Project: “
The Moral of the Story”-
Layers and Libraries in Flash
Overview: Students
will be using their newfound Flash skills to create a short animation
in which
a “Moral” of
a story is demonstrated, using actual photographs and photographic
cutouts for animation subjects.
Getting Started: Create
a "lastname_moral"
folder in your Flash folder on the network. You will be saving all
of your
files to
this folder.
Video Tutorials Needed for This Project:
How to Proceed:
- First, think of the moral
that you would like to describe. Anything
school appropriate would be fine. (IF YOUR
MORAL IS NOT APPROPRIATE, YOU WILL RECEIVE A ZERO!) If you don’t like any that you
can think of, make some up. Possible morals from the past:
- “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow”
- “Don’t Make Fun of Santa
Claus”
- “Never Stand Under a Monkey”
- “Superman Always Wins”
- “Don’t Mess with the
Deathstar”
- "Never Date a Ninja"
- "Don't Buy Your Prom Dress From the Back of a Van"
- Decide the layout of your animation, what is going
to move when and where.
- Go on the internet and find AT LEAST FIVE
different photographs or graphics that
you can use for your
Moral of the Story. Save
them to your
lastname_moral folder.
- You can have ONE PICTURE as the
background for your moral. The other
FOUR pictures will
have to
be masked
so that they can
move freely through
your animation. When you are done
with your masking, you will need to do the
following:
-
FILE> EXPORT PREVIEW>GIF (with ALPHA TRANSPARENCY)
- Open up Flash and create a blank stage.
- Use FILE> IMPORT
TO LIBRARY to bring each of your FIVE pictures
into the Flash Library for your animation.
- Now, start
creating LAYERS.
Make sure that
you label your
LAYERS
as
you create
them. Your first
LAYER should
be your background
layer:
- On FRAME ONE of your background layer, open your F-11 LIBRARY, locate
your picture of your background and drag it to the stage.
- Your picture is a media file, which we cannot manipulate very well. Hit
F-8 to CONVERT IT TO A SYMBOL. Make it a GRAPHIC and name it!
- You can now move this around like any other graphic.
- Keep adding layers to your animation, remembering
the LAYER RULE:
EVERYTHING THAT MOVES GETS ITS OWN LAYER!
- Move things as you wish to create
your story. You need to be actively animating the progression of the story that demonstrates your moral. The story MUST include AT LEAST 10 SECONDS OF ACTION AND ANIMATION (120 FRAMES)!
- At the end of your animation,
after the movie has finished, please ADD
A NEW LAYER called MORAL.
On this layer, use
the text tool to print
out the MORAL OF THE STORY. Have Flash hold the text for at
least
5 seconds.
- Hit Ctrl-Enter to preview
your movie.
- Save your Flash
Animation as lastname_moral.fla.
Mr. B.'s Moral of
the Story Movie: "Elephants
are more dangerous than they look."
Project Submission: Projects will be submitted to the class DROP folder on the M: Drive.
Please make sure to submit your final work as:
lastname_moral.fla (I want the RED ICON file, not the silver icon file!)
Grading: 100 points for this assignment, given as follows:
- 10 points for each of the FIVE graphics
(including the background) that you use in your animation.
- 40 points for the proper animation of
all layers.
- 10 points for the extra "Moral of the
Story" Layer at the end of your animation.
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