Ideas?

The website we have been asked to create for Julian's assignment has me somewhat stumped. I have an idea although it looks much like my last project. (With a drop down menu.) I was thinking maybe having a menu come in from the left of the screen, or fade in. A few ideas are buzzing around in my head so I will try a few and keep working on the site. Obviously it has to fit what a rom com sort of film would be like, for example I'm not going for massive effects or explosions on screen!

-AJM

New, new assignments

Well, we have 2 new assignments by different lecturers. Julian has set us one to make a website for a film released in 2010 or 11. I have decided to go with Dear John and I know it's a rom com but i seem to enjoy generating ideas for that! And Ross shas set us assignment to be done in pairs of which is to create an event with your own brand, that links to an existing brand. Me and Dave Bain are doing 'LiveTube', branching off of YouTube where we are making a fictional event where the most famous YouTube acts perform live and the event is streamed live to YouTube which we have already begun a lot of work on.

Stay tuned for updates

-AJM

Stop/starting movies in flash.

An overview

This tutorial is on how you can have a movie file on one layer which will automatically pause when you go to another layer of the site or file, and then when you come back to it the video will continue to play from the same place.

For those of you who do not know what I mean by layers it is simply using a technique called the 'multi swf' approach. This basically means instead of having loads of data in one flash file, you can load different flash documents by linking them.

I thought it would be a good idea to post on this seen as for my college work I spent a while researching this on the web, with nothing covering the whole topic.

Those who just want the code from this tutorial, try this -

movie.play()

movie.pause()

movie.stop()

(This is the very basic principle for this task, put the code inside an area of which will pause or play your movie when you go to a different layer.)

Tutorial

Stage 1

Okay, so you will need to open up a new action script 2.0 document in Flash and have a video file ready. (Remember it's always a good idea to save your project data in the same place.) To keep this simple and give you the best understanding there is no need to worry about fancy graphics or the size of the stage.

Create a layer called action script or as for short. (This is where all the code is going to go.) Leave this blank.

Create a new layer and name it something like 'backmovie'.

Go to File - Import - Import to stage and select the video file you will be using which ever that may be.

Then just place on your stage, if you need to re size it remember to use shift whilst free transforming as stretching videos and images is a big no no.

Right click on your movie clip, go to convert to symbol, then from the drop - down menu select movie clip. Go to the properties window where it will say '<instance name>' and call it something like 'backmovie'.

After this you may have to go inside the layer (By double clicking on it.) and naming it backmovie instead of <FLV playback.> which it may of automatically created.

Next, create another layer called 'content' and place a box or shape that could resemble a button. Convert this shape to a movie clip like before and in the properties window, name it something like content.
(This will act as a button that will go to a  new page called content.)

Save this file as something like background.fla.

After this, to publish the file as a .swf file, hold down the Ctrl and Enter buttons. This will then save it as a .swf as well as your original .fla file.

Okay that's pretty much it for stage 1, next will be creating a page called content so we can test if our movie stops when you go to it, then if it plays again when you return to the original page. More about this in a bit!

Stage 2

Next, you will need open up a new flash 2.0 document which will be the content page. Just make a page with a box or something on it and on it's own layer, an image which could be used as a 'close' button. This means it will close that layer and take you back to your .swf from stage 1. This is what I did, but just make something simple to get to grips with it if you are not very familiar with this process. Also, like before create a blank layer which will contain all the code.

Convert your 'close' item to a movie clip and give it an instance name of 'closecontent' or something just as before.

To clarify, your background page in stage 1 as we have not specified will load on layer 0. At a later stage we will specify this content page to load on layer 1 so it will be in essence on top of the previous layer.

Okay now go to your background page and open up the action script layer which you created earlier and type this code into it. -

content.onPress = function() {
 loadMovieNum('content.swf', 1);
 _root.backmovie.backmovie.pause()
};

If this makes no sense to you or is not working make sure if you have called your button something else rather than content you will need to change this where content is, likewise if you named your content page something else, or your movie clip.

You know if this is working because when you click your button it will load your content, or second page and will pause the movie. Alternatively if you wish to completely stop the video when you go to a new layer instead of putting pause(), type stop().

Open up your content page for the next part.

After this it is simply a matter of making the movie play again when you back to the original layer. Now, to do this we will have to specify which layer the movie is on because as there is not an instance of the movie on this layer

All you need to do to specify is type _layern

Insert blank key frames on frame 2 for every layer of your content document.

As the movie is on layer 0, type this on to your action script layer:

stop()
closecontent.onPress = function () {
 gotoAndPlay(2)
 _level0.backmovie.backmovie.play()

};

Again if this does not work you may need to change some of it to fit what names you have chosen. Remember this is on the action script layer of your content page, not the background. If this still does'nt work, remember that you have to publish the file as a .swf anytime you make a single change to the .fla file.

If this does work, this means that when you publish your background document your movie will stop or pause when you go to your content page, then when you press your close button it will take you back to your background file with the video playing.

You can download what I have done here if I have'nt made it too clear! - http://ge.tt/37ndjDR

Summary

I hope this tutorial has helped anyone who has had trouble with this, or need to use it for a project. A good use of this would be to have a trailer or other movie playing in the background which fills up the whole screen and when the user clicks on different pages those pages come out and pause the background film. Although there are probably many uses for this which you could explore.

Thanks for reading,

-AJM

FLASH..... reviews.

Line Rider

Line rider is an interactive experience (made in Flash) which lets you create lines for your character or player to ride along. It uses basic physics to enhance the games appeal to the player. Gravity is the main factor in the game as you design your track or level so that it works with gravity.

You have an unlimited space for creation as I haven't been able to find out any barriers of the level so far. You can add different track pieces that can slow or speed up your character when he rides along them. There are many good examples of game play on YouTube, people have made masterpieces of the level!

All in all, line rider is a fun experience and relatively addicting also! A few downsides are the navigation of the level as it is difficult and takes a while to play through your level if it is large enough and there are limited tools to assist this. Some may moan that the game looks simple, but this saves loading times and the game mechanics ensure you have an enjoyable experience once you get to grips with the controls!

http://www.linerider.com/

-AJM