Re: FLASH:check it out

[Len Harrison]

Hi Maraya,


Interesting to see the work of someone else involved with similiar issues as

myself which are significantly different from most of the sites previewed

here. Some thoughts on approaches from my own experience:


Screenshot bitmaps pose unique handling issues in Flash. I think it's useful

to stay very clear on what you are trying to communicate with your

screenshots at each point in the movie. Are we trying to convey the overall

appearance of the screen and/or the relationship of particular icons/menus?

Do we want the user to focus on the text data? Are we demonstrating a

specific activity?


Depending on the answers, we might handle screens differently. For "long

shots" of the whole screen, I usually use a .gif treated especially for this

purpose. Our apps run in 800x600 minimum and so does my work. Thus

full-screen shots must be reduced. I do this in Photoshop and use the

unsharp mask to bring back the detail required. Works pretty well. I shoot

for readable text (readable with a little effort if reduction is

significant) and for a contrast level equivalent to the original app or

perhaps a bit more, just shy of that "unsharp", harsh look. With your app

which looks low contrast to begin with, I'd probably up the contrast a bit.

Idea is to put some punch into the screenshot.


For specific screen areas I use alpha fades with zoom and a lot of dynamic

masking in Flash. If you make your mask a symbol and motion tween with size

and shape changing, you can get some very dynamic effects that focus on the

specific screen area you wish to deal with.


Unlike other Flash movies, we tend to put a lot of text on the screen with

graphics limited to navigation and those screenshots. So I tend to look for

ways to make them dynamic. I do a lot of text animation, all motion-tweened.

I also look to reuse our application icons wherever possible. But not as

bitmaps. Our graphics/UI department builds most everything in Illustrator so

I cop the original files which allows me to scale them (and sometimes

deconstruct them for animation purposes). Where these aren't available I

trace the bitmaps to produce vector images. These usually end up as buttons

or psuedo-buttons somewhere in the course of things (use an invisible button

on top of the graphic).


I also tend to eschew linear navigation, though this is somewhat a personal

taste thing. Instead, I'll do stuff like arrange my icons in some pleasing

way on the screen by motion-tweening them into position. Then I'll use a

mouseover on each to bring up a "tooltip" which capsules functionality.

Click on the thing and you go to the explanation of it while the navigation

icons slide into a corner and resize but remain active.


Big issue for me in this kind of piece is to leverage Flash capabilities to

keep the presentation dynamic, interactive, and engaging.


hth,


len harrison

instructional designer

lenhabtcorp [dot] com

At 03:52 PM 12/9/98 -0800, you wrote:

>Hi

>

>My first shockwave creation is at:

>

>http://www.upshot.com/draft4/flash.html

>

>I would really appreciate any comments at all.

>

>I sent this out yesterday and no one responded. :{

>

>Thanks,

>Maraya

>

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