Craig Phillips - Project 4

Project 4

My favorite tweening type would probably be regular "create a motion tween"-ing, because it's so simple and fast, and I like messing with 3D rotation the most of all the different kinds of position change. The funnest part of the module is probably the nested animation stuff, because I know it's going to be useful when creating more realistic animations, since real motion isn't usually just one action and direction. It gets me excited about what I'll be able to do in the future.

Once again, I got stuck for a minute on the classic motion tween because the guide layer got me mixed up. It's just kind of weird having different layers that are represented on the timeline the same way, but the user having to interact with them differently. I'm getting used to it, though. Most of the other tweening tools were pretty intuitive and didn't prove to be a challenge.

I used onion-skinning for the gunfire coming from the helicopter a bit. It was definitely helpful because I could focus on the gunfire, but still see the placement of the helicopter in the background. It'll be more important when I try more complicated frame-by-frame animation, but I can already see the uses.

I used nested animation on my alien, so that he would appear to be either careening or stomping as he moves across the skyline. It's admittedly a pretty simple animation that didn't prove to be a problem.

I used easing on the piece of building that falls to the ground from the fire. I simply made it speed up (on the y-axis change), so that it looked like it was gaining speed as it fell.

I used a couple of filters on the 3D text animation. I used a slight "bevel" to give the words some depth. I also used "blur", which was applied as part of the tween along with the 3D position change. I started the text out heavily blurred and made it go sharp by the end of the movie (in about the same fashion as the book lesson's "woman" graphic).

I didn't have any issues using the 3D rotation tool. It's actually easier to use than a lot of the seemingly simpler tools in Flash. Keeping the turns smooth and running them for the right amount of time takes a little concentration, but it's mostly pretty easy.

This project was pretty fun, because we're learning a lot of new stuff and getting more creative control.