Introductions

Assessment

Review of Syllabus

Lab Setup / Class structure

Introduction to Programming: Programming is about concepts - this is what we will be emphasizing in this class

Learning Flash MX

Portability of what you will learn

Review of software (if needed)

Getting Books

Introduction to Flash MX:

Introduction and Tour of Flash MX

Flash's flawed Metaphors

.fla vs .swf files: the Authoring -> Publishing paradigm

The basic Drawing Tools

The basic Text Tools

Introduction To Flash, Continued

Setting Movie Properties

Creating Templates

Embedding Flash Movies within HTML documents

 

Basic Elements of Flash

Symbols

Movie Clips

Graphics

Buttons

The Flash Library

Instances - (the basic idea of Object-oriented structures is embedded within Flash)

Working with Instances on the Stage

Transformations

Alignment

Movie Clips - ways of articulating time

Keyframes

Controlling Playback

Cartesian coordinates in Flash

Using Movies as containers for motion / change

Importing items into the Library

Time and Action Oriented Dynamic Elements:

3 ways computer software can manage time:

Free-running

Responsive (real-time interaction)

Articulated time

 

Motion Tweening

Shape Tweening

Scripting for Autonomous Motion

Object-Oriented approaches to motion

Using Layers

Basic Layer tools / selection / stacking order

Masking Layers

Path Layers

 

 

The WWW as an artistic venue:some approaches

Introduction to ActionScript

Lexical Structure

Data Types and Variables

Object-Oriented Language basics: Objects, Properties and Methods

Event Handlers - Javascript

Event Handlers - Actionscript

Variables and Operators

Basic Statements

Interactivity (Responsive Time)

Basic Actionscript Techniques

Event Handlers

Mouse Events

Keyboard Events

MovieClip Events

Communicating between Objects:

The _parent and _root objects

Manipulating Text

Using Variables to Quantify Physical parameters

 

Properties

MovieClip Properties

Button Properties

Movie Properties

More Techniques for programming Time and Action Oriented Dynamic Elements:

Event Types Review

Using variables

Using Conditional Statements

The _x and _y properties

The _rotation property.

Using basic expressions

Modeling Motion

Using Arrays for Storage of Lists of information

More Techniques for programming Time and Action Oriented Dynamic Elements:

Defining Functions

Looping to do repetitive or iterative tasks

Using Random Numbers

Constraining Random Numbers - Writing Useful Random Range and List functions

Looping within a script

 

Mouse Tracking

Drag and Drop

Using Basic Actions with buttons

Assigning Actions to Frames

Using Sound and Video in Flash

Importing Audio

Audio compression

Adding Sounds to Buttons

Using Frame actions to control sounds in Movie-Clips

Importing Video

Video on the Stage

Controlling video playback

The Simulation of Autonomous Behavior

The Random Walk algorithm

Rule-based behavior, Flocking, etc.

Simulating physical systems: gravity, friction, etc.

Mostly, this last third of the class will be focused on using what you have already learned in your final projects.

However, we will also look at a number of Pragmatic issues in using Flash in the real world. We will cover these over the following week, roughly as following the order of the tutorials, but adjusting for need within final projects. These topics are:

Making draggable and droppable objects

Dynamic Drawing

Loading and using external movies

Loading and using external mp3 files

Prototyping

Integrating your flash files with HTML and Javascript

Navigating within Flash - how to create menus in Flash, and link to URLS

Making Preloaders for your projects