Photoshop

We did an exercise in class to help us get used to photoshop and know all the different tools and what they do. As I have never used photoshop before this exercise really helped with my understanding. This is the origional picture that we then edited in photoshop. The result of this is:

To get the picture to look like this we had to edit it alot. First of all we had to import both pictures the house and the stormy sky onto photoshop into two different layers. I then dragged the stormy background onto the picture of an old house so that the pictures were together. As I put the pictures together the stormy sky background was infront of the house, to make the house come forward, I went to the panel with my layers in and switched the two layers around, doing this made the house picture come forward and making the stormy sky be the background. After this I then had to get rid of the white background etc, to do this I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool. As this was the first time I had used photoshop so I deleted little chunks at a time of the white background to get used to the tool.

When I had got rid off all the background I didnt want I then had to get rid off all the fencing and wiring that was at the front of the house. To do this we used the cloning tool. To use this we had to click above the place we wanted to work on so that we selected the right colour, then we would click over what we want to get rid of and the colour you selected will then blend everything together. I had to be careful using this tool as it sometimes smudged the window panes etc. We used the clone tool to make the picture look more presentable.

After that we created a title called 'Mysterious House'. When I made the title I created a new layer for it. I made my title have a dark colour and effect so it adds more scariness.

I then imported my finished picture into flash.

When I finished that I went back into photoshop and created a button for my picture. I created three different button. The button above is the button you will see first. I drew the arow myself using the brush tool then added text to it.

This blue button is what you will see when you roll over the button. To do this I used the brush tool again and went over it in blue. I changed the colour as I wanted it to be seen when you rollover the button.

This is the third and final button at the starting page. This time I changed the colour back to red and changed the colour of the writing instead. This button is used for when you click down onto the button. I used red as it creates more of a scary feeling.

I then inserted the buttons onto flash, in the first layer it has the picture of the house and in the second layer I inserted my buttons. One at a time I inserted my buttons making sure they all alligned together. Once I had done this I inserted the buttons onto my picture. I then went to the control panel and went to test movie and tested to see if the buttons worked. Which then looked like the picture below.

When we had done that we then added another scene into flash and another layer so that we could insert the next picture for the next seen. I used a picture of a scary hallway with a girl standing there so that it creates mystery and carries on with the scary theme. To insert this picture I made sure I had clicked on to the second scene then imported the picture in the picture library then dragging it into the centre of the page. Before importing the picture I had to resize the photo using photoshop. When I had inserted the photo into flash I made sure the photo was alligned in the centre.

When I had created a new layer in flash I named it actions. To put in actions for my movie, I firstly clicked onto my first scene which is the picture of the house, then went onto actionscript panel. When the panel came up i scrolled down to 'timeline control' and dragged 'stop' into the middle of the screen. This will then stop the scene once it has gone onto the other screen so that both scenes dont flash up after each other repeatidly.



I also had to put actions into the second scene which is the picture off the hallway. Again I made sure I was clicked onto 'scene 2'. I did the same as before as I went onto actionscript panel. When I was on there I had to drag a few more things into the centre of the page.

After that I tested out what I had done and the two scenes I had created came together smoothly. They didnt overlap like they had done before.

Alphabet Adventures

Alphabet Adventures
 I am going to produce a interactive flash presentation to be used in a junior school. I will use graphics and sound to present letters of the alphabet and words in a fun and exciting way which will appeal to 6 - 8 year olds, for example 'Aa is for apple'
Sounds can be used to pronounce the letters and words made by the letters. This will help children to pronounce the words and letters easily.
Buttons and rollover graphics can be used to progress through the presentation and trigger graphic images, texts, animations and sound.
The final interactive media product will be a projector file on a CDROM published from flash.
My target audience for this is 6 - 8 year olds.

Why did I choose 'Alphabet Adventures' for this unit?I chose to do 'Alphabet Adventures' as it will be a fun task creating all the characters for each letter in the alphabet. Its a very creative task which will make it more enjoyable. It will be a challenge creating my characters for every letter. As it is for a younger audience I will be using cartoon characters which makes it easier and more fun.


Useful links?
There are a few links that I can use to help me with my task, they are helpful as they have given me ideas to what I can do for my own alphabet.
For example:
http://www.learningplanet.com/act/fl/aact/index.asp
I even got images off 'Google' to help me with my ideas.

Style?
I am going to merge my letters and animals together to make it more of an unique style. This will make it more interesting to look at and will capture the eyes of the younger target audience. The characters will be very colourful.

My Planning
Ambient Sound - Describe location
For my alphabet adventures I will use different sounds. At the start screen where all the letters are shown i will use a jungle noise to represent all the animals. When the user clicks onto the letter they want for example 'A' then it will show an alligator imerged into the letter 'A' i will use the noise of a swamp to represent the location of the alligator. Then i will put sound in that the alligator will make and i will do this for every animal.
Spot sound effects - triggered by something eg user or change in pictures
Sound spot effects will be used when you click or hover over the pictures. When someone clicks on the letter or hovers over the animal it will make the noise that the animal makes.
Dialogue - speech, pronounce letters or wordsWhen someone clicks onto the letter a clear voice will pronounce the letter aswell as the animal that represents the letter. This will be there so that the children have a better chance as pronouncing the letters and animals rather than them reading the words and trying to pronounce it themselves.Music - Creates moodIn the background there will be a song playing, not too loud that you cant hear the letters and animals. It will be catchy therefore making the children want to learn more. I want it to create a happy mood but not too annoying that children cant concentrate or will just leave the page.

These three drawings are what I have created using photoshop but these are a rough version of what i will be doing. I will be using these in my final work but with colour. All the letters will look like this to represent the animal that the letter represents. The drawings are very cartoon like rather to them looking realistic as they will be more appealing to my target audience which is children. Also if they are cartoon like I can make them blink, or for the fish i can make bubbles appear.
I will be using dialouge in my alphabet adventures. I will be saying the letter and the animal which represents that letter. This is to help children with pronouncing the word and letter.