Today I created some of my characters that I will be using in my Alphabet Adventures. I created them in photoshop. The picture below is one of the characters that I had created during this lesson. I also used a drawing tablet to make the process easier. 
To create this I used the brush tool to create the outline, in this case a 'z' shape making sure I made the ends curvy to look like a Zebra. As I found it difficult to draw straight lines free hand I held down the shift button when I clicked down which automatically draws a straight line. This helped with the top and bottom of the zebra. The only bad thing is that you can not use this tool going diagnolly.
The picture below is showing you the brush tool.
To create this I used the brush tool to create the outline, in this case a 'z' shape making sure I made the ends curvy to look like a Zebra. As I found it difficult to draw straight lines free hand I held down the shift button when I clicked down which automatically draws a straight line. This helped with the top and bottom of the zebra. The only bad thing is that you can not use this tool going diagnolly.
The picture below is showing you the brush tool.
Then I created a new layer after I had finished this, this was so that I could colour in what I created. Aswell as using the brush tool, I also used the paint bucket tool to speed up the process.
The only problem I faced in this session was that the characters do take a while to create as there are so many and they are detailed.
In this session I also created these characters:
21st November 2012
To start of this lesson I recorded my dialoge using a voice recorder which I will use in my final piece. I wrote down on a piece of paper what I wanted to say for example, A is for Aligator, B is for Bear etc. When i had done recording my dialogue I then put my recordings onto the computer.
The first time I did this the recording that I put on my computer was the wrong recording I needed and when I went back to put it on my computer someone had already deleted it. Meaning I had to go and record my dialouge again which the second time was successful.
When I had put the dialogue on to the computer I then edited how i sounded for example changing it to high pitch. I did this just to experiment with the effects.
When I had done this I then carried on with a few more edits which are below. I created these on photoshop using a drawing tablet, making sure I used layers for the colours and different tools for effects and to help make them look as professional as I could.
28th NovemberIn this session I decided to edit my voice recordings so that I could put them onto flash with my graphics. To edit my voice recorings I used Adobe Audition.
What I did on this programme was seperate all my recordings so that they wouldnt all play together which would help as i would have to put the seperate recordings on seperate scenes in flash. I did this by opening my voice recording which had all my dialouge on for example A is for alligator, B is for bear etc. Then I listened to my recording to see where the A is for alligator ended before going on to B is for Bear. I would then Highlight over all of the alligator recording, which is shown below.
After that I would right click onto the highlighted area and click onto 'Copy to new'. This would then copy the highlighted area to a seperate 'wav' file. When I had done this for every letter in the alphabet I then wanted to manipulate my voice so that it didnt sound like me.
To do this I clicked on the 'wav' file that I wanted, such as A is for alligator, then I would go to the panel at the top of the screen and click on effects then click onto time and pitch then click onto stretch and pitch.
Clicking on this will bring up a seperate panel which will look like this.
I would then click on on the top panel and make sure its on raise pitch. Then I would mess around with the stretch and pitch shift untill I found the right pitch that sounded good but you can still understand what I am saying. I chose to do a high pitched voice because I think that it would suit a younger target audience more as it sounds funny and it will make them interested.
I would do this process for every sound dialouge that I had.
After I had done this I then went back to my graphics to edit them to try and make them look better.
5th DecemberIn this session we were concentrating on the sound rather than the graphics. Therefore I used this opportunity to find some animal noises that I could use, also making sure that it wasnt copyright protected.
To get some animal noises I firstly looked on youtube but I found this was no help as the animal noises all had strange noises in the background and it would look unprofessional if I had some sounds with noises playing in the background and some not.
So I then typed in on google the animal noise that I wanted to find, for example 'aligator noise free download' this would then bring up many websites that were very usefull for me. However there were some animals that I couldnt find noises for and also took me a while to find sounds for just one animal as some of the sounds were very muffled and could not tell what it was.
This was successful as I found noises for most of my animals which were free and was fine for me to use.
The picture below will show you what sounds I had found.
12th DecemberIn this session I had to make my prototype of my final version of alphabet adventures, this was so that I could show people what I am doing and hopefully get the final version to be like this. I had to show a few people in my class what I had completed so they could then evaluate it in this lesson or the next.To make my alphabet adventures I had to put all my graphics and sounds in Flash. First of all I had to find a background that I could use, I was going to create my own background using photoshop but I didnt have enough time so I then went on google to find a jungle background that I could use so it wouldnt be copyright protected. I wanted to add a background so that it looked more professional and would appeal more to my target audience.
When I had found my background, which is a cartoon jungle, I then put it into photoshop. When I had done this I then added a new layer so I could add my animal to it, For example the picture I had designed for the alligator. So that it would look like this
I had to resize the alligator by pressing control and T, this is so that it fitted on the background and didnt look too big.
After I had done this I then imported it into flash, then put it into the centre of the page, to make sure it was perfectly in the center i had to allign the picture. When I had done this I then went back to photoshop to make the writing to go underneath the picture.
I selected the text tool and wrote 'Alligator' I then changed the font to Lithos Pro, this font made it more relevant to children and more fun to look at than a normal boring font. I then pressed on the fx button that is at the right hand side of the screen and the bottom of the panel, i then clicked on stroke and make an outline around my lettering in the colour of the alligator so that it matched and there was a theme going.
It then looked like this
I then imported this into flash. I wanted to make it say 'A is for alligator' when you rolled over the word. To do this i had to right click on the word alligator and go the convert to symbol button, then change it into a button. When I had done this i double clicked on the word so that this came up.
I inserted keyframes in each one. When I had done this I then drew around the word and then filled it (you can not see this in the finished product) and then made a new layer which i then inserted blank key frames in each. I then clicked on over and went to properties and inserted my sound so that when someone rolled over the word it would say a is for alligator.
When I had done this I then created a next button to get me from scene to scene. I created this in photoshop and made the colour of the button the colour of the animal. I then inserted it into flash in a seperate layer. I then again converted it to a button. I clicked onto it and then clicked onto the arrow in the corner of the screen which brought up this screen.
I then had to insert a few things such as 'on (release) {
gotoAndPlay("Scene 3",1);}
this is so that it would go to my second scene. I then carried this on for a few more scenes.
19 decemberIn this lesson i carried on from last lesson carrying on where I had left off. I created more scenes up to letter F doing the same process in flash and photoshop but this time I also created my started page which had alphabet adventures on it and some pictures. I made this background by watching a tutorial on the internet. It has colourful writing so it will attract children and cartoon like graphics to make it more interesting.
The finished product looked like this.
