Unit 7 - Experimenting & Creating my own flash banner

Dear Diary,

Today I got the opportunity to experiment and create my own flash banner using template pictures that were given to me on one drive, on the software Adobe animator. On this task we was given instructions that we had to carried out, just to ensure that the flash banner was formed correctly and properly.

We had to use these guided instructions throughout the whole process when using the software Adobe animator (if you click on the image, you will see an enlarged version of the image)

The template pictures we used when experimenting

My experience with using the software Adobe Animator

The software Adobe Animator was a program that I've never used before so once opening it up and trying my best to follow the instructions I had a lot of issues using it. The whole process of trying to create my own flash banner was just so complicated and new to me. I often had to ask for help as I would constantly make mistakes and was uncertain of all the functions on Adobe Animator, due to it being my first time using it.

After several tries on the software Adobe animator, I understood more and more and realised that the whole process of creating the flash banner just followed a lot of repetition, repeating the stages but instead using different numbers on the timeline. I got better at the stages, however I still struggled because I just had trouble remembering the numbers that needed to be selected and often lost my place in what step was next in the instruction list. I guess in order for me to improve and be able to create my own flash banner perfectly, I am going to have to be spending more time on this software, just so I can get more used to it.

Below is a video of what I had created when using Adobe Animator and the process of me trying to add coding to the buttons.

Process of coding

When it came to coding I found this process the easiest, as in the past I have had a lot of experience with coding and using html, especially when it came to making my own tumblr blog - (If you wanted to change the layout or theme of the blog people had to use codes to do so)

When doing this I did however, make one mistake regarding one of the codes, when I played my animation some of the buttons would work whereas the others would not, the software had told me that I had wrote and made an error with one of the codes and in order for my buttons to work I would have to correct it. Once corrected it still did not work which was very frustrating and I was told by my tutor that this could have happened if I labelled my buttons different to the coding, which I did not, but despite that it still it did not work.

Which resulted in me not having the chance to see my animation being played out, which overall left me dissapointed. In order to ensure that this doesnt occur again I will be taking the time out to spend more time on this software and will document this progress on my blog, leading up to the days that I have to make my own flash banner.

Here is the completed flash banner I had created in a gif format.

It fades into three different images and as you can see on the flash banner they're squares on it which were suppposed to be the buttons that would give people the chance, once clicked to see one of the images that they wanted to see

The next step after this is to experiment a bit more using Adobe animator and to start sketching out a specific design of what I want my flash banner to look and be about!