Syllabus Changes

Everyone should check out the class syllabus to see what changes have been made to improve your opportunities to work with Flash and your opportunities to create portfolio quality work.  We will only be producing two final Flash projects rather than two.  This means that your attendance and exercises have increased in overall value in the course as well as your blog entries.  You need to develop your blog thoughtfully and comprehensively.  The interactive animation and the information appliance assignments will each be worth a larger portion of the grade as well.  I will go over these changes on Monday.

These changes will improve your opportunities to learn and improve the quality of these two completed projects.  They will also give us more time to fine tune and improve the projects you have already created.

Here is a link back to the class syllabus page!

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The Housing Authority Exhibition Centre

Thanks everyone who came along to Housing Authority Exhibition Centre.  As I said, it is a great way to learn more about the history of Hong Kong and her people and it is one of the only physical spaces in the world that reflects all the possibilities of a Flash application or a web site.  They have elements that include almost every known form of media and with the addition of the new interactive table they even have a bit of a mini-game.  (Wouldn't it be great to create a game for four to eight people on that space!)  That is a completely new element and they have tightened up many of the design elements within the space.

The nine people who did not go really missed an interesting and inspiring exhibition of information.  ( I am sure that you were working hard on finishing your assignment so I cannot wait to see the results)

I did not bring the hand-outs but we will discuss Location, Alphabet, Time, Category and Hierarchy in our next class.  With the huge model of Hong Kong in the middle of the center there appears to be a strong emphasis on location, but that serves mostly as decoration as it does not integrate with the rest of the information in the space.  The real organizing principle is time as it dictates the sequence of the information panels, the building models, the flats from the past and the kitchen and bathroom displays.  The opening video gives a nice overview of the Housing Authority and the physical space gives the history and current state of the organization.  The new interactive elements certainly got the most attention which seems to say there needs to be more opportunities for interaction in other parts of the centre.  I will show you some pictures from the centre in the past so you can see some of the possible changes.  Then we will talk about LATCH and do an information organizing exercise next week.

Thanks to Phoenix, Katherine, Zoyo, Mounir and Jason for adding the Science Museum to the trip.  In comparison to the HA the Science Museum was really disorganized.  It is a larger space and there are more displays but even in the very clearly themed exhibits there is a lack of organization, i.e. the body exhibit was spread all around the ground floor and it didn't seem to have much of a connecting thread even though the various information areas had the same color, type and layout.  You jumped from the eye to the mouth to Chinese medicine and then gestalt perception principles.  This space is screaming for more storytelling and organization.  Here are the questions I am left with from the Science Museum: Why is the Luofeng dinosaur in the middle of the human body area?  Why is the mirror display, which is reasonably well organized, designed using traditional chinese images?  Why does that beautiful ship model sit in that huge pool of water on the second floor under the Cathay Pacific DC-3 aircraft?  I know it's about transportation but what does the boat actually do or mean?  Anyway, the Science Museum left me a bit disappointed but anyone can learn about the need for organization, the need for a clear connection between the space design and the content design, and the fact that independent cool exhibits and/or experiences do not make a great learning or entertainment experience.

The Housing Authority Exhibition Centre has the advantage of complete focus on one topic while the Science Museum is trying to cover a wide range of topics for a very broad audience.

We will talk more next Wednesday...

Field Trip Tomorrow

We will be traveling to the Housing Authority Exhibition Centre tomorrow but we will not take a coordinated trip on the bus.

We will all meet at 10:45 a.m. outside of the Museum in Ho Man Tin.

Here is the link to find the directions to the exhibition centre: http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk

We will then travel in whatever ways are possible to the Science Museum in East TST.

We will get into the museum for free but it will not open until 1:00 p.m.

This means that some of you will need to get back to the BU campus for your afternoon class(es).

I will be going to the Science Museum where we can talk more about organizing information spaces,  physically and virtually, but you are not required to come to this part of the field trip if you have a class that you need to attend.

I will also bring a handout for you to give you more information about organizing information according to LATCH:
     location
     alphabet
     time
     category, or
     hierarchy


Not taking an organized bus we will have more freedom to make our necessary appointments after visiting the exhibition centre.  I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow in Ho Man Tin.

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The New Framework is available

I have corrected the errors in the coding and it will now work regardless of what button is used first. 

You can download it by clicking on the title of this blog entry, use this link, or go to the class syllabus.

This will provide you with the framework you need to create your interactive animation.  You just need to add your own logo and other creative elements.

I will be in 901 tomorrow morning at 10:30 am to provide any help you might need.  I will not be able to help you on Friday because we have Honours Project progress reports all day.  I will be available on the Tuesday after CNY and just before the due date of the interactive animation.  Please put your FLA files into the DGC 2170 folder on the O: drive.

Happy New Year!

Current Status on Subscribing and Posting

Here is a list of the people who have subscribed to this blog:
Terri
Tina
Zoyo
Yu
Cami
Annie
Maggie
Hugo
Eva T
Terence
Stephy
Mounir
Phoenix
Eva D
Ivy

Here is a list of people who have started their own blog for this class:
Hugo
Terri
Zoyo? not sure which one is for this class but there are a couple to look at
Yu
Annie
Stephy
Phoenix
Eva D

Here is a list of people who have started making entries:
Phoenix
Eva D

I have signed up a subscriber to the class blogs I can find.

If you are not on any of these lists please subscribe and start your own blog so that I can see what kinds of great interactive media you are finding as you spend time on the web.  Finding interesting experiences will inspire your work and your desire to learn more about Flash and ActionScript.  You can even blog about great learning sites you have found.

See you in the morning...

9 Feb 2010 - 2:45 pm I am in the computer lab right now!

I suppose I should be tweeting this instead of blogging it.  I am in the lab right now and I am available to help you with any problems you may be having with Flash or the Interactive Animation assignment.

Tomorrow we will look at Information Structures and then we will work with Audio in Flash.  We will manipulate some sounds in SoundBooth, making a track or two, loops and some feedback sounds.  We will then attach these sounds to a Flash movie and figure out how to control them.

IF YOU WANT TO WORK WITH YOUR OWN MUSIC or SFX then bring them along in MP3, MP4, wav, aiff formats.  Otherwise you will be working with a couple that I have.


Until tomorrow...

3 February 2010 - Interactive Animation with Play All Button

If you have downloaded the Interactive Animation with Play All Button file, please download it again.

I did not need to make different instances of the play arrow.  I just needed to give it different ActionScript commands at different times in the timeline.  So, I put the play all button into the original Buttons layer and slightly changed the ActionScript.  The new version works well and it is less confusing because there is only one play all arrow in the timeline.

I look forward to seeing people at Tutorials.  I can walk you through the program and help you get familiar with how and why it works the way it does.  If you have some of your own content plugged into the programming that will also be a very helpful first step for you.  I will also be glad to help you with additional questions you might have about animation in flash and working with the movie clips to accomplish the goals of the assignment.

Download the new framework and you can start building your first assignment.

Tuesday Tutorial 2 Feb

I will be available for tutorial this afternoon from 2:00 pm.  If I am not in the lab then I will be in my office, please come check with me there.