Course Description: An
introduction to interactive 2D computer animation using Flash. The focus of the
class will be on creating projects using drawing tools, bitmaps, sound,
symbols, layers, animation, and basic interactivity. The student will realize
smaller projects as well as develop an animated short complete with
interactivity, audio, and animation.
Evaluation will be based on the time and effort put into these projects as well
as additional supporting tutorials. This will involve self-motivation and
problem solving. It will be necessary to keep up with all phases of the class
to fully succeed. We will be presenting and critiquing work. Participation in
discussions and critiques is mandatory. The student must be prepared to discuss
and present their work on specific due dates.
Units-3.0
Lecture Hours-2.0
Laboratory Hours-3.0
Course Prerequisites:
None
Recommended: Animation Open Lab 092L
Recommended:
Basic Computer Skills
Texts:
Required:
’Ä¢Hollywood 2D Digital Animation: The New Flash Production Revolution by Sandro
Corsaro and Clifford J. Parrott (Paperback). In bookstore.
Optional:
’Ä¢Exploring Storyboarding:
An In-Depth Guide to the Art and Techniques of Contemporary Storyboarding by
Wendy Tumminello. Publisher: Thomson Delmar Learning. In bookstore.
’Ä¢The Animator’Äôs Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for
Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators by Richard
Williams. Publisher: Faber and Faber. In bookstore.
’Ä¢Flash 8 for
Windows and Macintosh: Visual Quickstart Guide, 2005. $24.99
Materials and Supplies:
Any of the below:
-CDs for
backup
-USB flash drive: 64mb-256mb: recommended: 128mb
-portable hard drive
Course Goals:
Process for Evaluation:
You will have the following projects during the semester. These projects will
be presented for critique. Be prepared. Emphasis will be placed on planning,
organization, and deadlines. The more prepared to work and participate in class
you are, the more successful you will be.
Class projects:
in-class tutorials (spread out over semester):
tweening tutorial, masking tutorial, motion guide tutorial, and animation
tutorials.
First project: The Worlds Ugliest Flash Drawing Contest. To be
rated in class. Complete with prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place (drawing
tools, basic Flash usage, and interface comprehension).
Second Project: The Mix. Making a sound composition with imported audio (audio import and usage). Adding in one animated piece of artwork synched to the audio.
Third Project: The 30 Second Animation Project The sky’Äôs the limit on this one. This must use frame by frame and tweening animation. It should also include audio.
Fourth Project: Collaborative Interactive Piece.
Students will work in groups, create a pitch for a short with an interactive
flowchart and then divide tasks completing the scenes.
Final project:
You will design your own animated short from a proposal to storyboards to
animatics and finally a realized piece. It must have dialog, sound effects,
tweening and frame by frame animation, a motion guide, etc.
Please keep in mind the end of the year animation show. Any animated film produced in class can be screened at this venue in May.
Estimated Homework Time Commitment: Please budget 3-6 hours per week to review the materials and to work on your assignments and projects.
Grading:
Attendance will be recorded and is mandatory. Two absences are excusable if you
speak with me before hand. Three absences may lead to an automatic fail (this
is the policy of the animation department at College of the Canyons)
Grading Break down:
’Ä¢ Assignments/Projects: First Project (pass/fail) (10%), Second Project (10%),
Third Project (20%), Fourth Project (10%)
’Ä¢ Final Project (30%)
’Ä¢ Tutorials: tween, motion guide, mask, and animation (10%)
’Ä¢ Class Participation/Attendance (10%)
Grading Scale:
A=100-93, A-=92-90, B+=89-87, B=86-83, B-=82-80, C+=79-77, C=76-73, C-=72-70,
D+=69-67, D=66-65, F=64-below (F is the only failing grade).
Policy:
’Ä¢ Projects are graded on planning and organization, quality of work, attention
to detail, and thoughtful use of concepts introduced in class. Creativity and
use of the tools will be considered as well.
’Ä¢ Lateness or leaving early will not be tolerated as well. Please speak to me
if you have any particular issues regarding this. Chronic lateness and leaving early
will be tallied and used to calculate attendance, every hour missed being
calculated until the total class time of 3 hours for a day is reached, and then
the above will apply.
’Ä¢ Late Assignments are graded down a letter grade for each class date late.
This is non-negotiable, only an excused absence justifies lateness. Assignments
can always be redone for a better grade, so it is better to turn in something
than nothing.
’Ä¢ Grade challenges: it is the student’Äôs responsibility to keep all work (projects & tutorials) and grade sheets to challenge a grade.
’Ä¢ If you disrupt class you will be given one warning only, further incidences will result in being sent to the Dean of Students and possible removal from the class. Interpretation of what is considered "disruptive" is at the discretion of the instructor, basically this entails any behavior that interferes with the educational process of the students.
Available Support
Services:
’Ä¢ Open Labs: Recommended. USE IT. Animation Open Lab 092L
’Ä¢ Websites: see: http://larabank.com/flashclass/tutorial.html
’Ä¢ TLC Lab-I-209 The Tutoring/Learning/Computing Lab: no-cost tutorial
assistance in English, Math, and other disciplines.
’Ä¢ Library-R Building: copy machines, computer lab, an open media Lab,
filmstrips, slides, books.
I am available to meet with you to discuss class work, policies, or other
questions and concerns you may have.
I reserve the right to change the syllabus and projects/assignments.
Semester Deadlines:
Class Meets: February 5th ’Äì June 2nd
Add deadline: February 20th
Deadline to Drop without a W on transcript: March 2nd
Deadline to Drop, W will appear on your transcript: April 9th
Deadline to select CR/NC grading option: March 14th
Refund Deadline: February 20th
Holidays:
President’Äôs Week: February 16th-19th
Spring Break: April 2nd-April 8th
Memorial Day: May 28th
Week
1
February 5
Lecture:
-Introduction to Syllabus, website, and student work
-Introduction to application interface and document attributes
February
7
Lecture:
Creating objects with paint tools
A. Introducing toolbox and paint tools
B. Creating, breaking, joining, deforming, and transforming objects
C. Creating and manipulating fills and strokes
D. Making selections
E. Setting color attributes
F. Grouping and ungrouping objects
G. Merging shapes
H. Saving color
I. Gradients
J. Smoothing
K. Ink bottle
J. Pen tool
Working with the type tool
A. Setting and manipulating type attributes
B. Converting type into an object
1. Breaking, joining, deforming, transforming
2. Setting color attributes
3. Manipulating fill and stroke
4. Grouping and Ungrouping
Lab: Working with the Wacom &
Application familiarity time. Work on First Project: The Worlds Ugliest Flash
Drawing Contest (due Monday).
Homework: Read
Introduction and Chapter 1 in book: Introduction to Animation. First Project
is due Monday
Week 2
February 12
First Project Due: Ugly Drawing for Review
Critique and judging
Lecture:
Importing files and Rotoscoping
A. Bitmaps
B. Scanning
C. Vectorizing bitmaps
D. Lasso Tool and magic wand for bitmap clean-up.
E. Basic frame by frame Animation
F. The free transform tool
Lab: Start on Project 2, the mix, collect audio.
February 14
Lecture:
Importing files
B. Sound
Working in layers
A. Creating and editing
B. Creating and modifying layers
C. Working in layer state
Lab: Work on Project 2, the mix. Import bitmaps from Internet and
modify, cut up and animate.
Homework: Read
Chapter 4 in book: Drawing and Scanning.
Week 3
February 19
no class, President’Äôs Weekend
February
21
Lab: Work on Project 2, the mix. Due
Monday
Homework: Read
Chapter 10 in book: Audio. Second Project: The Mix is due Monday at the end
of class.
Week 4
February
26
Lecture:
Libraries
A. Library window
B. Managing
C. Sharing
Symbols and instances
A. Symbol use and type
B. Creating, enable, edit symbols
C. Symbol library
D. Create and modify instances
E. Breaking apart instances
F. Symbols and the
library
Second Project Due
at the end of class:
The Mix for Review
Critique
February
28
Lecture: Frame by
Frame animation/Keyframe Animation
A. Animating with the timeline
1. Frames
2. Keyframes
3. Do animate tutorial as example
Lab: Animation Tutorials.
Homework:
Read Chapter 2 in book: Basic Flash Animation Concepts. Animation tutorials due
on Monday.
Week 5
March
5
Animation Tutorials
due.
Lab: Start working on the Third Project Due: 30 second Animation
March 7
Lecture:
Animating
symbols and instances
B. Animating using tweening
1. Position
2. Rotation
3. Scale
4. Color
Lab: tween tutorial and work on Third Project Due: 30 second Animation
Homework:
Read Chapter 3 in book: The Flash Production Pipeline.
Week 6
March 12
Lab: work on Third Project Due: 30 second
Animation
March 14
Lecture:
Animating concepts continued...
C. Animating using motion paths
D. Animating with layers
E. Setting frame rate
F. Animated Masks
Lab: motion path and mask tutorial and
work on Third Project Due: 30 second Animation
Homework: Read
Chapter 6 in book: Time is Money.
Week
7
March 19
Lab: Work on Third Project Due: 30
second Animation
Homework: Third Project: 30 second Animation due Wednesday.
March
21
Third Project Due: 30 Second Animation for Review
Critique
Lecture:
Animation concepts continued...
G. Setting up a scene
H. Fine-tuning animation with onion skinning
I. Animating multiple objects
J. Reversing frames
K. Saving animations as symbols
L. Creating and working with nested animations
Flowcharts & animatics
Lab: Distribute Collaborative project guidelines.
Homework: Read Chapter 7 in book: Strategy of Character Design.
Week
8
March 26
Lab: Distribute Collaborative project
guidelines, divide students up, and have them start to conceptualize: create
flowchart and written proposal. They must as a group come up with a concept and
work on a written proposal for their project and a flowchart to be presented
at the end of class.
March
28
Lab: Students continue with the
Fourth Project: The Collaborative Interactive Piece working on
storyboards. Students should divide the storyboarding task up among themselves.
Homework: Be ready to present boards for the collaborative project on Monday.
Week
9
April 2
No Class, Spring Break
April
4
No Class, Spring Break
Week 10
April 9
Critique: Students present boards for project.
Lecture:
A. Tracing over artwork
B. Creating an animatic with multiple scenes.
C. Getting sound into your files effects and dialog.
Lab: Students import boards into Flash and must break apart boards into scenes and adjust timing of scenes. Find audio effects and add to file.
Lab: Students program architectures as a group.
Homework: Read Chapter 8 in book: Camera Moves
Week 11
April
16
Lecture:
Creating Interactivity: BUTTONS continued...Discuss preloaders and Flashkit
games, have students add a preloader to their files.
Lab: Students program architectures as a
group, inserting a preloader. When finished, begin dividing up scenes for final
artwork and animation.
April 18
Lab: The
scenes should be divided up among the students to be fully realized with final artwork
and animation.
Homework: Read Chapter 5 in book: From Flash
to Broadcast and Film.
Week
12
April 23
Lab: Work
on artwork and animation for collaborative project.
April 25
Lab: Work on artwork and animation for collaborative project.
Homework: final project: written proposal, a few sentence pitch, due Monday. Collaborative project is due Monday.
Week
13
April 30
Collect written Final Project Proposals
Review and critique Collaborative Project.
Lab: work on
storyboards for final
Homework: Storyboards for final are due on Wednesday.
May 2
Critique boards for Final project.
Lab: Start
work on final: scan in boards, cut them up into scenes, record, collect, and
cut audio; create artwork and character sketches.
Homework: Read Chapter 9: Special Effects.
Week 14
May 7
Lab: Continue working on final:
symbolize character artwork, work on backgrounds, etc.
May 9
Lab: work on Final: animation
Homework: Read Chapter 11: Brave New World.
Week 15
May
14
Lab: work on Final:
animation
May 16
Lab: work on Final:
animation
Week 16
May 21
Lab: work on Final:
animation
May 23
Lab: work on
Final: animation
Homework: FINAL PROJECTS ARE DUE NEXT WEDNESDAY
Week 17
May 28
No Class, Memorial Day
May 30
Final Projects Due.
Presentations.