My Process

The Process:

Oh Wow. This project has certainly been a roller coaster ride for me. Spending until 6 am working on this project definitely makes me appreciate it A LOT. I was done earlier, but my project was definitely lacking. I wasn't impressed with myself. I wasn't pushing myself, and frankly, early in the process, I had absolutely no idea what to do about this project. I'm really not good with vague outlines, so this was a bit of a struggle for me.

So, what did I decide to do? Flash programming. I haven't touched that stuff since freshman year, and it was definitely my most difficult task this year. My initial plan was to do an infographic, but I knew I should do more than that. So I did.

Onto the process of the project...

First, I began by scanning a map of the University of Oregon. I then took that map and and retraced it with the pen tool in InDesign. After that, I didn't know what to do for a couple of days, until Sunday when I was walking on campus. I then walked by these cool solar panels in Lillis that legitimately looked like art. I wondered if there were other "hidden gems" such as this around campus, and there definitely was. I spent all Monday taking pictures and explored many parts of campus that I had never been too. It's amazing that after three years at this school, there was still so much I didn't know about it. After taking the pictures, I edited them in Photoshop to give them a little pop.

I then needed to figure out how to combine the map and the pictures. It hit me to make an interactive game in which you needed to find these "hidden gems" in the picture. How the heck was I going to do this? After countless hours researching Youtube videos, a simple "stop" and "gotoAndPlay" function is what I ended up using. I initially just had button on the map, but that didn't seem very hidden. I then turned every button on the map into an invisible button so the user would actually have to seek out the pictures in the map.

At 6 am, my project finally came together after hours of work on Flash. It was very satisfying to see the final product of my project. Although it took a long time, I'm glad I kept persevering to finish it. I'm very proud of the product I produced for my little experience with Flash.