Falling Boxes and Characters

I used different colours for the boxes to bring a bit of interest and dimension whilst testing the falling and bouncing effects. The characters are all the same at this point... all Louise's illustration of Matt. They don't show up too well on the size I'm looking at the screen and even larger they don't look that great, so a bit of work will have to be done on the illustrations to get them to work.






On the bottom two screenshots, I used Louise's other illustrations of Matt with no arms and the separate arm images which I moved around frame by frame. I've not altered the arms for the purpose of this exercise so it's not very realistic at this stage.


I looked at the HTML version once publishing this Flash file and the height of my work is too big for my screen. This is odd as the height is set at 768px which is what my screen's resolution is. I don't really understand why it doesn't fit. The published Flash Player file does fit on my screen though so that's good as I can always alter the size of the Flash file when I embed it.

Second Attempt at Flash

Flash Websites

The Coral Windows website has a Flash effect that is similar to what I want to achieve at the beginning of the Freefall website. The "block images" fall into place very quickly and bounce when they land. It looks very classy, I really like it!

First Attempt at Flash

I just wanted to play with making a character fall down a screen. I read about Trace Bitmap which converts the image to little sections which I could then separate and tweak accordingly. The following screenshots show me selecting the function to trace it

Free Project Management Software

Software called Simple-TODO shows the above screen where you can enter jobs to do, enter a date and enter when completed.

I've also researched into Project Management and two methods seem to come up many times. They are Critical Path Analysis and Gantt Chart:

Thoughts about initial sketches

I am concerned that the intro could be a bit too long. It entails the band falling to the bottom of the web page and other items eg links menu, logo, photograph etc falling and the band members catching them and putting them in the correct place. I could offer a 'Skip Intro' button so the load can be faster for future visits, but then what about the rest of the site? I don't want to create something so immense that I can't get it done in time!

Another option is to have the band fall down to the ground, then everything else falling quickly and they have to duck so they don't get hit. That could be quite quirky. Then when something is clicked, one of the band could move the objects around the screen. Actually yes I like this! This means not too much at the beginning so I probably wouldn't need a 'Skip Intro' button after all.

Finally a friend of mine has offered to video the band (with a webcam) and edit it for us so we can put a semi decent video onto the site. The sound won't be very good but it will be better than the current clip of their first gig which was muffled and hard to hear Bethany sing.

Sketchings

Sketches for Flash introduction



Photo Thumbnails used to help sketch

Website Ideas

I also asked the others what they thought to the four main ideas. The emails are below:


Hi,
I've had a few thoughts about the website...

1) The band members "walk on" to the web page from the side carrying a board which has the logo on. Then elements of the website like the navigation links fall down from the top and they catch them, putting them in the right place on the page. Sort of like removal men lol, not sure how I could actually do any of this though lol!

2) Scrap book feel with sellotape sticking down photos onto the web page as you hover over and stuff like that

3) Musical theme with the instruments moving across the page and becoming a photo or the links etc

4) Mythical creature theme with elements exploding in fire when clicked on (ie the links once clicked on...)

What do you all think of those ideas?? It's hard really having to do it all blind, without a logo and band members, but the work you both keep sending through is inspiring me! I love the funky background of the line drawing Louise. I could have sections of that moving around and turning etc. Could make your eyes go a bit bogeyed though lol!!

Jo


Hi Jo

1 - like the idea, ties in with the name - can you do this though!
2 - sounds promising - but have we seen it before?
3 - not too sure about this
4 - no!

Gavin

Gavin's work so far

Louise's Work so far