CS 1025 01 - Class #6 review
February 16th, 2012


  1. Ghostbusters characters and Steps of Model Building: Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler - focus on UNDERSTAND the problem, Develop a PLAN, and Implement the plan. Focus on WHAT, focus on HOW, focus on translate the HOW into a specific model.
    Analyze the problem.
        Dr. Peter Venkman (Listen. Focus on WHAT. Understand IT!).
    
    Formulate a model.
        Dr. Raymond Stantz (Talk. Focus on HOW. Develop a PLAN. PLAN it!).
    
    Solve the problem.
        Dr. Egon Spengler. (Code IT! Or "Just DO it". Implement it on the 
           computer using some software tool or programming language. 
           NetLogo, Excel, Vensim, After Effects, Flash, Photoshop, C++). 
    
  2. Playing with NetLogo - following the mouse and painting patches.

  3. Flash ActionScript and the bouncing ball. Gravity to be simulated using Adobe Flash. A very simple model will be created.

  4. Brainstorming in Adobe After Effects. See http://lynda.uni.edu for the tutorial review. "Rough Edges". After Effects Apprentice 13: Paint and Puppet - see 6. Brainstorm (Brainstormed variations) - 5 minute 6 second long video tutorial.


Assignment Gravity Animation video tutorial 14 questions - Jesse Toula tutorial is great for modeling the physics of a bouncing ball. Due on Friday February 17th or before.

  • After Effects: Rotating the Hands of a Clock
    You can use the pick whip to link rotation values between layers to 
       animate the hands on a clock - as the hour hand 
                                             moves from hour to hour, 
                                         the minute hand rotates 
                                 the full circumference of the clock face. 
    
    Import or create two long, narrow solid-color layers: 
        an hour hand and a minute hand. 
    
    Set the anchor points at the ends of the layers. 
    
    Move the layers so that the anchor points are at the center of the 
    composition. 
    
    Set Rotation keyframes for the hour hand.
    
    Select the Rotation property for the minute hand and 
              choose Animation > Add Expression. 
    
    Drag the pick whip to the hour hand's Rotation property. 
    
    The following expression appears: 
                                    thisComp.layer("hour hand").rotation
    
    To make the minute hand rotate 12 times as fast as the hour hand, 
         add *12 at the end of the expression as follows: 
         
                                    thisComp.layer("hour hand").rotation*12