Justin Kwee

15th Journal – “In Retrospect…”

Justin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:44:07 +0000

Looking back at my first journal entry, I think I learned more from this project than what I originally expected. Working with my community mentor in Flash on a consistent basis taught me techniques such as designing, programming and also taught me the importance of initiative. Since this program was designed for users to teach themselves, it was important for me to actually watch tutorials online and to familiarize myself with the program so that I may learn new things and in turn, be able to further the progress of my project. Prioritizing and time management skills have also been learned throughout this experience. Without these skills, I think nothing could have been completed in a timely manner. All in all, I know that by participating in the Senior Project process that I will be more prepared for my future. There simply will be no other experience like this.

14th Journal – “Memory Conservation”

Justin — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:48:12 +0000

After working on the interface in Flash for some time now, my mentor decided that it was time to publish my work on the webtvdesigns.com website. When the Flash project was uploaded to the website, my mentor and I noticed that the loading time was a bit slow for only the user interface. We then went back into Flash and found the problem to the slow loading time. To my surprise, the background images took up the most space. Even if the images were smaller than the original in Flash, the file size was still the same. I then had to use an online image editor program to cut down on the size of all the images. After doing so, I published and tested my project on the website and almost instantly the project loaded.

Being aware of how much space each element of a project uses is vital to the success of the project. Long loading times often spoil the entirety of the game.

13th Journal – “Troubleshooting sound”

Justin — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 22:29:19 +0000

Upon importing my music file into Flash, I decided I wanted the users to be able to toggle the music on and off. I then created a button for this function, but I didn’t know which code snippet to use. My community mentor advised me to search online for tutorials about toggling sound on and off and I eventually came upon one that seemed promising. Unfortunately, after following the tutorial, I yielded no progress. It turns out that the tutorial was way more complicated than need be and was not intended for beginners such as myself. As a replacement, I created a button that indeed turned the sound off, but there was no way to turn it on. Thus I named it “Sound Off…forever.” Apparently there’s an easier way to fix this problem, but I have yet to find such a tutorial. At least I learned how to turn sound files off.

12th Journal – “What about some music?”

Justin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:36:48 +0000

After creating the basic structure of the user interface, I decided to add a musical aspect to this project. Usually if someone wanted to record, edit and add music to a digital project, they would need a music program such as Garageband or Logic that costs over $200. Luckily I’m only using one instrument, the piano, and fortunately the piano I used has recording capabilities that can be transferred to any device using a USB memory device.

Recording a song from scratch is somewhat difficult especially when your improvisation skills aren’t great, such as in my case, but nonetheless it can be done. The first song I created was about eight minutes long which, I found out later on, was too big in memory just to serve as background music for my interface. I then quickly went back to the drawing board and decided to create a simple melody (under one minute) that would repeat itself when the user was at the interface.

The songs I created can be viewed under the “What I learned” tab then “Music Files.”

11th Journal – “Publish early, publish often”

Justin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:25:43 +0000

My community mentor told me once to always “publish early, publish often.” By doing so, audiences besides myself can see the progression that I am making with this project. In the real world, publishing often can be one of the most crucial things especially when working with a team to develop something like an app. Publishing is a form of communication in itself and by doing so often, team members could offer input to the project earlier in the development process. Waiting for someone to give input would just waste precious time. Always take the initiative to seek opinion early so that the development of the project can meet deadlines in a timely manner. Something as simple as “publishing early and often” can determine the difference between a project that is completed with effort and efficiency and a project that could not be completed because of the lack of communication between team members.

10th Journal – “Organizing in Flash”

Justin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:24:04 +0000

Creating a project in Flash is an experience nonetheless, but without any type of organizational skills, it can end up being a pretty big mess. My community mentor as thought me to organize early in my life because if I start now, it will definitely help me later on when I’m working on other online projects. Simple things such as labeling layers in Flash can help me easily determine which layer I am working on instead of having to click each layer to figure what’s on that layer. To take advantage of Flash’s organizing system, folders can also be created to hold multiple layers so that the timeline looks slick and clean.

Labels can also be created on the timeline which is useful for determining which keyframe of the interface is on which frame of the timeline. By creating a layer just for labels, I can easily identify where each keyframe is and what it belongs to such as determining where the “About” section is.

9th Journal – “A little help”

Justin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:02:51 +0000

I recently discovered a website that provides free tutorials depicting all of the features of Flash. Even if the website shows tutorials for older versions of Flash, I’m sure that the overall interface of the program has not change much since then. The tutorials ranged from learning the basics of drawing to learning the basics of animation. I’ve experimented with some of the drawing tutorials which proved to be quite useful. At this point though, I need to focus more on aspects of Flash that create a user interface such as understanding code and their functions. Once I’ve completed most of the functions of the user interface, I can turn my attention to editing the visual face of the UI.

8th Journal – “Don’t press the red button!”

Justin — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:51:36 +0000

The next meeting with my community mentor involved me putting all those images that I drew and re-sized into Flash’s timeline, which works as a visual aid so it’s easy to determine where the images will be located. To add “originality” to the project, I used the images I drew as background images for the user interface where I also learned how to add and create “buttons”.

Buttons are typically used for user interfaces and serve as useful tools for such a project. The button itself can also be edited in terms of it’s shape, color and even how it looks when the button is clicked. To make the button functional though, preset codes called “code snippets” are needed. Code snippets basically tell the button what to do such as direct the user to another location in the interface or even allows the user to stop and play a movie at will.

7th Journal – “New Ideas”

Justin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:59:13 +0000

Upon finishing my storyboard, I decided to sketch a few designs for some of the possible user interfaces (UI) for the game. Drawing is not my forte but I managed to scrounge up a couple designs that seemed suitable for the game. These drawings would include a lot of “gesture-activated” sequences such as swiping and also include shapes such as spheres and other cylindrical objects. My idea was to create a 3D environment so that it would be visually appealing to audiences.

In addition to interfaces, I also sketched a couple in-game designs including the game’s map system and logo. No color was added because I just wanted to create an outline of each image so that I can work on it in Flash. The actual images can be viewed on the “Creative Process” tab.

6th Journal – “Getting started”

Justin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:47:22 +0000

After creating a storyboard for the app, I now have to cut all individual images and save them as separate files using an online program called “Aviary”. Aviary has many different programs for specific uses including imaging and sound editing, which makes it convenient for those who don’t want to or can’t afford other popular programs such as Adobe Photoshop because their services are free and open to anyone. In addition to cutting the images, I need to re-size each image so that they fit the dimensions of a mobile device. The purpose of these procedures is so that I can import these images into Flash’s “timeline” to create a mini-movie that involves each image linking to one another in a certain order, thus producing an open-cinematic for the app.