Carnival Scene 1, Week 2 Progress

I have been working on my #February2020 project for 1 week now and wanted to give myself a little check-in.

Here is what I laid out last week before starting the project:

• Update Action Script – 9th – 15th
• Update navigation buttons
• Convert hovers to HTML5 animations – 16th – 22nd
• Review & self grade – 23rd
• Improvements – 23-29th
• Decide next project for March (decide Feb 23 – 29th)
• Final self grade on 29th

What I figured Out

I was really hoping I would just open up the project (from 2006) and it would work with some minor tweaking. It didn’t. I went through trial & error of how to publish to HTML5 Canvas.

The 2006 version of the carnival website had HOVER states on the buttons. We (industry) haven’t used hover states since the popularity of the touch screen, so the 2020 version will need ANIMATED buttons instead. This just means I just create new ActionScript 3.0, no converting or updating 2.0.

I only have time to produce 1 (out of 3) scene for the February project. I expected this. Scene 2 and 3 will get pushed out to the March project, so I’m not working on anything related to a navigational button or menu, so scratch that bulletpoint.

I did not think about a preloader. The project requires a basic preloader for the user experience, but there will in no way be time for a custom preloader for February. I’ll have to find or reuse some generic one, and re-evaluate the work needed in March to complete the project. Add a bulletpoint.

Plan the Work

The updated list now looks like this:

• Update Action Script – 9th – 15th
• Update navigation buttons
• Convert hovers to HTML5 animations – 16th – 22nd of scene 1
• [new] Add a preloader
• Review & self grade – 23rd
• Improvements – 23-29th
• Decide next project for March (decide Feb 23 – 29th) Decided. Scenes 2 & 3 targeted for next month.
• Final self grade on 29th

Define the Production of Buttons

It took me a 2-3 days (6 hours) to get familiar with Animate (it’s just like Flash) and get my 1st button interactive and publish the document. Once I had my first button working, I wrote down 6 steps it takes to publish a button.

1. Create 2 layers, 1 for button 1 for movie clip
2. Create a folder for file & layer maintenance
3. Create the movie clip animation
4. Put animation inside of a button
5. Create movie clip holding the .jpg
6. ActionScript for clicking the button & showing

It is most important to keep a naming & numbering scheme on the output of buttons & movie clips so that writing the code is more manageable.

I am surprised how much effort this took to get the process down.

Now Crank Out the Quantity

Next I needed to quantify the amount of production work it would take to produce all the buttons for scene 1, so I printed a map and numbered them. I circled 18 buttons I wanted on the map with the accompanying image to display. This week I have completed 7 (and 1/2) in about 9 hours. That leaves 11 more buttons to complete by the 22nd (6 days).

February 22 Button Deadline

Animating 2 buttons a day sounds unreasonable given the past pace, but if I simplify the animations to more flashing and less rotation of tent tops, I have a chance to get the buttons completed by the 22nd. Additionally, 18 buttons is a lot, I will skip a few buttons if I have to, just to meet the deadline.

• 2/16 – 2 buttons
• 2/17 – 2 buttons
• 2/18 – 2 buttons
• 2/19 – 2 buttons
• 2/20 – 2 buttons
• 2/21 – 1 button
• 2/22 – preloader