Final piece

Here is the original storyboard for my final idea. 

Act 1

Firstly I started by creating the background for the first scene and one of the main characters.

I then made the first character walk across the pavement in my first scene.

I then had to make the scripting for the play button to make my character walk.

I then had to make him stop and when the reader pressed 'next', it would then zoom in and start the next part of the story.

I then scripted the 'next' button zooms in and makes my next character enter the scene. 

The murderer jumps in, steals the blue man's umbrella, stabs him with it and runs back home.  

Act 2

We are then in the home of the murderer. In this act, the umbrella sees the murderer, hops down the hall way, jumps and stabs the murderer. 

The murderer is washing his hands at the sink when the umbrella sees him and decides to get revenge. 

I used a motion path on the umbrella to make him hop down the hall way.

He then fires himself at the murderers head to kill him. the murderer falls to his knees and it then moves onto the next scene.

Act 3

We then see the blue man laying on the pavement with blood coming from his head.

I once again used the motion path on the umbrella to bring him into the scene and bring his owner back to life and make him think that he fell over.

The blue man sits up grabs his umbrella and walks away.

After I created my final flash animation, I then inserted audio from sounddogs.com like walking sounds, stabbing, gushes and tapping.

I took sounds into Adobe Audition and manipulated the sound by shortening it. Sometimes I would adjust the amplitude which makes the sound quieter.  

Evaluation

I feel my story and final piece is good. Considering I have never used Adobe Flash before, my animation turn't out well. With the time frame given, I was able to accomplish Classic Tweens, Motion Tweens and scripting that involves buttons and sound. I feel my story worked well with the animation because its a funny story that is very odd. I researched many other interactive comics for inspiration and also looked into stories with a three act narrative to help develop my ideas and animation. I did a lot of reading into using flash on forums and I also watched on-line tutorials to help me become familiar with flash.  

Beta testing

I got two people to test my piece and they gave me feedback on my animation. I got Jordan Ash and John Mears to test my animation. They both said that the animation was good and the detail was good as well. but they both felt that the story was unclear and advised me to insert some annotation for my animation to make sense. I took these comments on and made amendments to my animation by putting in annotation.     

 These are my amendments. They are simple, but clear up the story better.

I also Beta tested other peoples work and gave them feedback. I tested John Mears animation and gave him feedback. I felt that the speed of the dog and the speed of the ball in scene 1 wasn't balanced. But his animation was clear and understandable, its also easy to relate to character in the animation through feeling and clear visual effect.

Potential of interactive stories

The potential of interactive stories are massive. They can grow into some many areas such as taking the places of newspapers, comics, general books and educational purposes. Newspapers are being reed on tablets from the internet. Comics are being downloaded off the internet. Books now have their own product and the same with educational stories. The benefits of digital stories is that trees won't have to be cut down, they then wont need to be transported to made into paper, it wont have to be printed, then transported to the book store and then have to walk to the book store to buy the book. It is a lot easier to simply turn on the computer or tablet and download it without hassle. Although this means book stores be slowly disappear and people will lose their jobs. 

Comments

Demo

Robot Demonstration

Firstly I imported an image of a robot and turned it into a vector by creating a new layer and drawing over the robot using the line tool. I then filled in the colours and also applied gradients.  

Next, I then started the animation by getting the robot to walk across the screen.

After I accomplished that task, I then had to use scripting to get him to stop and make him fall over at the wall. 

I then used scripting to get a roll over which bought up a speech bubble. After I finished this small animation I then applied sounds to make the animation better.

Sounds demonstration

I changed the shape at frame thirty and added a frame at thirty in actions so the sound would happen when the shape changed. 

TO PLAY SOUND VIA SCRIPT IN FLASH

Firstly import the sound to the library.

Then give the sound a library linkage name by:

1.    Right click on the library symbol

2.    Select properties

3.    Select the actionScript tab

4.    Tick the “export for actionScript” box

5.    Ensure that the name that appears in the  Class box is something sensible like jump

Then where you want the sound to start:

Put a keyframe in the actions layer.

Type in the following script, editing the relevant names:

var stormCh:SoundChannel; - This creates a sound channel variable called stormCh

var storm:Sound = new Storm - This creates a variable to "hold" the sound AND puts the sound in it

stormCh=storm.play() - This assigns the sound to the channel  AND plays it 

Use the following line where you want the sf/x to stop, it stops the channel

stormCh.stop();

(note you don’t need to stop the sound if it is a short effect that finishes by itself)

Construction of a narrative

The three act narrative is when the stories are split up into three main parts. The beginning is where the story is introduced and the scene is set. The middle is where the tension rises and the main conflict occurs. The End then has the tension dropped and the conflict wrapped up.    

Story 1: The amazing Spider man (Movie)

Act 1: Introduction. As a child Peter discovered his farther study was ransacked and his farther gathered documents before taking him to his aunty and uncles. His parents later died in a plane crash. He is then in high school where he is bullied and finds Dr Curt Connors who worked with his dad at Oscorp. Later on peter brakes into an Oscorp lab and gets bitten by one of the spiders in the lab.

Act 2: Main conflict. Peter discovers his powers when he is on the subway when a fight brakes out. He uses these powers to take out criminals after his friend Ben is killed. Then Dr Curt Connors takes the form of a Lizard and it is up to Peter/Spider man to stop him.

Act 3: Resolving the story. Peter takes down Dr Curt Connors and returns him to his human form using a serum his dad was working on. Connors is taken to prison and Spider man continues to take on crime.   

Story 2: Borderlands 2 (Game)

Act 1: Introduction. At the beginning we are introduced to four playable characters. you are ambushed by handsome jack and left to die in a frozen wasteland  You are then discovered by a funny robot named claptrap who explains the whole situation in Pandora. Later you are introduced to all of the characters.

Act 2: Main Conflict. After completing many missions  you get to a point where you have to take on big bosses which stand in the way of you and handsome jack. You takes these of and brake into handsome jacks island posing as him and take him out in this massive battle which includes all of the characters who want revenge.

Act 3: Resolving the story. After you kill handsome jack, you find a map which shows several hundred locations which need to be destroyed. Before the credits appear  one of the characters says "There no rest for the wicked" which indicates a follow up the this current story.

Story 3: Peter pan (Movie)

Act 1: Beginning

In the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury, where George and Mary Darling's preparations to attend a party are disrupted by the antics of the boys, John and Michael, acting out a story about Peter Pan and the pirates, which was told to them by their older sister, Wendy. That night, they are visited in the nursery by Peter Pan himself, who teaches them to fly with the help of his pixie friend, Tinker Bell, and takes them with him to the island of Never Land.

Act 2: Middle

A ship of pirates is anchored off Never Land, commanded by Captain Hook with his sidekick, Mr. Smee. Hook boldly plots to take revenge upon Peter Pan for cutting off his hand, but he trembles when the crocodile that ate it arrives. Whilst this is happening, Peter Pan and the others are have fun on the island.

Act 3: End

Then Hook captures the children and traps Peter pan. He then escapes and releases the children. He fights peter pan but then the crocodile appears chases Hook and his crew away. Peter and his gang take the ship and return John, Michael and Wendy home without their parents even knowing they have disappeared.

Ideas generation

IDEA 1

Late at night, around 7 or 8 in a car park, after work. Guy walking to his car when he witnesses a vampire attack, you are spotted.

You run and get chased to the top of the car park, avoiding bullets, you get to the top, there’s a stand-off and then you have three choices to make though interactivity which decides your fate. One option will be take the gun from the vampire, second would be a toll booth guard runs up and shoots the vampire, or you can make the decision to jump off the building.  

In the end, you always survive the situation.

IDEA 2

In relation to the other unit ‘unit 1’ where we will be creating a game concept based on the mores area, I was thinking of a knight who chooses a sword and fights a dragon for this game idea. So transfer that over to a digital story.

An average guy wakes up and goes outside to see a knights running past his house and then sees a swords fly in his direction “you then chose what sword and shield you want” <- interactivity

Then this average villager runs with a sword and shield to the field and then the dragon appears and there is this battle “you have to click on these buttons that pop up and you have 2 seconds to click these buttons and they will pop up separately and you will have to click 3 different ones all in different locations on the page”.

You are victorious and you get a castle to live in instead of the hut because of your great victory. 

IDEA 3

Act one; A man is walking in the rain with his umbrella up, when, this man jumps out on him takes his umbrella and kills him with it and runs away with the umbrella.

Act two; The umbrella is in the house of the murderer and then you take control (the interactivity) where you take revenge for being stolen, used as a weapon and killing his owner. The umbrella hops around and then sees the murderer and kills him.

Act three; The umbrella makes his way to is owner who was killed and bring him back to life.

Top row is act 1

Middle row is act 2

Bottom row is act 3

Box 1 (Act 1)

the business man is walking home in the rain (with rain sounds and footsteps)

Box 2 (Act 1)

Murderer jumps out of an alley in front of the business man (with rain sounds and footsteps)

Box 3 (Act 1)

Murderer steals the business man's umbrella and kills him with it (with rain sounds and splattering noise)

Box 4 (Act 1)

After this murder, he runs away with the umbrella (quick footstep noises, running)

Box 5 (Act 2)

The umbrella is at the home of the murderer (light background music)

Box 6 (Act 2)

Using an interactive panning system, you look for the murderer to seek revenge (hopping noise)

Box 7 (Act 2)

You click on the a part of the murderers body and the umbrella will do different killing manoeuvres (quick moving noises and splattering noises)

Box 8 (Act 2)

The umbrella makes his escape from the murderers house (hopping noise)

Box 9 (Act 3)

The umbrella finds his owner and revives him (raining sounds and some magical sound)

Box 10 (Act 3)

The business man is dazed and cant remember anything (raining noise)

Box 11 (Act 3)

He gets up and walks on home (raining noise) 

Box 12 (Act 3)

The End

This is the kind of umbrella I am basing it on for my story.

https://www.umbrellaheaven.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=17

    

Research

Dead on arrival
http://www.dead-on-arrival.co.uk/
                                                                                       

• Pictures illustrate the story
• Page turning devices to further the story
• Speech bubbles tell the majority of the story
• Text captions written in first person
• The music choice created real suspense and the music increased in pace as the story unfolded. In scenes like the hangover scene, the music created a sense of disorientation.
• Click able items give key information for the story plot.

  There are a variety of different devices which help tell the story and the amount of interactivity held the viewers attention all the way through and the storyline was very clear. this interactive comic didn't have much animation but it had shaking screens and some short clips to add to the story very well.

This comic had a lot of interactivity such as; searching for click able items, items would pop up to draw attention to the viewer, text gave hints to what was click able and interactive pans which where gave more involvement to the comic.

All of the above points show the use of interactivity, the use of sound and the best involvement to the comic was that the reader was able to guess who the potential murderer was shows how interactivity enhances enjoyment and these are features which could not be carried out in normal comic books.

http://www.draculacomic.co.uk/

This comic was created on the gadget show in a competition to make the best interactive comic and it involves one of the presenters of the show as Dracula.

http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/challenge/21st-century-author-vs-comic-book-full-challenge

This comic used pictures to illustrate the story and these images also moved and changed colour. The story progressed by moving the mouse to one side of the screen and also clicking the continue, it aloes you to chose if you want to enter Dracula house or not, giving you the option to really control the story. This comic uses sounds but it is mainly for sound effects but it also has background music which gives and eerie feeling. It has text blocks which tell the story and it uses bold writing as the continuing option. This is predominately black and white but with hints of red to show key points which relate to a vampire.

The end of the story is a very smart way to involve the reader, it tells you to escape and you have to pan around the room looking for solutions and then you can chose to RUN or FIGHT. if you wish to fight you need a smart phone and a webcam which brings up a digital image of a cross which you have to fight him with. But if you don't have either of these, you can only run and you get caught.

The above points show great use of interactivity, the use of sound is very intense and the best involvement to the reader was being able to find ways to escape and fight your way out of Dracula castle. Interactivity has really shown great enjoyment and these are features which could not be carried out in books.

http://www.nawlz.com/

This comic uses progressive story telling, you click on buttons which are all over the screen, to progress you through the story. It uses a style of drawing and not pictures like dead on arrival. This comic allows you to chose different aspects of the piece, click on small items which give you pieces of information and also sound box's pop up so you can really relate to what is going on in the piece.

There are a lot of different sound effects for the piece and the story goes on. Theres no background music all the way through the story and i feel this is better as it allows you to focus more on the sounds of the story and the story itself. This story has a lot of interactivity as you can hover over things and they will change and do some form of animation and the story sometimes backtracks on itself as you go into the story to recap you.

This piece is very abstract and the colours used are dark but it has its moments of colour when you get to the right point in the story. This piece is very different to the other and hard to understand the story plot but it could not be replicated in a traditional comic.

http://zark.com/index.html

Argon Zark is a very basic interactive comic compared to the others i have covered but it shows that a simplistic style is some times better. It has a very basic layout and is exactly like traditional comics from the shelves by using speech bubbles and its layout. This comic looks like it is old as the drawings don't look as if it has developed form the traditional comics, but maybe that was the style they wanted to create. This comic has interactivity on nearly almost every page giving you images and information on the current situation which I feel is good. The fact that there is no sound is a small problem, I would have liked to have some futuristic sounds to help this comic along.

This interactivity comic seems very basic and looks like a traditional comic, but excels through its storytelling and the interactivity which gives you extra images and information for the story. This comic has a classic style to it and i feel that this could be the easiest way to turn a traditional story into an interactive comic.

http://www.cartoonmovement.com/icomic/11

This story is also very different to the others as it is almost laid out as a tactical plan and it telling you the times and showing the locations of the piece and how it comes together is very well done. The story is told through clicking through time and watching the progression of the story and hovering over highlighted areas for the story details. The colours are dull and look very traditional for a comic book. There is no sound to help this story along but i feel that this doesn't need sound as it looks like a comic that creates tension. The images are very basic and so to is the animation as it looks like someone has used Microsoft paint to create the animation compared to something like nawlz.

The layout and the storytelling i really well done but i feel this is not the best exa,mple of an interactive comic as it doesn't give as much interactivity for the reader as some of the others. But, this comic shows how interactivity is the way forward for comic books.

http://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/splash.html

This comic is like no other when it comes to telling the story, it is one of the most random comics I have seen. it uses dark colours but when you are in the canteen it is sometimes bright and has a lot of interactivity for the reader to keep its attention. There are some many things that go on in this piece and this gives the reader something to think about whilst thinking about the story. These random slides of interactivity are good but distract you away to much from the story. it uses some music and uses a lot of sound effects to engage the reader once more. It tells the story by clicking on the people or on objects and the writing for the comic is normal on the walls or on a separate page. The click able items give no information like the others but make character do things or make things appear.

As bizarre as this piece is and all these different pieces of interactivity and sounds, after getting through some of the episodes it began to bore me but I could not stop reading it as i wanted to constantly know what would happen in the comic. This comic is the best example of what interactivity can do over the traditional comics.

This isn't an interactive comic, but, this webpage is a book designer’s web page and it is very interactive and there is a lot to discover. Although this may not contribute to my ideas for creating a story, this layout and style could be used if I was creating a story from the past or in a classic theme. This style and layout could influence the style of my digital stories. This webpage has the style of the digital comic webpage, “dead on arrival” because of the way you can turn the page by clicking and turning the page. I chose this web page purely because of its layout and how it has a likeness to digital comic, “dead on arrival”.