Hello Everyone! Nature with Children is a fun educational project I have been working on during my time at Southern New Hampshire University. This artifact was created in my GRA-211 Interactive Animation course and refined for my GAM-495 Capstone Programming Course. This project was created to educate children over the benefits of protecting and preserving nature through interactive learning.
Tools:
Adobe Animate and Pixabay (audio)
Skills:
Animation, 2D Graphic Design, HTML Scripting
The scenery above animates from daytime until nighttime with the sun coming up and the moon following behind. Audio has been placed within the animation to include the sound of birds singing during the day and the insects buzzing around during a quiet night.
Factual information regarding positive and negative impacts both from inside or outside factors could have on a dynamic ecosystem is made aware of through clicking on various objects placed in the animation. Audio cues with on-click events provide some of the sounds one would hear out in nature such as the flow of the river, swaying of branches in the wind, or the croaking of a frog when these objects are clicked on.
Layers that include scenes, tweens, click-events, characters, and audio have been carefully arranged and edited to provide a peaceful and cartoony imagery that would be appealing to a younger audience as they learn about the scenery and characters they interact with.
After the animation from day-to-night is completed, kids have the option to answer simplified questions on the next scene provided with music that focuses on the proper way to handle the natural environment. There are only three questions but it is enough to keep them engaged and focus on the topic. The only way to move to the next question is to answer the current question correctly which provides everyone with a sense of accomplishment and understanding through learning the correct choice. The frog above will also provide encouraging responses when the question is answered correctly.
The final scene provides the audience with the option to answer the questions again or restart from the beginning of the animation. This allows a loop for them to go back and feel more confident with obtaining the correct answers or look for information and interactions they may have missed during the day and night sequences previously.
Reflection Narrative
This artifact was created in my GRA-211 Interactive Animation course at Southern New Hampshire University. I started this project in December of 2021 and was granted permission to refine and polish this artifact for my GAM-495 Game Programming Capstone course. This course taught me how to create animations utilizing frames placed within a timeline, how to design and implement various types of graphics, and different ways of providing interactive elements for the user utilizing available scripts. I thought it would be fun and important to create a project focused on teaching a younger audience about being environmentally friendly through educational information about nature and the benefits that come from protecting it.
I selected this project for my ePortfolio to demonstrate my abilities in scripting appropriate interactive events during animated sequences. Although this course was focused on animation, a future career as a gameplay programmer will have me working in teams with other departments such as animators and artists to bring their designs to life as intended. I want potential employers to understand that I recognize the importance of teamwork and how to utilize the knowledge and understanding gained when it comes to providing a state of balance between their work and mine when programming distinct concepts or features.
While further creating and polishing this artifact, I faced a few distinct challenges personally and through provided feedback. One of them was the timing from some of the audio used would overlap each other even when cutting off the frames within the timeline. To improve this, it was necessary for me to cut the audio within the exact time in which the frames would transition into the next scene. It took several hours and several days of polishing this exact feature to get the artifact where I wanted it. Another troubling challenge I faced when incorporating feedback was over improving the smoothness of the animations and transitions within the scene. To improve this, I needed to add a lot more frames that extended the timeframe of various sections by four to five times the original number of frames to ensure a smoother motion for movement pathways. All in all, I learned a lot through experience utilizing techniques acquired from my Interactive Animation course during the refining and polishing phase of my capstone course and look forward to using it within my future endeavors.
