Fall 09 week 3:—9/28/09: Mon. 9:00 - 12:00

Hi Everyone,
I apologize for not being in class today. I began feeling like I was coming down with something last night, and this morning I woke up ill. In any case, we still have to move along with the classwork whether I'm there or not. So, below, you will find instructions of what to do for next week's class.

As always, you should not freak out if your work doesn't function 100% the first time you type out your code. There are ALWAYS a million ways to make mistakes. In fact, one of the most important skills you will learn in this class is exactly how to find your mistakes when you inevitably make them.

This week's homework builds upon the last two weeks of work we have done in class. You will need your animations that you did for homework this past week, as well as what you did in class last week

Each week, I will post two things: (1) the files that we produced in class that week; and, (2) the homework that will be due the following week.
Carter-

WEEK 3

1. Classwork
• LINK    This week's class files
2. Homework
• exercise 1: You will need your TWO walk animations, the one we did in class and the 2nd that you should have done for homework. If you do not have these two available, you will need to create those first
1. Create a folder for your work named week 3.
2. Place your two walk-animations into this folder and rename them, one.fla and two.fla.
3. Create a new file, set a background color, and start off by saving your file as index.
4. Now, create a new fully-functioning button symbol with all of the required 4 frames.
5. With the button on the stage, test your movie to make certain it functions properly when you mouse-over it and when you press down on it.
6. From the library, drag another instance of this button onto the stage, and place them both near the bottom edge of the stage.
7. Select one of the instances (do NOT double-click and enter into edit mode).
8. Open the properties, and provide an instance name for the first button of b1_btn.
9. Now, click on the other button on the stage to select it.
10. Again in the properties, type an instance name for this button as well of b2_btn.
11. Name the first layer buttons.
12. Save your file and test again to update the .swf file.
13. Open each of your other two animation files one at a time and test those as well to generate updated .swf files for both of them.
14. If you look in your folder now, you will see that you have SIX files, 3 .fla files and 3 .swf files.
15. Click on the index tab to go to that file and create a new layer above the buttons layer named as.
16. Lock the other layer, click in frame 1 of this new layer, and open the actions panel (F9).
17. Download the class-files from the link above and open the file named as.txt in a text or code editor.
18. Highlight and copy ALL the code and text you see there, and then paste it into the actions panel for your index.fla file.
19. You will notice that all of the text that falls after the // characters is grayed out, as is the text that falls in between the /* and */ characters. These are known as comments and I suggest that you type them along with your ActionScript so that later on you will know what you were trying to do with your code.
20. Now save and test your movie. The first button should cause your first animation to load into the index file. The second button, however, does not yet work because we have not typed the code for that yet.
• exercise 2: You are to attempt to type the code that loads the second animation file when you click on the other button.

Fall 09 week 2:—9/21/09: Mon. 9:00 - 12:00

Hi Everyone,
As mentioned in the first posting, this is the temporary home of our blog. I've sent an email out to the person that has already reserved DMA205.blogspot.com to see if he'll allow me to take over that name, but until then, I will be using DMA-205.blogspot.com.

Regarding last week's work, it regards creating animation with the new motion tween method in CS4, as well as an introduction to ActionScript. If you were not in class, please download the files and make an attempt to do the homework. If necessary, send me an email and I will try to explain to you.

For this week's work, since most people did NOT do the homework for the previous week, the homework for this week will be almost identical to the first week's, save one detail, so make sure you read the instructions carefully.

Each week, I will post two things: (1) the files that we produced in class that week; and, (2) the homework that will be due the following week.

And once again, since I am just now starting this blog, it will take me some time to get it into shape. So, if you have any difficulties with it, please let me know.
Carter-

WEEK 2

1. Classwork
• LINK    This weeks classfiles
2. Homework
• exercise 1: If you noticed in last week's work that we completed in our first class, your animations will not only stop when you click on the stop button; but at some point, they will stop automatically on their own. This is okay as far as it goes, but it is a little problematic. Ideally, what we would want is, first, for the movie to be stopped when you first start it up. That much we have covered so far from class. Second, we would like the buttons to provide us with the ability to both stop the animation and start it back up again. Again, we already have that covered. Lastly, we would like the animation to play continuously once we click on the play button and keep on playing until we click on the stop button. It should NOT seemingly of its own accord.
  
  Those of you who can solve this issue will receive extra credit.


• exercise 2: Similar to last week's in-class exercise, I would like you to create a brief little animation of a REFINED walk cycle with your character walking across the stage. This time, you MUST draw something more than a pair of legs. Many of you completed a decent one in class, but almost all of them needed improvements. This animation should have as many frames as you need. Also like our in-class exercise, you should have two fully-functioning buttons, play & stop, which should similarly start-up, stop, and play the animation.
  
  In addition, however, you should have a 3rd button. This button should use what we call a gotoAndPlay(); action instead of stop(); or play();. Look in the book exactly how to use this action, and I would like you to make it go to frame 100 and start playing from there.

Please remember, what I am looking for is NOT whether you complete this exercise perfectly, but by how much effort you put into it. For those of you who weren't here in the first class, look through the book or look online to try and figure out what to do. It is OKAY if you are not successful, just show me your efforts and your experimentation.

Fall 09 week 1:—9/14/09: Mon. 9:00 - 12:00

Hi Everyone,
This is the temporary home of our blog. I've sent an email out to the person that has already reserved DMA205.blogspot.com to see if he'll allow me to take over that name, but until then, I will be using DMA-205.blogspot.com.

Regarding this week's work, please make certain you understand most of what we did in class this past Monday. Each week, I will post two things: (1) the files that we produced in class that week; and, (2) the homework that will be due the following week.

Since I am just now starting this blog, it will take me some time to get it into shape. So, if you have any difficulties with it, please let me know.
Carter-

WEEK 1

1. Classwork
• LINK    This weeks classfiles
2. Homework
• exercise 1: If you notice in this week's work that we completed in class, your animations will not only stop when you click on the stop button; but at some point, they will stop automatically on their own. This is okay as far as it goes, but it is a little problematic. Ideally, what we would want is, first, for the movie to be stopped when you first start it up. That much we have covered so far from class. Second, we would like the buttons to provide us with the ability to both stop the animation and start it back up again. Again, we already have that covered. Lastly, we would like the animation to play continuously once we click on the play button and keep on playing until we click on the stop button. It should NOT seemingly of its own accord.
  
  Those of you who can solve this issue will receive extra credit.


• exercise 2: Similar to this week's in-class exercise, I would like you to create a brief little animation. Please do not spend too much time on this animation, but at the same time it shouldn't be a big ugly mess. This animation should have 200 frames. Also like our in-class exercise, you should have two fully-functioning buttons, play & stop, which should similarly start-up, stop, and play the animation.
  
  In addition, however, you should have a 3rd button. This button should use what we call a gotoAndPlay(); action instead of stop(); or play();. Look in the book exactly how to use this action, and I would like you to make it go to frame 100 and start playing from there.