Rich Media Technology is being taught in Room 352 at 10.15 Wednesday mornings. The sessions vary in length, and include three whole-day workshops.

This course will look primarily at Adobe Flash, concentrating on its graphic and design capabilities. We will learn some scripting, and some techniques for approaching scripting, but more advanced Actionscript will be dealt with in a later course.

The course will include small weekly assignments, as well as a longer project. You can find the assignment details here. The assignments are intended to be individual but the longer project may be done individually or in small groups.

Session 1
10.15 – 14.00 September 13
This session will look at the Flash interface: at the controls, the windows, the timeline, and the library. You will be introduced to the online help system and encouraged to explore it to answer your own questions. We will also begin to look at symbols and the benefits of using them. We will publish a movie and examine the result.

Session 2
10.15 – 13.00 September 20
This session will continue to explore the nature of symbols in Flash. We will make movies inside movies and analyse the effects of using multiple timelines. We will look at working with type and imported images.

Session 3
10.15 – 14.00 September 27
This session will import and manipulate sound; and then attach sound to sprites and to the timeline. We will look at working with Flash and Quicktime movies. We will also begin practise some simple scripting.

Session 4
10.15 – 17.00 October 04
This session will be an all-day scripting workshop. We will begin with the basic principles, and then move on to look at using readymade actions. We will then look at using scripts to control the follow of action on the stage, and finish by creating a simple game.

The scriopt from the sliding-block puzzle that we made during this session is now available here.

Session 5
10.15 – 13.00 October 11
This session will be an open forum in which you can revise what you have learned so far, and practise variations on techniques. The aim of this session is to enable you to generalise your knowledge and techniques. You will be asked to come prepared with several questions or topics that you would like discussed or explained, and we will proceed from there.

Session 6
10.15 – 17.00 October 18
This all-day workshop is part one of the main project workshop.

Session 7
10.15 – 17.00 October 25
This all-day workshop is part two of the main project workshop.