Lab 08:  Holiday Greeting Card

Overview

The goal will be a Flash greeting card for a special occasion such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, Birthday, Wedding Anniversary, etc. The card will feature text, images, and sounds appropriate to the occasion, and will be personalized as coming from you, the sender, to a specific other person, the recipient.

Like greeting cards on paper media, this electronic greeting card should have two pages. Each page is implemented by a separate scene in Flash. The first page should have a greeting or title. The second page should have material which continues the card, such as a verse or a conclusion to the greeting or title. The name of the recipient and your name as sender should be on the card, either on the first or second page. Graphics and sounds, suitable to the occasion should be selected.


Grading Criteria:

To receive full credit for this assignment, your greeting card must include:

·       sound,

·       animation (similar to previous labs)

·       two scenes,

·       your full name and class section.

·       Additionally, your Flash Greeting Card will also be graded on aesthetics, effort, and creativity.

 

Required Materials:  Headset (if working in COSC Labs).  At least one sound file, appropriate to your movie's content, that you'll have to download.

Prerequisite activities to Lab 8:  Prior to attempting to complete Lab 8, check out the links below to review some "working with Flash tutorials."

 

Adobe Animate Help  / How to use sound in Adobe Animate

URL: https://helpx.adobe.com/animate/using/using-sounds.html

 

Flash CS6 Tutorial: How To Add Sound (YouTube Video)

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJnFBnkhSaM

 

Flash Sound Tutorial

URL: http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Flash_sound_tutorial

 

Procedure

  1. On a piece of paper, design your greeting card. Make a rough sketch of the text and images (indicate the sounds) of what will appear on each screen. Your greeting card should consist of two pages.
  2. It is a good idea to get your sound files before you start working on your card. Flash can use sound files in  .mp3 format or .wav (Windows) or .aiff (McIntosh) or. The .mp3 audio format offers small file size and excellent quality. However, it can be a little challenging to find sound effects in .mp3 format. Most sound effects are in .wav format. Both formats are easy to use in Flash. There is a wealth of freely downloadable sound files on the web and many search engines offer to search by file type.

    It is required for this assignment to use sound. Download an appropriate sound file to your H:/COSC 109 folder or to your local computer now.

    One site you can check out for free sound downloads is: https://www.freesound.org/

  3. If you would like to import clipart, try the sites http://www.webdeveloper.com/animations/ or http://www.animfactory.com/. Flash can import several graphics files, but it is probably best to use one of the more common formats like .gif, .jpg. The .bmp format is not recommended because it would cause a large file size. Many other resources are available on the web, please feel free to use any resource of your choice. It is not required for this assignment to import clipart.
  4. Importing clipart into Flash can be tricky. It will be easier to create a drawing or a greeting title than to import clipart, especially when the clipart is already animated.  
  5. If you decide to import clipart, use File / Import to import clipart. It is recommend to use a separate layer for each clipart object you import. If you want to move imported animated clipart to a different location on the screen, make sure to move the object in all imported keyframes. A feature called onion skinning  shows outlines of all objects in surrounding keyframes and can be very helpful when you want to move imported animated objects. Turn onion skinning on by clicking one of the icons showing overlapping rectangles directly under the timeline. 

Here is how you can extend the length of your imported animated clipart by copying frames: Hold down the control key. Click and hold down the left mouse key in the first keyframe. Drag the mouse over to the last frame of your animation. Select Edit/Timeline/Copy Frames. Click in the first available empty frame after your animation. Select Edit/Timeline/Paste Frames. Repeat as desired.

Sometimes Flash is unreliable to import clipart objects and they won't show correctly when playing your movie (especially when using the clipboard). If this happens, it is best to try a different object than the one that causes trouble. 

  1. If you haven't already, copy all the image and sound files you will be needing to your H:\COSC109 folder or to an appropriate folder on your local computer.

  2. Create your greeting card frames. Refer back to the instructions in from Labs 5 – 7.  Two separate scenes will help you to organize your card. The first scene should contain the cover of the card, the second scene should contain the message you usually see on the inside of the card. Make sure that the cover and message stay on the screen for some time (means that the objects are visible for a certain number of frames). Your name is required to show somewhere on the greeting card. 
  3. Create the 2 scenes now.  Save your flash file as filename Lab08_GreetingCard.fla in your COSC109\CompletedLabAssignments folder.

  4. Incorporate sound after you are finished creating the two scenes of your card.  You will need to import the sound file you just downloaded into the library of our Flash movie. Choose File / Import to Library, navigate to your sound file, click on OK. You can now see your sound file in the library (Window / Library).

  5. Sound files should have their own layer in Flash. Insert a new layer and name it "sound". Insert the keyframe using Insert / Timeline / Keyframe at the frame where you want the sound to start. 
  6. The next step is to play the sound at a specific frame in our movie. The most intuitive method to incorporate sound into your movie is the drag and drop method. 
  7. Open the movie's library using Window / Library. Your sound files should be listed in the lower half of the library window. Click on the requested sound file, hold down your left mouse button and drag the file onto the canvas. A wave representing the sound appears in the sound layer.
  8. Select Control / Play all Scenes. Control / Rewind your movie and Control / Play it. 
  9. If your sound file is very long and you would like to stop playing sound at a particular frame, click this frame in the sound layer and make it a keyframe. In the Properties window, select the drop down box to the right of Sound: box and select Stop. Your sound will stop playing in this keyframe.
  10. You may have to look back into animation 1 and animation 2 for specific instructions regarding layers, scenes, rewinding, exporting the movie and so on.
  11. Resave your flash file (click on the Save icon).  Your greeting card must now be saved in .swf format for e-mailing.

Export your movie for e-mailing.  Select Control / Play All Scenes,  select Control / Rewind, select Control / Loop Playback (this option will continuously play your movie).  Now we are ready to export the movie to Flash Player format.  Select File / Export Movie. In Save as Type, select Flash Movie (*.swf), as file name type Lab08_GreetingCard. 

Check your work by going to your file directory and double-clicking on filename Lab08_GreetingCard.swf.  Your movie should now be playing in a continuous loop. If it looks and sounds OK, you’re ready to e-mail it.

 Submitting your file:

Send an e-mail to webster@towson.edu and attach one file: Lab08_GreetingCard.swf
with the Subject Heading “COSC 109.102: Submitting Lab Assignment #8”