Sensi Soft

http://www.sensisoft.com/

Sensi Soft is a team of web developers who pride themselves on their ability to efficiently fix technical problems and improve accessibility.Their site is a flash-built menu screen that changes via directional areas placed at the bottom of the screen. Each menu has different contents (above image shows the "Overview" and "Our Team" buttons, whereas another menu has a contact list).

 Navigating between different menus causes a spinning animation that ends with a background image representing a different location and culture, such as London, Tokyo, or New York. Each background has animated elements, such as moving papers, cars, and flags. Each menu  also uses a different font and color screen, emphasizing the menu shift.

 Buttons provide subtle feedback in the form of box shadows and flapping papers that, when clicked, provide an animation of a paper flying out and taking up the majority of the center screen. There is a loading box for the text on the paper, which is scrollable due to the amount of content. The exception to this is the button between the navigation buttons - the "About Us" button- that rolls when hovered over, which opens up a menu of similar buttons.

Simon’s Cat

Simon’s Cat has been a long time favorite animation of mine. The British animator Simon Tofield has been using the Adobe Flash software to publish the 48 episodes of a house cat not afraid of use heavy-handed tactics to get its owner to do what it wants. Creator Simon Tofield revealed that his four cats, called Teddy, Hugh, Jess and Maisie, provide inspiration for the series, with Hugh being the primary inspiration. The pictures are hand-drawn electronically using a graphics tablet; most episodes are 2 to 3 minutes in length and are posted on YouTube.

4 Resources for Upcoming Projects

I'd like to share a few resources that, while not necessarily all related directly to flash, may prove useful to those interested in character animation for a final project. Included are video series on character building in flash, video series about art in general, video series that dissects film-making techniques, and a resource for finding music for projects.

The first resource is a series of videos I used to help understand building a character in flash.  These videos show how to build a simple human character, which is closer to the character I was attempting to build. Although we have a video resource from our professor, looking up different approaches to building characters was useful to me.The videos go over simple strategies for building a cartoony figure (including how to build a face in such a way with a protruding nose that is separate, yet overlapping an eye), and discuss a little about what to think about when eventually animating.

The second resource is a series of videos by a character designer named Stephen Silver. Steven Silver designed characters for well-known TV Shows such as Danny Phantom and Kim Possible. Although Silver is primarily a character designer, his videos are applicable to anyone who works in a field requiring creativity. In his videos, Silver talks about art in all aspects of life from business to personal. It's a good series to get any creative thinking about their own decisions, philosophies, and direction.

The third resource is also a video series, and it is mainly for those of us interested in story-telling. Created by Tony Zhou, the series is an in-depth, short-form analysis of all aspects of film. Zhou talks about anything from scene composition (an important consideration for our projects), to acting, to pace of a film, and everything in between. An important video to note is his Chuck Jones: Evolution of an Artist analysis. An extremely valuable resource for any story-teller.

The last resource I would like to share is a simple, yet powerful one. The Free Music Archive hosts a wide variety of music that is under various levels of the Creative Commons license. This is great for finding music for projects, especially student work, that won't violate copyright law. You can listen on the site or download music in mp3s (perfect for our flash work). When I need a soundtrack, I often peruse the FMA (I advise to be sure to see what license each song is under since they do vary). You can search by genre and popularity to find a fitting soundtrack for your project.

As a side note (since I already blogged about a studio), I'd like to point out some of my favorite animators who work entirely in flash. Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera are married animators who've worked on projects such as Skullgirls, Adventure Time, Clarence, Wordgirl, Ghost (an animated music video), and many more. They are freelance animators based in Boston. They created and animated a youtube show called Baman Piderman all in flash. Their style of animation is one that is loose, yet still feels real. Characters break physics, go into extreme perspectives, yet they manage to keep the character feeling like it's moving and interacting with the world around it. They do not use movie clips and graphic symbols the same way as many other flash animators. Instead, the Small-Buteras do frame-by-frame hand drawn animation to create whimsical (and somehow gritty at times) worlds and characters. An excellent source of inspiration for our upcoming projects.

http://www.stickpage.com/fleeingthecomplexgameplay.shtml

               Fleeing the Complex is a Flash created game by PuffballsUnited. It is the latest game in the series. The other games include Breaking the Bank, Escaping the Prison, Infiltrating the Airship, and Stealing the Diamond (don't think that's the correct order). In this game, you are Henry Stickman and you are given choices of what to do throughout the game that determine whether you successfully "flee the complex" or whether you stay there or die. Each choice is an animated button and what happens next in the story is completely dependent on what you choose to do. There are multiple failed endings as well as multiple ways to win. This game is the most complex out of the series because of how many more options and outcomes they added in compared to the previous games. It's a game that one can have fun finding the different fails and ways to win. The animation is just stick figures but it is great, the voice overs, the animation of the characters, and the sound effect really add to the fun of the game. You can even get medals for the thing you accomplish like finding the Easter eggs and failing a certain number of time. Below is a YouTube video of someone playing the game and going through many of the fails and endings. Above is the link to the site so you can start playing. It is a very entertaining game that I personally enjoy.

Fubon!

Hey guys! I found this neat website created on Flash which really struck me. It is about a game called "Fubon"and is presented with a flash website. The initial page is a drawing with two characters and settings and if you roll over the characters they move, making it interactive. The interactivity continues with clickable buttons along the top that lead you to information.When you roll over the "buttons" they change color and are clickable. Lastly, the interface has music playing and the viewer can stop or change the song.

http://saizenmedia.com/fubon/

Cami Petyn

Silk-Interactive Generative Art

http://weavesilk.com/

Awesome interactive drawing website! Where you can create generative art.

Bear 71

http://bear71.nfb.ca/bear71/
When I was searching for some cool interactive websites I found this interactive 20 minute documentary about bears and other animals. You move around the screen with your mouse and click on something you like shows you different videos which also explains what's going on in the video and about the animals. This website was created by Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison, Mendes has worked with interactive designs for over 15 years. This website was fun to go thru it was fun and educational.