Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 16:21:26 -0500 (CDT)
   From: Mark Jacobson <jacobson@math-cs.cns.uni.edu>
     To: 810-088-10-summer@uni.edu
Subject: Project #2 due Monday by midnight, feedback, today's review...

Hi Flash students,

    Please see
               http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/games/

    and look over today's class13.html from the reviews.html page.

               http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/games/class13.html

     Project #2 due Monday by midnight, feedback, today's review...

     You can skim over chapter 6 and/or look at the examples from
class14.html web page, if you get the chance and want to PREVIEW
Friday's class where we work with some imported graphics files.

      http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/games/class14.html

                   A L I C E    and     K O A L A bear     puzzles
                                                               games...

       As stated at the end of class today, project #2 will not
be due until Monday.  That was a G I F T to celebrate, if you were
feeling pressure about the current project.  So celebrate!  :-)

       SHAPE tweens will be introduced tommorrow, but we will have the main 
focus tommorrow be:

        1. A L I C E puzzle game

        2. K O A L A bear puzzle game example from chapter 6 of BGP book

        3. Drag and Drop in Flash

      Feedback (by email before tommorrow's class) on any or all of
                the following 3 issues and topics).

      1. Let me know what ActionScript issues confuse you the most?

         Or anything related to your current programming assignment,
            the chapter 5 assignment of modifying the Alien Space Invader
            chapter 5 game, or coming up with something entirely new
            that involves using the ARROW KEYS and SPACEBAR to move
            a missile or cannon and to shoot down overhead objects that
            are flying across the sky.

      2.  Let me know which regular Flash things you would be most
          interested in learning about (that don't involve any ActionScript).

          Mask and masked layers

          Text effects like glowing and shadowed text

          How to make your own custom gradients

          Sound in Flash

      3. Biction and note taking.

    I will be teaching another Flash class in 2009 which will be Flash
Animation or Flash and Web Development or something like that.

    This class, unfortunately, has to cover lots of the ActionScript
portion of Flash in order to allow you to understand how games work
and be able to appreciate what techniques go into making Flash
interactive and making dynamic, animated actions random and unpredictable.

    Fortunately, learning ActionScript will put you far ahead of most
Flash developers, who are very comfortable with Motion and Shape Tweens
and Mask/Masked and Guide/Guided layers, etc. etc. etc.  but are soooooooo
helpless about anything involving programming code behind the scenes.
So that is a very good thing to have.

    "If the ink don't flow, the understanding don't grow."

     Biction:  The last 3 letters in the word think?   ink
                                                       ---

    The more notes you take in class about the actionscript, the closer you 
will come to being comfortable with the concepts the next day or the next 
week or later on.

    Suppose you have a transparent (alpha >= 0.4) Bic pen.

    Suppose you measure the amount of ink you consume during each week
of a UNI class while;

    1.  taking notes in the class,

    2.  reviewing notes and handouts outside the class,

    3.  consuming ink and scratch paper working out ideas for
        ActionScript and Flash assignments such as understanding the
        problem and drawing pictures and writing pseudocode and AS 3.0
        statements,

    4.  writing journal reflections, and

    5.  reading the book and taking notes and trying things in Flash
        and writing down notes about it.

    Suppose the ink goes down 0.25 of an inch per week in the class, i.e.
    about 1/4 inch of ink flows onto handouts and into your notebook and
    into the margins of your book and onto scratch paper.

    That is your level of Biction.  Or your rate of Biction.

    I invite you to increase your level of Biction during the lecture 
portion of the class.  It does make a huge difference in how much
you will get out of the class.      -----------------

    I will try to remember to show a youtube video tommorrow to help
demonstrate this idea.

    Have a great day!

    Mark