able to choose appropriate music and add that to my animation as well.