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Motion Graphics and Animation: Flash (GRCP 213)

Final Project - The Flash-based eCard

Project Due: Thursday, June 17, 2010

Project Description

Plan, design and develop an eCard that demonstrates knowledge of the multiple Flash principles you have learned in class. You may utilize any of the following techniques in your eCard:

• Frame-by-frame animation
• Shape tweening
• Motion tweening
• Principles of animation
• Character manipulation/animation
• Lip-synching
• Integration of audio
• Basic Actionscript

Prove your knowledge in Flash techniques but have fun and be creative! Here are a few content ideas...

• Promote a major holiday, special event or celebration (Father's Day, birthday, wedding, graduation, etc.)
• Promote a business or create an interesting portfolio of your artwork - just make it engaging to your user!
• Tell a story or create a cartoon.

Like a traditional greeting card, an eCard should have a "setup" and a "payoff". There should also be the ability to "play again". Here are just a few sites for inspiration:

• Hallmark.com
• American Greetings.com
• 123 Greetings.com
• Blue Mountain.com
• Orisinal
• Jib Jab (we'd be incomplete without mentioning these guys!)

Technical Information

You will set up your Flash eCard using the following parameters (failure to do so will impact your grade!)

• Frame Rate: 30 fps
• Presentation Window Size: 600px wide x 400px high

You will use Adobe Flash to create your vector graphics, type, and design elements (Illustrator will be allowed for creation of images, but nothing else). You may also utilize royalty-free bitmap/raster images, and sounds. Remember, you can trace bitmaps to convert them to vector format within Flash.

Successful completion of this project will increase your understanding of motion graphics and tweening, basic ActionScripting and Flash interactivity concepts, storytelling and animation principles.

The experience will fulfill some of the student learning objectives as outlined in the syllabus, relative to the Information Technology and Communication abilities.

Project Requirements

This project has three phases in its development process:

Phase 1: The Design Phase

• Research Flash eCards on the web
• Identify which sort of card you'll be creating
• What will be your visual tone? (overall feeling/personality of the site)

STORYBOARD: brainstorm design ideas and sketch out a sequence of events

• What type of motion will happen? With what elements? How long?
• Describe the beginning, middle and the end - Is there a payoff?
• What type of sounds will occur? (sound effects, narration, music)
• You can use the storyboarding template from the banner project.

CONTENT: acquire assets and create elements:

• Type and text (limit to three typefaces)
• Colors (limit your colors used for design consistency)
• Vector images
• Raster images
• Animation or motion
• Sounds and recorded audio

Phase 2: The Production Phase

• Set Flash movie size (work area) to: 600px wide x 400px high as described earlier.
• Vector images can be created using Flash's drawing tools. Remember: the benefit of vector graphics is that they can be enlarged and scaled in size, yet they maintain their quality.
• Raster images (optional): scan @ 150 ppi and resample to 72 ppi for better image quality. And save as PNG 24 bit with transparency turned "on".
• Text (create in Flash). Fonts are needed on your system ONLY when developing in Flash (fla). Font code is embedded into the SWF file, so fonts are not needed on the user's system when viewing your SWF in a browser (the font is published within the SWF file).
• Integrate sounds (sound effects, music, narration) Sound formats: AIF, WAV, and try MIDI. In general, AIF is for the MacOS and WAV is for Windows.

Phase 3: The Presentation Phase

We will be doing a "silent critique" as your Flash project presentation. We will load one project per computer, then rotate to each station and individually critique each project.

You must submit the following:

• The .fla and .swf files (like the midterm)
• Brief written project report (1-2 pages) covering the following topics about your eCard:
  • Audience (needs, demographics, technical level, interests)
  • Communication goals or key messages (type of eCard & objectives)
  • Visual tone and design elements (the personality, "look and feel")
  • Methods used to develop your interactive Flash site (production)
  • Problems encountered and resolutions (troubleshooting)

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Grading Criteria

Your project will be graded based on the following criteria:

Graphics and Design	35%
Effectiveness of Animation/Motion	35%
Messaging	20%
Written Project Report	10%
Minus % for submitting late project, report, or files	- ?
Possible % Points X 50% weight of this project = % points toward overall course grade	100%

Grading Sheet

Click here to see an example of the project grading sheet that the criteria will be based on. Here is also the sheet we'll use in our peer-to-peer final exercise.

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