Visit: The Manufacturing of Cement

Creator: Zayd Junglee
Time taken: 4-5 weeks
Platform: HTML, Flash
Software used: Adobe Macromedia Flash 8, Fruity Loops Studio 6

This was a first year university project achieving a final mark of 80% (Grade A). The primary role of this module was to demonstrate tweening and flash animation. The project was an individual based assignment consisting of four jpeg images, which were in need of animation.

Aside this, a second seperate project was handed in conjunction with this one (a flash screensaver on the theme of “seasons”), giving evidence that, the skills developed in that project were in turn used to create this project – the manufacturing of cement.

At first, the idea of the project sounded daunting. With a topic to do with cement, it took some time to get to grips with. Relating this to a potential work environment, I took into consideration that, this was an exercise requiring patience and careful structuring.

As with a lot of projects, I question myself and come to conclusions about what is being asked and why I am being asked to do it. In such a case, it’s unlikely that I can disagree with what my boss (my lecturer) wants me to create when working in the world-of-work (university), therefore, this attitude gradually settled in.

The project was very time consuming. However, the advantages of Flash made the idea of creating lots of animation less time-cosuming, i.e. creating various instances of objects to be used in all areas of the assignment.

There were a lot of new techniques learnt when it came to tweening objects. It’s important to split an object up in parts and store them each into seperate layers. Once an animation is applied to one/all of those parts, it’s just a matter of layering them in the correct order to give the effect of a machine (object) working as a whole.

I felt this project was very important towards the contribution of my Flash development. I have learnt through making mistakes which I recommend to do! It might sound boring, but it’s definitely one of the best ways to work!

Sound effects were created using FL Studio 6, as well as inspiration from friends who tested and suggested changes. Finally, upon submission, the entrance sound for the movie, simply added to the flavour of the project!