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Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York


Multimedia Programming
312-136

Expanded Project 1



Director's Workbook Due: Wednesday, 26 February, 2003.
Revised Director's Workbook Due: Friday, 28 March, 2003.


Movie Due:

Change!

Project is now due Friday, 25 April, 2003.

Overview. For this project you must create an interactive animation. Your movie should have several scenes that can be reached through buttons or other navigation. You may work in pairs, though it is not necessary. Your animation must be done in director. You may use Flash animations as cast members, but they will not count towards the criteria below. You may use behaviors but they will not count towards the criteria given below.

You may use an original story line for your animation or you may adapt a well-known story line. The story does not have to be sophisticated, but should have multiple scenes. Examples include:

1. A story about a trip (e.g., a trip to the moon, to an island, etc.) This could be an outgrowth of the post labs that we have done. For example, you could have a brave explorer board a rocket, travel to the moon, greet an alien, and return home.

2. You could simplify and adapt a fairy tale.

3. You could explore something (a house, a castle, a boat, etc.)

4. The story could involve a race or a chase.

5. You could adapt a (very) simplified cartoon (e.g., road runner, etc.).

6. You could do some simple type of game.


Requirements. A minimal project (a "C" project) must include the following parts:


  1. You must have an animated title at the beginning and rolling credits at the end of the movie. The beginning title must transition onto the stage somehow.


  2. You must use at least 10 channels in addition to all of the effects channels (except the color channel).


  3. Your animation must last at least 200 frames comprising 5 different scenes (including the opening and closing scenes). Instead of different scenes in one movie, you can have different movies that are called using the play movie command.


  4. You must use auto-distort in your movie.


  5. You must include film loops.


  6. You must include scripts for navigating and for providing interactivity. Minimal interactivity (ie, C level) will include:

    1. entering text at least once (such as a name) and using that text elsewhere

    2. keeping track of a score and making a decision based on that score using if-then-else statements. You could, for example, have the user click on a button in different scenes, or you could keep track of how many scenes the player has entered.

    3. playing sounds when something is clicked on.

    4. providing rollover effects on sprites.

    5. using a function or user made handler in your movie.

  7. Additional requirements (C level) for the expanded project:

    1. animation controlled by Lingo,

    2. change sprite properties (castNum, color, visibility, etc.) via Lingo,

    3. changing cursors,

    4. recognizing intersecting sprites,

    5. allowing user input in text fields,

    6. sound controlled by Lingo,

    7. pop-up help fields,

    8. keeping scores or other information,

    9. allowing users to make choices,

  8. Your movie must include non-linear animation (i.e., everything cannot go in a straight line).


  9. You must use all effects channels (except the color channel) in some part of your animation. This implies that you must have transitions, tempos, scripts, and sounds in your movie.

  10. There must be at least three characters moving. Examples include a person walking, a coyote running, etc.

  11. You must include a Flash component.



Artifacts. You must hand in the following items:

  1. A Director's Workbook. A Director's workbook is a description of the animation and the sound that will be used in the animation. You can use storyboards in this workbook if you desire.

  2. A movie. Do not turn in projectors.

  3. A one to two page description of the movie (due with the movie) that includes:

    1. The techniques used to create your movie (e.g., auto-distort, etc.) and which scenes they were used in.

    2. A reference to the places in the movie that you used interesting techniques. For example, you should identify which cast members are film loops and which sprites used special scripts. You would also identify the frames where elements were used.

    3. List the scipts that you use. You do not have to provide the scripts, but must list which scripts were used.

    4. A brief description of what each member of your team did.

    5. Where you got your graphics from (e.g., a URL, a clip-art collection, etc.) if you did not create all of them from scratch.



Grading. Your project will be graded on the following criteria:

  1. Meeting all of the criteria given above.

  2. Story boards, overview, comments, and instructions. (15%) The detail and accuracy of these items will be considered.

  3. (40%) The technical difficulty of your movie. Better grades will result from the use of more difficult animation techniques and interactivity. Innovative use of animation techniques and difficult scripts will be worth more than just adding more animation or putting more scripts onto sprites and frames.

  4. Special effects. (20%) This includes the creative use of animation, the use of color cycling, gradients, palette effects, etc.


  5. Creativity of the story and artistry will be worth 15% of your grade.


  6. You may use behaviors in your movie, but they will not count towards the technical difficulty of the movie unless you have created the behaviors yourself.

  7. Difficulty of the project. (10%) Includes the overall effort required to put the project together, e.g., the time spent digitizing movies, capturing sounds, creating special effects, coding difficult script effects, etc.





Last updated on February 15, 2003 by John Barr