Production Log for animation

Creating my animations seemed at first to be quite hard, however when i learned more about Flash and familiarised myself with it, the process became easier.

To begin with I had to sketch up what I wanted my animations to look like in my sketchbook, this way I had an idea of what I wanted to do. Also the client had previously given us some artwork that we could use, for examples the main characters, Bertie, Pecky, Kate, Mr Croak, The Lion, Georgina. If there were any other characters within our story then we would have to create them ourselves, making sure that we were in keeping with the theme.

My story is called Bertie and the Egg, the basic idea of this story was that Bertie and Pecky found an egg and had to find it's home.

I chose this story because when I read all of the stories through I found that I had quite a few ideas for this particular story, also I liked what happened within the story.

After creating the characters to make up the cast, I then started work on my background, because the whole story is based in either a forest or woodland area, I was able to use similar or even the same backgrounds, and just modify them accordingly.

Here is the basic background at which I created to get started with:

The way I came up with this was by looking at the clients website, and having a look at a story that was previously made, this way I was able to grasp the concept of the animation from the beginning.

The colours are simple and flat, however in some places, for example on Bertie's hat there are some slight bits of shading.

I then had to look at the text at which will be in the scene, and then made notes in my sketchbook to what animations I would be putting in my scenes.

The way I made my animations was to first make the object (that would be animated) a Movie Clip symbol, from either clicking on Modify/Convert to Symbol or just by pressing F8, whilst the object was selected. This meant that I could animate the object without having to have the timeline bigger then 1 frame.

However in some animations, i had to have the timeline bigger then one frame, this was because in some instances i had to make my object a symbol and then animate it on the original timeline, this was because then I would be able to create the desired affect that I had originally hoped for.
For example within this scene I wanted Pecky to fly around the nest, pointing it out to Bertie, to do this I had to make Pecky a symbol and then by right clicking on him I was given a few options to what I could do, those options were, Create a Motion Tween, Create a Shape Tween or Create a Classic Tween, and in this instance I wanted to Create a Motion Tween, this would allow me to move Pecky to create the Illusion of him flying around the screen.

Previously to this I had also made his wings a symbol this was so I could allow Pecky to flap his wings as he was flying. Otherwise I wouldn't look as affective as it could be.I also used this same technique within another scene, that scene was when I had to make the Mummy Bird flying down from another tree to her nest, when Bertie was placing the egg, at which he had found earlier on in the story, in the nest. I also made her wing flap as she was flying by making them symbols as well.

The navigation of the animation was fairly simple in my mind, I had first come up with many different ideas to what I wanted my button to look like in my sketchbook, then once I had decided on a design I then had to create it in Flash. I first had to draw out what the button would be like and then give it the colours that I felt best suited it, the I had to convert them to symbols, to be more specific I had to make them Button symbols, this is because then I would give my 4 states at which to change my button, those 4 states are Up, Over, Down and Hit. (The Up state is what the button would look like to begin with, the Over state is what the button would look like when the mouse is hovering over it, the Down state is what the button would look like as the button was being clicked on, and lastly the Hit state is the space at which would be active and where the viewer is able to click on the button to make it work.)

For my buttons I wanted them to be simple yet stand out at the same time, I therefore chose green and orange for the colours and then I chose Ariel as my font, I chose Ariel because then it would be the same as my text that would be on the screen, this is to show continuity with my animation. However to make the button change in each state, I would make the colours lighter in the Over and Down state, I would also make the text bold, however in the down state I will give the Illusion of the button moving by moving the button down and across, this would only be a slight movement as I do not want it to be too drastic.

As you can see here I have taken a screen grab of what my buttons look like, this also show to for states that are on the timeline.

Each of my animations have been made to be as simple as possible and once I had put everything together I had found that the whole animation seemed to work well, and I am very pleased with what I had created.