Outline

All dates and times are subject to change.

DateDayTopicsReadings due
09-05-11 1
  • Intro to Course
  • Intro to Flash SDK:
    • Creating Vector Graphics
    • Publishing to the Web
  • Important Concepts:
    • Flash (SWF) Player
    • .swf File Format (executable)
    • Flash SDK Source Files - .fla, .as
    • Bitmap Graphics
    • Vector Graphics
    • Stroke and Fill
    • Importing Graphics

ICE

  1. ICE: Flash Tools

Readings

Flash Concepts
  1. SWF Format - "Small Web Format"
  2. Bitmap Graphics
  3. Vector Graphics
  4. Frame Rate
Flash Tools
  1. Flash Stage
  2. Draw Simple Lines and Shapes
  3. Brush Tool
  4. Eraser Tool
  5. Free Transform Tool
  6. Hand Tool
  7. Lasso Tool
  8. Line Tool
  9. Oval Primitive Tool
  10. Pencil Tool
  11. Polystar Tool
  12. Rectangle Primitive Tool
  13. Selection Tool
  14. Text Tool
  15. Zoom Tool

Video

  1. Flipbook Animation
  2. Classic Cel Animation
  3. Flash Frame-by-Frame Animation

Interactive

  1. Flash Games
  2. 8-bit D&D

Course Links

  1. Multi-tasking is a lie
  2. adobe.com - Getting Started With Flash
  3. adobe.com - Using Flash CS 5.5
  4. adobe.com - AS 3.0 Reference
  5. adobe.com - Flash Glossary

Demo Links

  1. Rogues - Vector vs. Bitmap
09-07-11 2
  • Flash SDK:
    • Flash Timeline
    • Layers
    • Frame-by-Frame Animation
    • Ease-in, Ease-out, Squash, Stretch, Exaggerate
    • Reusable Symbols
    • Library
    • Symbol properties, Classic tweening
    • Timeline Sound
  • Important Concepts:
    • Frames & Keyframes & Ease

ICE

  1. ICE: Walker
  2. HW: SimpleFlash Motion Tween

Readings

Flash Concepts
  1. Flash Symbol
  2. Flash Timeline
  3. Flash Layers
  4. Flash Library
  5. Flash Keyframe
  6. Flash Tween
  7. Flash Classic Tween
Flash Tools
  1. Eyedropper Tool
  2. Inkbottle Tool
  3. Object Drawing Mode
  4. Paint Bucket Tool
  5. Pen Tool
  6. Spray Brush Tool
Video
  1. Squash/Stretch/Exaggeration

Exercises

  1. Stickman
  2. Nested and layered Scene
  3. Bowling Ball Guys
09-12-11 3
  • Shape Tweens and Shape Hints
  • Motion Tweens
  • Motion Editor
  • Nested MovieClips

Readings

Flash Tools
  1. Gradient Color Pointers
  2. Gradient Transform Tool
Flash Concepts
  1. Gradient
  2. Movie Clip Symbol
  3. Flash Motion Tween
  4. Flash Shape Tween

Video

  1. Understanding Tweens
  2. Creating Shape Tweens
  3. Creating Motion Tweens
  4. Using the Motion Editor

Exercises

  1. Animated Gradient
  2. Bow and Arrow
  3. Fruitbowl
09-14-11 4
  • Nested MovieClips
  • Display Lists
  • Programming Interactivity
  

Exercises

  1. Car 1
  2. Car 2
09-19-11 5
  • Document Class
  • MovieClip subclasses
  • Dynamic Creation of MovieClips

Reading

  1. AS 3.0 Bible - Chap. 14: Display List

Reference

AS 3.0 Classes
  1. MovieClip
  2. Sprite
  3. DisplayObjectContainer
  4. InteractiveObject
  5. DisplayObject
  6. EventDispatcher
  7. Object
  8. DisplayObjectContainer.addChild()
AS 3.0 Events
  1. MouseEvent
  2. Event.ENTER_FRAME

Exercise

  1. Car 3
09-21-11 6
  • Project 1 Assigned
  • Creating Button Symbols
  • SimpleButton class
  • (parent as Document) casting
  • Frame Labels
  • Invisible Buttons

ICE

  1. ICE: Project 1 Starter

Exercise

  1. Project 1 Starter
09-26-11 7
  • Project 1 Dev
  • Timeline Sound
  • Button Sound
  • Custom Cursor
  • Drag And Drop
  • More targeting
  • Memory management
  • Custom Events

Reference

  1. MouseEvent.CLICK
  2. MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP
  3. MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN
  4. Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE
  5. Event.REMOVED_FROM_STAGE
  6. EventDispatcher.addEventListener
  7. EventDispatcher.removeEventListener
  8. Sprite.startDrag()
  9. Sprite.stopDrag()
  10. EventDispatcher.dispatchEvent()
  11. Event() Constructor
  12. help.adobe.com - about events

Exercise

  1. Skeleton 2
09-28-11 8
  • Project 1 in-class time
    
10-03-11 9
  • Flash Components
  • URLConnection class
  • XML and RSS
  • ICE: RSS Reader

Flash Components

  1. fl.controls
  2. fl.Controls.List
  3. fl.Controls.SelectableList
  4. fl.controls.TextArea
  5. fl.data.DataProvider
  6. flash.text.TextFormat
  7. Creating Components

AS3 for Net Operations

  1. flash.net.UrlLoader
  2. flash.net.UrlRequest
  3. XML
  4. XMLList

Concepts

  1. Wikipedia - event driven programming
  
10-05-11 10
  • Midterm Exam
    
10-10-11 11
  • Midterm Practical
    
10-12-11 12
  • Case Study: Asteroids I
    • Event Listeners - onEnterFrame
    • Procedural Animation
    • Arrays of Asteroids
    • Explosion Animation
  • Asteroid Classes:
    • Document
    • Game
    • GameElement
    • Asteroid

AS3 Globals

  1. Array() class
  2. AS3 Global Constants
  3. AS3 Global Functions
  4. AS3 Operators
  5. AS3 Statements, Keyworks, and Directives
  6. AS3 Special Types
 Asteroids I
10-17-11 13
  • Case Study: Asteroids II
    • Adding a Player
    • KeyBoard Control
    • KeyBoard Daemon
    • KeyUp events
    • Polling the keyboard
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • Player
    • KeyBoarder
    • KeyBoarderEvent
  1. Flash.events.KeyboardEvent
  2. Flash.ui.KeyBoard
 Asteroids II
10-19-11 14
  • Case Study: Asteroids III
    • Pooled Bullets
    • Shooting Bullets
    • Managing Bullets
    • Re-using Bullets
    • Bullet Lifespan
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • Bullet
    • BulletManager
  1. flash.geom.Point
  2. flash.display.DisplayObject.localToGlobal()
  3. flash.display.DisplayObject.globalToLocal()
 Asteroids III
10-24-11 15
  • Case Study: Asteroids IV
    • Sprite Layers
    • Collision Detection:
      • hitTestObject() - bounding boxes
      • hitTestPoint() - global coordinates
    • HUD Screen
    • Dynamic TextFields
    • Embedding Fonts
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • HUD

Demos

  1. hitTestObjectDemo.swf
  2. hitTestPointDemo.swf

Links

  1. flash.display.DisplayObject.hitTestObject()
  2. flash.display.DisplayObject.hitTestPoint()
  3. flash.display.DisplayObject.opaqueBackground
  4. MouseEvent.localX
  5. MouseEvent.localY
  6. MouseEvent.stageX
  7. MouseEvent.stageY
 Asteroids IV
10-26-11 16
  • Case Study: Asteroids V
    • Downloading Files
    • XML
      • Well-formed XML
      • Writing XML
      • Parsing XML
    • Levels

Links

  1. flash.net.URLLoader
  2. flash.net.URLRequest
  3. XML - and XML object
  4. XMLList - a list (sim. to array) of XML objects
  5. wikipedia - Well Formed XML
  6. help.adobe.com - working with XML

XML Terms

  1. Element Node (or just Element) - an opening tag, a closing tag, and all of its contents. Elements are allowed to contain other elements, or can contain text.
  2. Child Element - any element that has a parent.
  3. Root Element - an XML element that contains every other XML element in the document.
  4. Attribute - contain more information about the element. Present in the opening tag of the element.

XML Concepts

  1. Well-formed XML follows a few rules:
    1. Must have a root element
    2. All tags must be closed, and in the right order
    3. All attribute values must be quoted
    4. Non-standard characters should be declared or enclosed in CDATA sections
  2. If a document's XML is NOT well-formed, then the document is NOT an XML document and it cannot be parsed.
  3. Where information is stored in an XML document:
    • - As text inside elements OR
    • - As attributes of elements
 Asteroids V
levels.xml
10-31-11 17
  • Case Study: Asteroids VI
    • Timers
    • TimerEvents
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • UFO
  1. flash.utils.Timer
 Timer Demo
Asteroids VI
11-02-11 18
  • Case Study: Asteroids VII
    • Screens
    • Tweens
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • InstructionScreen
    • LoseScreen
    • Screen
    • TitleScreen
    • WinScreen
  1. caurina tweener library
  2. caurina transitions
  3. code.google.com - tweener
 Asteroids VII
Tweener Demo
11-07-11 19
  • Case Study: Asteroids VIII
    • Sound() class
    • SoundChannel() class
  • New Asteroid Classes:
    • SoundClip
    • SoundManager
  1. AS3 - Working With Sound
  2. flash.media.Sound
  3. flash.media.SoundChannel
  1. Sound Demo
  2. Asteroids VIII
  3. UFO Sound Code
  4. Player Sound Code
11-09-11 20
  • Final Written Exam
    
Finals Week