After last week’s review, it’s clear I’ve got a lot more thinking to do on this Flash animation. Re-reading the brief, I remind myself of the 4 key factors to consider:
- Navigation (a cognitive approach, association and reoccurring objects)
- Type of animation (controlled, interactive, triggered)
- Life spans (of individual objects as well as the animation as a whole)
- Hierarchy (primary/secondary objects)
Initially it seems vital to get the navigational system cracked. Further consideration has led to the idea of using the window panes as an intuitive, constant navigational feature. Since the main section of my animation will feature 5 images of the roof lights, it is sensible to use the right most window pane as a forward button, and the left most as a back button. This has the advantage of allowing the user to navigate how they desire through the main body of the animation.
Each of these main 5 images will have its own unique, subtle animation, but it will hopefully become clear very quickly how to navigate between them. The theme of my photographic project was “Glimpses of the Spectacular”, and so along with the main 5 images which portray the general mundane, monotonous, grey gloom of the studio, I will have 4 further images of the special moments of weather that remind us of nature’s beauty.
Finding these images will not be so simple, they may be appear when an inquisitive user explores a small, interesting area of one of the main image, or they may appear at random. They will certainly appear suddenly and disappear even more so, back into the gloom. The user will never know quite how to see these moments.
Another issue brought up in the review was that of transitions. Initially the transitions were a simple cut from one image to the next, but a fade in and out, or even a gradual overlay transition from one to the next should prove more in keeping with the subtleties of my animation.
