The Future is Here- Well- Will Be Someday

I have decided to create the impossible, something that all human beings have dreamed for millenia. I will create a beer can that transforms into a robot. This is the future. That is all. Actually, a new blog would be good.

The Site that should have worked

The final website was my portfolio site. There was a heavy emphasis on containers and that may be the reason it kinda broke down on me. Lost time because I originally made the whole site a mask to make the site appear like it stretched out from itself rather than popped up as blocks. Found masks to be unreliable when it came to text so I had to cut that idea. Made the site flatter but didn't look bad. I wanted the site to look alive so there is a lot of movement. However simple things like buttons didn't work for me for reasons I have yet to find. So unfortunately the site ended up being fairly broken and it appears I will need to start from scratch. Not really a bad thing because I am already brimming with ideas. So, see the site for yourself here.

The Too Far Reaching Site

The second project was our choice so I just wanted to do something weird. I came up with an idea for a game that isn't really a game. The interface was interactive and you would be relayed information depending where you click. I wanted everything to be randomized and I wanted to make a sort of cyberspace robot that made fun of you. So there are tons of moving parts and tons of things happening at once and the coding just got to be too much. I would spend hours figuring something out and then delight at the effect only to find that it would only work in action script 2. So the final product ended up being quite short and bland (for the time being) because I had to cut so much of it out. The whole site moves so here is one picture of it and you can click HERE to look for yourself.

A Last Minute Website

So for this website we were to make a micro-site for a product or a campaign site. I chose the first but my first idea was met with a less than enthusiastic response, a micro site for an antique cocktail shaker. I guess antiques aren't hip enough. The class saw my ideas for my sculpture class where I was going to make political action figures and told me to go with that. So I did that but had limited time so I made one sculpture and then tried to crank out a site for it. The sculpture took a LONG time and the website came down to getting done in about 3 days. The site was supposed to be over the top action style to increase a feeling of irony I guess. It was difficult to get back into flash at this point let alone learning new stuff so the site was built almost entirely on the timeline, which I find I am most comfortable with.

Random Timers Tutorial

Click here to get the .fla file or paste all the information below the symbol "/*" into the first frame of action script in flash for a step-by-step tutorial. I think it is annoying when you can't see exactly what is happening. The comments will reveal your path!

/*
First off, welcome! This tutorial will teach you how to make an object that will travel in
a certain direction over a random distance at random intervals and continue to do so forever,
forever, amen. I would encourage you to imput this data and tweak the values, tweens, and directions
because the use of timers can apply to anything when you want to trigger an event.
*/
/*To start, make at least one symbol, here we named it bloc_mc, and place it in the first frame of
the stage*/

//import the classes we will be using
import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.easing.*;
import flash.utils.Timer;
import flash.events.TimerEvent;

/*define a variable for the timer, the first numeral is the time in miliseconds
between each time the timer goes off, the second number is the number of times
the timer will repeat. We want it to repeat forever so we set it to 0, and will
make it repeat later on.*/
var timer:Timer = new Timer(1000,0);
/*Now we set the timer to listen for each time it goes off, and when it goes
off to perform a function, we will call it "doNextTween*/
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, doNextTween);
//Since we want the timer to go indefinately we need the timer to repeat itself
timer.reset();
//And of course the timer has to start
timer.start();

//this var, lastCall, will be used to trace each time the timer fires
var lastCall:uint = 0;
//this variable will be the y coordinate for the object
var newY:Number = bloc_mc.y;

//Time to set up the function that "plays" each time the timer fires, as a timer event
function doNextTween(e:TimerEvent):void{

/*The object, bloc_mc, needs to move. So we set it to tween between y positions. Object,
direction of the tween, the type of ease, the start point of the animation, the distance, duration
*/
var myTweenBloc:Tween = new Tween(bloc_mc, "y", Bounce.easeOut, bloc_mc.y, newY, 1, true);
//we want the new y position to be different each time, increasing the number we multiply by
//will make the y value higher or lower, I think. you mess with it
newY = (Math.random() * 100);
//just for our sake, to know that the timer is working, this tracks how long each timer cycle took
trace("Time since last call: " + String(getTimer() - lastCall));
//If we don't want the timer to go off at even intervals we set a timer delay, here we make it random
//increasing and decreasing the value we multiply by will speed up or slow down the timer fire
timer.delay = Math.random()*10000;
//this sets up the trace so that AS3 knows that lastCall is to get the timer
lastCall = getTimer();

//Here we added just another object with the same attributes to work at the same time, to form eye brows
var myTweenSquare:Tween = new Tween(square_mc, "y", Bounce.easeOut, square_mc.y, newY, 1, true);
newY = (Math.random() * 100);
timer.delay = Math.random()*10000;
lastCall = getTimer();
}

//THE END

The End

Those three and a half assignments make up what turned out to be the most learning filled class I have had in a long, long time. So, yes, I learned a lot. And it was hard, but awesome. So I'm going to keep making these things and take more classes, and I'm really looking forward to it. And man have I come a long way since this. Click and drag the corner of your window to expand and contract the window and perform amazing action!

Tracking Sasquatch

The site ended up looking almost exactly like I wanted, so that is exciting. It is a very short site, but a lot of work went into it. Flash could be frustrating at times, but once you figure something out you are pretty much good to go, and it's an easy fix. But sometimes the simple fix is so simple you have to curse. The key to the site looking "real" is the ambient animation. The falling snow (the original code made by GalaxyGoo) and subtle effects like pouring water and breath, animate the still images in the background. And everything has an effect when you click, making the interface less digital and more physical. So, here it is.