Lab05: Personal Illustration
Overview
This laboratory activity will
use Flash (Animate
CC) to
draw a picture. The picture will be used as your personal illustration to
highlight an aspect of your interests or personal style. The information can be
considered a form of "business card".
Remember to always check out the COSC 109 website to see completed examples of the lab assignments.
Procedure
Note: to access Flash on any of the COSC Lab PCs, use . . . Start / All Programs / Adobe Animate CC
- Start
Flash per above. Select File / New / Actionscript
3.0 / OK. To ensure that all controls are shown on the screen, select View
/ Magnification / Show All, and select View/Preview Mode/Full. The properties
window should show to the right of your screen by default. If you
don't see this window, select Window / Properties to open it.
- Adjust the
size of the window. The default window size is
unsuitable for our purposes, so use the menu Modify / Document. In
the Document Properties set the Dimensions to 512 pixels (width) x
280 pixels (height). You can also change the background color (Modify /
Document / Stage Color) for your drawing in Document Properties.
Select OK.
- Draw a
picture to reflect your interests, or something about yourself. Your final
picture must Include text, some geometrical
shapes and some freehand drawing. The illustration must also contain your
name, major and class section.
- Include
some text information by using the text tool. Feel
free to choose distinctive fonts. Fonts that look like handwriting, for
example, are available. You could add any other information about yourself
or your areas of interest, for example "Save the Rainforest".
- Use at
least 2 layers. You can show the usage of
layers by placing objects in back (or in front) of each other. For
example, draw a tree on the canvas in one layer. Add a second layer
(choose Insert / Timeline / Layer) and
place another object in the same area as the tree (for example a cloud).
- Experiment
with layers by rearranging the ordering of
the layers (called the stacking order). Change the stacking
order. Drag the bar labeled Layer 1 up into the position where the bar
labeled Layer 2 is. Observe how this causes objects to be in front or in
back.
- Save your
drawing as a Flash file (.fla) to your
H:\COSC109|CompletedLabAssignments folder.
Choose File / Save As and save your file as Lab05.fla. Files
with .fla extension are the native Flash format
and contain the information you need if you want to change or update your
drawing in the future. However, this is not the format you will turn in.
As we are working with images, we will convert our file into a common
image format, .gif.
- Export
your image to .gif format. Use File / Export Image
to convert your drawing as a .gif file (preferred). In this case, a .gif
file format is preferred over a .jpg file since the .jpg format will
compress with loss of data, normally resulting in unusual color artifacts
around the borders of your text characters.
- Navigate to the location on
your computer to save this exported file to the same location where you saved
Lab05.fla.In the Save
as type drop down box, select "GIF Image (*.gif)". In the File
name drop down box, type the file name as Lab05. Click OK.
- A dialog
box "Export GIF" pops up. Make sure to select "Full
Document Size" in the "Include:" drop down box.
This option uses the movie size you defined. Do not use "Minimum
Image Area", this will try to optimize the movie size and might
reduce or enlarge your defined movie size.
-
Grading
Criteria
- Picture
must contain freeform shapes
- Picture
must contain geometrical shapes
- Picture
must contain text
- Picture
must contain your name, section, and major
- Picture
must use at least two layers
- Picture
must be posted in .gif format
Submitting
your file:
Send an e-mail
to webster@towson.edu
and attach one file: Lab05.gif
with the Subject Heading “COSC
109.102: Submitting Lab Assignment #5”