Helpa Me...problem w/ design + animation... 1

[WhiteTiger]

Hey, recently I'm sure all of you have seen me on this forum...I've been designing some of my first pages from scratch, and also trying to fix my companies webpage from a guy we hired and who didn't exactly take all things into accountability...anyways, on the site I'm creating from scratch, I have 4 buttons...each one of them is supposed to go to another section, but have an animation pop up when the user goes to anything...example: When they click "Roster/Info", I want kind of a light come down, stretch out, then another at the bottom, and a holographic screen stretch out in the middle before displaying the information...then, if someone presses my "Multimedia" Button, I just want it to display the info w/o the animation, and have a close button at the bottom, and have the animation go in reverse or something...could anyone give me any tips or tutorial sites or something to help me?...I'm a beginner in flash, and since my work needs it, I have a chance to learn everything I can...and get paid for it.

 

[funkymonk]

The way to do all this is by using Movie Clips! Here is a list of sites that are loaded with tutorials for Flash. Or, if you do a search for Flash tutorials you will find all of them and more.

http://www.flashkit.com

http://www.designsbymark.com/flashtut/index.shtml

http://www.extremeflash.com/tutorials/

http://www.virtual-fx.net/

This is just a few of the ones out there. You might also want to check out the FAQ's section for this forum as there is loads of stuff there that will help you on you're way.
roda B-)
roda@shockanime.com

Learning is like rowing against the current. As soon as you stop, you start going backwards.

 

[WhiteTiger]

Thanks, but that doesn't help me much, I've been looking at all the tutorials I can get my hand on, but I guess I dont have the imagination it takes to think of a way to do it...could someone put together an example for me?...

 

[PetitPal]

There are some good tutorials at

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/

so have a look there.

To be honest, if your company want you to learn Flash, why not go for some of the many training courses that are on offer. Personally I learn things by trail and error but hey, if the company is offering...

As for lack of imagination, these things take time. I don't think that there are many people who just sit down and 'hey presto' another fanastic site design appears; it's all a matter of experimenting and playing around until you find something that looks and feels right. Good luck anyway!

X-)

PetitPal.

 

[WhiteTiger]

Well, I believe I might have to use a lot of variables, and I was wondering if there way perhaps a way to lay it all out in a time line, and have me click a button, it set a variable, then the animation run if it hasn't, then at the end, jump to the area that I needed...I would have it say, like a variable
WhiteBoard = Boolean
Area = 1 through 4 (I have 4 areas)

Then, perhaps if I clicked on a button, it set area to whatever section it was going to, at the beginning of the movie clip, it would check if whiteboard was true, if not, it would play the animation, then if the animation was up, then instead of playing, it would skip to the area I needed it....then a little close button would play the sequence in reverse to close the whiteboard....

Ok, so I can get started on this...how can I set variables, and call them from another movie?...I've looked on variable tutorials, but for some reason, the things I find here help more.

 

[boomph]

I am a Flash animator, but not a programmer. If I understand your problem, you are making this far more difficult for yourself than is necessary. When I design interactive animations, the best thing to do is build them as movie clips activated with a 'tell target command'. Inside the movie clips, you can label different sections of the movie so you can command them to go there.

Create a movie clip symbol containing all the animations you want on for that page. You name this symbol "button movies". Inside "button movies", put all the animated sequences one right after another on the same timeline. Put a stop action at the end of each animated sequence. At the first frame where each sequence starts ,label all the different anims. For example, label the section "multimedia" for the portion of the animation that you want to play when the 'multimedia' button is pushed; label the section "info" for the animation that you want to play when the 'info' button is pushed, etc... Do this for all the different sequences.

Back on the main stage, name the instance of "button movie" 'big show'. Then click on the instances of the buttons on stage and go to the action menu. You code the 'multimedia' button to:

On mouse event: release
tell target: "big show"
Go to label "multimedia" and play

Code the 'info' button to:

On mouse event: release
tell target: "big show"
Go to label "info" and play

'Big show' will jump to the animation and play when the appropriate button is pushed and stop at the end of that sequence until another button is pushed. Just do the same for all the other buttons.

I may not have all the particulars for your website design, and there are certain technical limitations to this method, but it is by far one of the most commonly used. It might prove useful to look at tutorials that focus on movie clips and the tell-target command. Hopefully that will make this answer make more sense.

Hope this helps! Good luck!
Boomph

 

[WhiteTiger]

Yes, that kind of helps, but what I wanted to do, was display an opening type thing, then be able to switch, so I think I'm going to have to use 1 variable to tell if the display sequence is open or closed...I will have to do some programing, unless I make multiple MC's, and have a different opening to each one...that would diversify the site a little more, which I would like...say, a button on scene 1, that plays whatever MC I choose, so it plays the opening, and stops at the info, and when I press another button, it plays the rest of the MC that is open, and then plays the beginning of the next MC w/ a different opening animation.

 

[boomph]

I guess I'm not clear what you intend to do. Some of your terminology is not familiar to me. I'm guessing these are programming terms, not Flash jargon, so I think something's being lost in translation. Let's bring the problem down to basics...

If I were someone who knew nothing about programming or Flash, could you take me verbally thru your website and describe what I would see as I'm surfing your page. Just simple visual descriptions and actions. ("First you see a monkey swing across the page. He drops seeds that hit the ground and swings off stage. The seeds animate and grow into flowers, which become the buttons for the page. When you roll over the red flower, it blooms and says, 'Our company' inside. When you click on it, the sun comes out of the sky and the company description is on a cloud. When you roll over the blue flower,it blooms and says, 'service center'. When you click on it, as little bird flies across the screen trailing a banner which has buttons on it, that when clicked, take you to different service pages...." etc.)

Sometimes you get so caught up in the method of development that you lose sight of what you are trying to create. Again, as an animator, I have a feeling that what you are trying to do is probably not that difficult, but that you are approaching it from a complicated mindset. I could be entirely wrong and maybe what you are doing IS complicated, but if you give me a better idea of what you want to have happen, there is probably an easier way than what you think.

However you decide to approach this, I wish you luck.
Sincerely,
Boomph