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CHAPTER 8
INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA
AUTHORING WITH FLASH:
ANIMATION
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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
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Common Types of Multimedia Production
• Business presentations
• Advertising kiosks
• Games
• Educational: training and tutorials
• Use of multimedia authoring program
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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
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Multimedia Production Process
Collect media elements
2. Assemble media elements
3. Add interactivity
1.
•
•
4.
By scripting or computer programming
Example: Use ActionScript in Flash
Export the project into a format that your target
audience can play
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Media Elements
• Often created outside of the multimedia authoring
program
• In Flash:
• Use pencil and brush tools
• Create vector graphics
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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
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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
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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
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What a Timeline Looks Like in Adobe Flash
Frame numbers
A layer with a seqence
of frames
Details about timeline is covered in Sections 8.5.3 and 8.6,
which are in the next two Powerpoints.
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Types of Techniques to Create Animation in
Multimedia Authoring Program
• Frame-by-frame
• Tweening
• Scripting
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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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO8MlSjo0T0
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Frame-by-Frame Example
Frame:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
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Frame-by-Frame Example
Frame 1
Frame 6
Frame 2
Frame 7
Frame 3
Frame 8
Frame 4
Frame 9
Frame 5
Animation
playing 2 fps
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Tweened Animation
• Content in frames between 2 keyframes is interpolated
• These interpolated frames are called in-between frames.
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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 10
• 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
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Example of Bird Tweening Position
Frame 1
Frame 6
Frame 2
Frame 7
Frame 3
Frame 8
Frame 4
Frame 9
Frame 5
Animation
playing 2 fps
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What can be tweened?
• Position (shown in the bird example)
• Rotation
• Size
• Color
• Opacity
• Shape
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Example of Shape Tweened Bird
Frame 1
Frame 50
Frame 10
Frame 60
Frame 20
Frame 70
Frame 30
Frame 80
Frame 40
Animation
playing 30 fps
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Example of Shape Tweened Bird
• Position (tweened)
• Rotation
• Size (tweened)
• Color
• Opacity (tweened)
• Shape (tweened)
Animation
playing 30 fps
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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
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Frame-by-Frame vs. Tweened vs. Scripted
Frame-by-Frame
Rely on a fixed
sequence of visual
content on timeline
Always same
animation every
time you play
Dynamic and
interactive
Require scripting
Tweened
Scripted
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Frame-by-Frame vs. Tweened vs. Scripted
Frame-by-Frame
Relative work in
general required in
creating the visual
content
Choice of animation
involving complex or
organic motion such
as walking and
dancing
Choice of animation
involving continuous
motion that can be
interpolated
Tweened
longest
Scripted
shortest
may be
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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)
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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
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Example of Adjusting Speed
Suppose you have this 5-frame
animation and you want to slow it
down.
Frame 1
Frame 2
Frame 3
Frame 4
Frame 5
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Example of Adjusting Speed
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:
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Example of Adjusting Speed
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:
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Flash - Most Essential Workspace
Elements
• Tools
• Stage
• Timeline
• Property Inspector
• Library
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Tools Panel
Contains tools to
• select the visual content
• modify the content
• draw
• scale
• rotate
• erase
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Most Essential Workspace Elements
Stage
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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.
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Most Essential Workspace Elements
Timeline
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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
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?
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Frames and Keyframes
• Any non-keyframes frames subsequence to a keyframe
has the same content as that keyframe
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Frames and Keyframes
Examples
Keyframe: frame 1
Frames 1 – 4 has the same content as in frame 1 in Layer 1 on stage
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Most Essential Workspace Elements
Property
Inspector
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Property Inspector
• Displays the information and properties that can be edited
• If a frame on the Timeline is selected:
• 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
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Property Inspector
This object
on stage is
selected.
Its x, y, width and height are
displayed and can be
changed by entering different
numbers.
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Most Essential Workspace Elements
Library
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Library
• Stores symbols, imported bitmaps, and sounds to be used
in the project.
• Symbols are explained in Section 8.6 and next
Powerpoint.