CptS 443, In-Class Activity #1: Conceptual Models
Group Members: Mohamed Nurr, Nikolaos Leiva, Yer Xiong, Lyndsey Franklin, Monique Kohagura
1.Macromedia Flash Player
- Used for animation, interactive web applications, presentations, etc. Used for key-frame, timeline based animation.
- Conceptual model: Activity based conceptual model
- Activity underlying: drawing and animations
- Metaphors: It's similar to slide-show projectors where films are made from individual slides. Another metaphor is the story boards used by early animators to plan animations based on key frames and timelines. The layers involved are similar to the animation cells used for collaborative animation. Closed polygons are metaphorically treated as closed containers (which can be filled with paint from paint-buckets).
- Interface: Some tool bar basis, also scripting for more complex animation. Also takes over some animation grunt work by automatically filling in frames to user specification. This supports the paradigm that animations should be easy to create and that its repetitive nature can be automated. The scripting features are command-based interface; the drawing tools are graphical with some pen-like interaction if the user has a USB graphics pad. The mode is instructive since the user is telling the program how to manipulate images.
- Being based on slide projectors, an improvement is that users can get immediate feedback and watch their animation as its being developed rather than having to wait for a near finished project. It’s also an improvements on physical drawing pads because drawn images can be replicated quickly for each frame and alterations made quickly saving the time and effort needed to hand-animate. An improvement over storyboards is that once a story board is begun, the bulk of the animation can be automatically generated.
1. Goal: Create an animation using two key frames
2. Intention: Draw a line and animate it using two key frames and tweening
3. Specify the action:
- Use the pen tool to draw a line
- Select to add a frame
- Insert a key frame 10 frames later
- Move the line to a new position on the key frame
- Select the first key frame
- Select frame tweening from the drop-down toolbar of the frame menu
- Select ‘Test Movie’ from the Control menu to view the animation.
4. (Execution)
5. The line moves from its initial position on the first key frame to the second position on the second key frame.
6. The line is being animated through the two key frames.
7. The animation succeeded
- The user had initial difficulties determining exactly how to add key frames (execution) and didn’t realize that they automatically begin with one key frame (evaluation). Another difficulty arose in finding the animation options under the frame menu (execution).
2. Calculator
- Conceptual Model: Manipulative and Instructive- users provide instructions to the calculator by manipulating buttons on the calculator.
- Activity: simple arithmetic operations
- Metaphors: physical calculators with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square roots, etc.
- Interface mode: instruction- users input commands to the calculator
- Interface style: graphical- users physically manipulate buttons on the calculator interface.
- Interface paradigm: users are familiar with handheld calculators and will be happy to work with it.