The Design Process

In this post I will be explaining everything that I have done throughout my project.

Within my project, I used Adobe Director to create my game. I started by making squares that were needed in my game. I completed this process by creating a few square shapes in Adobe Photoshop. After making five blank squares with this software, I decided to add some colour. I chose five different colours that I thought were suitable for my project, and these were: yellow, red, blue, green, and orange. After I finished making the squares, I then imported them into Adobe Director. After I imported the images into Adobe Director, it was clear to see I needed to align the squares into the position that I wanted them to be in. After I did this I decided to do some research into finding randomising codes that were suitable for my task. Eventually, I found a randomising code and I went back to Adobe Director and edited the sprite frame to put the coding in. Adobe Director said the code was right and it had no spelling mistakes, but when I tested it the randomising did not work and the squares just played out in the same order every time, so it was not randomising in the way it should have been.

   Unfortunately, I had to remove the coding from the frames and look for another randomising code to use in my Director piece. I then searched for codings with more randomising functions. Luckily, I found some more coding to use and decided to try it in Adobe Director. The coding I used this time was correct and had no issues with the spelling or anything but when I tried playing it was not functioning properly, so again I had to remove all the coding from the frames to make them blank again. I then went back to research some more coding. After a few hours of researching yet more coding, I finally found a random code adequate for my work.

   I discovered when I was looking for the codes none of them explained that you needed to have markers on the frames to help the randomising function to work properly, so evidently this was the problem I had been facing. The code that I found was much simpler and a much shorter than the others ones that I have previously looked at. When I put this code into the frame, I decided to play it just to make sure it was working and it did because I put the markers on the frame correctly. I had to change the cursor when the cursor was over the top of the object, so I used a code, which I knew. The code was: (on MouseEnter me cursor 280 on MouseLeave me cursor 0 End). After I had typed the code into the frame I replayed it and tried it again. The cursor was changing when you went over the object, and it was still randomising every time you clicked the object.

  After doing some more research on adding sound to the object when it’s clicked, I decided that I needed a click or a bang sound effect to make the process more effective. I found a couple of sound effects that I liked and downloaded them from a site, which was free. I then imported the sound effects into Adobe Director and tested them out one by one, playing different ones until I had found the one most suitable. As a result of finding the most appropriate one, I then removed the ones that did not fit my requirements. In addition to this, I used the same sound effect continuously throughout my work and put it into every frame, so each object had the same sound effect every time they were clicked. I chose to test them all out a couple of time to make sure everything was working, therefore ensuring the effects were doing an efficent job. Eventually, I was happy with the way it was randomising when it was clicked and moved onto the next section of my project.

   My first initial idea was to have a whole song playing on loop in the background of my Director piece. I initially thought this was a good idea, but I then realised it would be too repetitive to just have one song playing in the background constantly. So I then developed my idea and thought about adding a couple of songs and remixing them instead. Eventually, I found some songs I believed were adequate for my project. The songs I chose included tracks such as: Rise Against - Give it all and  Ro Ransom - Cm Punk music. I downloaded five songs in total, from a website that allowed me to do such things.

   When all the songs had downloaded I needed to import them into a program. This program is known as GarageBand, which is a music editing system. The program can be used to add sound effects to sounds and even to create your music. Once the songs were imported I split the songs into separate sections so that I could add another songs to it to begin my process of creating my loop. I developed this by adding another song into the song I had created. After I did this I choose to fade the songs into each other because just putting two different song together did not sound effective and did not fit the vision I produced within my initial idea. 

   For me to fade the songs together, I had to grab sections of a song and change the volumes of them near the end before a new one began. Initially  I lowered the volume and then faded each song into another one. To make this process work, I also changed the volume of the following song, but I did not lower it I turned it back up so it would get louder. I did this to the rest of the songs by adding more songs that I chosen to use in my work and fading them all in the right places. To ensure the process was working, I replayed the song each time I added another section to decide whether or not my work sounded better. 

Once I finished editing the songs together, it was vital for me to export the songs into a MP3 format so it would work in Adobe Director. Once I had finished this task, I then added them to the Adobe Director software. When I had completed the importing stage, I attached my chosen songs into the frames I had created so they would play in the background. This added character to the moving squares with the sound effects on them. To conclude this process  I lowered the sound of the song so people trialing my product could hear my sound effects when the object is clicked with ease.

After I had completed all the above, I needed to make five pressure pads. For me to make five pressure pads I needed: cardboard, foam, foil, wire, and glue. To begin the process, I needed to cut out a several square shapes from cardboard. Once this was complete, I cut small pieces of foil and stuck them to the cardboard square. After this was done, I cut out a pieces of foam which were bigger than my foil shapes. The reason I did this was because I wanted to use the foam as an insulator. I then decided to cut square shapes out of the foam. By doing this to the foam I formed a connection between the pieces as the wire was then able to touch the foil when pressure was applied. To add to this, I had to strip some wire back so the metal inside was showing, this then helped with the next part project as I had to stick the wire to the foil inside the home made pressure pads. I then stuck wire to each part of the foil, that was attached to the two separate pieces of cardboard. When this was complete, it was clear for me to see, the foam had to be stuck down over the foil. Once this had been done, I stuck the two pieces of cardboard together with glue.Then I covered them with masking tape, so it would be easier to paint. I continued my design process by spray painting each pressure pad with the colour that I wanted it to be. I repeated this process four times so that I would have the number of pressure pads I wanted to use in my work. The colours that I chose were: orange, green, pink, yellow and blue. After the painting stage had been completed, I covered them in cling film for extra protection when people stood on them whilst trying my idea. 


The next stage in my design process was to get the pressure pads to work with my Adobe Director piece. To make this work I needed to change the coding that I already had to different coding. I wanted to change the code from ( on mouseEnter me to on keyDown ), in order for the coding to work with the pressure pads.

I soon found additional problems with my Adobe Director piece, so I had to change the images I had picked because I only had coloured squares on a white background. I decided to change it completely. This was a risk because it was close to the deadline, however I decided to have a black background with a skeleton on on drinking a green liquid as I believed it was an effective idea. After I had created this new idea, I put it into Adobe Director to set as my background. Once this was done I saved my work, naming it "stuub2". This was the template starter for my game. After I saved it I closed the software I had used down, and then opened a new Director piece. I added the same background as the "stubb2" had, so I could begin to piece all my work together. When this was done, I added a new picture that would show up when the number button was pressed. 

I decided to make a skeleton figurine in Adobe Photoshop to use within my work. Once I had made the skeleton I changed it to the colour of it to green, and saved it as a PNG so it would work with Adobe Director. After saving the first one, I did the same for the rest of the skeleton. However as I saved each skeleton, I changed their colouring each time, renaming them which appropriate names. Once I had done all the skeletons, I imported them into Adobe Director.

I then opened a new Director piece and also added the same background as the "stubb2" had to it. Once this was done, I then imported the particular image that I wanted. For example if I had wanted to use the green skeleton as my first key, then this would be the first item I would have chosen to import. I then put the image into the right place for where I wanted it be and then set a script to it. This script was: (on keyDown, if the key pressed= "1" then go to the movie "stubb2"). After the script was put into place I checked if it had any errors or spelling mistakes. As it had no spelling mistakes or errors, I evidently saved it and named  according to the colours it held. For example, if I was doing the green skeleton first, I saved it and called it 'green skeleton'. After this had been completed, I made a folder so that I could save everything to do with my Adobe Director piece in it.

After making the folder, it was vital for me to make a new Director piece to make a new control key in. This was so I could add the same background into it again and also put in a different colour skeleton. I repeated the process by starting new Director pieces and changing the colour of the skeleton and naming them as their colours. I did this five times so that I had 5 different keys to work with. I also changed the script with each one to make it work with each key. I decided to try it once again with the pressure pads and it all worked properly and in align with each other. This was good because I could then easily step on different colour pressure pads, and the right coloured skeleton would appear.

When I began setting up my final major project, I had to set up my stall and have what I wanted to go where I needed it to be placed. So I had a stand in the centre of my stall and I placed the Mac that I was using on to stand. Once the Mac was put in place, I had to figure out where I was going to have the pressure pads on the floor. When I had the pressure pads in the right place, I taped them down to floor because they will be more suitable and more safe and by doing this this they wouldn't move around when people stand on them.

When this was completed,  it was time to test everything out before the show began. Whilst I was testing it out, I had to change some of the coding because some of the letters/numbers that I had linked with the pressure pads did not work. And so, I had to change the coding of the pressure pads in Adobe Director to the working keys. Once I had changed it to the right coding I re-tested everything and found out everything was in working order ready for my event.