Monday, March 26, 2007
Lab 6 was fun. But I am afraid that I made a fundamental error. In my last lab the map displayed all the way over to the left and was slightly small. This time I englarged the map in order to overcome some of these problems. Unfortunately, the map is too long ( and still over on the left). The width is ok, but you will have to scroll up and down to get the whole thing. I hate that, and it was tonight before I realized the problem and as I have already remade this map 3 times, I know there is no time to complete it one more time before the posting deadline. So here it is. I am wondering if the placement of the movie is a setting within the html page part of the Flash output. That is a question to explore next week....
This map was much easier to make than the last one. I did have scripting typos but other than that it was fun. The layout is what gave me the hardest time. I finally got everything the way I wanted it but it was just too plain. I think the radial background solved that problem. Although it is not the most pleasing thing either. It does help Minnesota stand out from the background, that was important. The background was hard because all of the tints I tried out-shined the 20% transparency of the layers, but it really needed something to provide contrast particularly between Minnesota and the Great Lakes. I think the radial background does that.
I also meant to put a drop shadow on the map, but I did not remember until after I had made the map for the last time and applying a drop shadow to the graphic was not really a drop shadow. Instead it was a receded outline of the map which just made the whole thing look blurry.
This map was much easier to make than the last one. I did have scripting typos but other than that it was fun. The layout is what gave me the hardest time. I finally got everything the way I wanted it but it was just too plain. I think the radial background solved that problem. Although it is not the most pleasing thing either. It does help Minnesota stand out from the background, that was important. The background was hard because all of the tints I tried out-shined the 20% transparency of the layers, but it really needed something to provide contrast particularly between Minnesota and the Great Lakes. I think the radial background does that.
I also meant to put a drop shadow on the map, but I did not remember until after I had made the map for the last time and applying a drop shadow to the graphic was not really a drop shadow. Instead it was a receded outline of the map which just made the whole thing look blurry.
Monday, March 19, 2007
This is a link to a cool flash map. Civil War Map, Valley of the Shadow is a website that depicts the movements of the regiments of two counties on opposite sides in the Civil War. The counties are Augusta County, VA and Franklin County, PA. Each county is represented by infantry, artillery, and cavalry units. For each unit you can follow its movements from the beginning to the end of the war. I assume that the action is a tweening function. Small fire bursts represent the battles each unit participated in. The action is played out over a digital image of Virginia.
The map allows the reader to visualize the impact terrain has a battles, it is clear to see that the artillery didn't travel the mountains as often as the infantry, presumably for practicle issues like terrain constraints. Moving a cannon is hard enough on muddy flat roads, muddy mountain roads would make it just about impossible.
It is also neat to see where these two opposing sides interacted. A map definitely has a stronger impact than reading a book that says that "these two units fought each other several times".
The map allows the reader to visualize the impact terrain has a battles, it is clear to see that the artillery didn't travel the mountains as often as the infantry, presumably for practicle issues like terrain constraints. Moving a cannon is hard enough on muddy flat roads, muddy mountain roads would make it just about impossible.
It is also neat to see where these two opposing sides interacted. A map definitely has a stronger impact than reading a book that says that "these two units fought each other several times".
I have had a blast with Flash and am looking forward to making more maps with it. Flash is not as powerful a graphics tool as Illustrator, but it is so cool to make the interactive part. The temporal movement is very powerful for detecting patterns in the data. I think it would have been useful to make each of the states a symbol so that a mouse over would display further info like the electoral vote count for the state. It would also be interesting to see the popular vote count per state. I had planned to do that but ran out of time what with studying for the midterm I have this week. Lab 5 is the link to my map.
I did have a bit of trouble when I tried to make the buttons with text in the middle. The text overlaid in the button blocked the actions assigned to the button. I tried making the text really tiny, the result was an illegible white dot in the middle of the button and the action was still not uniform and smooth. I finally gave up and made plain buttons with no text, but they do work!
I did have a bit of trouble when I tried to make the buttons with text in the middle. The text overlaid in the button blocked the actions assigned to the button. I tried making the text really tiny, the result was an illegible white dot in the middle of the button and the action was still not uniform and smooth. I finally gave up and made plain buttons with no text, but they do work!
