Here is the storyboard i came up with for my animation.
The storyboard gives me a good idea of how i want my piece to be produced and what i want the end product to look like. Obviously this is very basic and just a guide for now but it gives me something to work towards.
Eric Cartman is a very brash and outspoken character. He is seen as rude and offensive and swears whenever he gets the chance. I aim to portray this as best as i can in my character sheet. This will give the animator a very good idea of how to interact with the character.
Cartman’s body language is often confident although he is far from comfortable with his appearance, often citing that he is big boned rather than fat when comments about his weight are made. One of his many catchphrases is, “I’m not fat, I’m big boned.”
Other catchphrases which Cartman use include,
“Screw you guys, I’m going home,”
“Screw you Kenny,”
“Respect my authority” and
“Die hippy, die.”
The technical details i am looking at for my project are as follows, these are not set in stone yet but will give me a good guideline.
Dimensions: I am looking to make the size of the flash animation around 500px x 300px.
Framerate: I will be producing my movie to around 30fps and around 10 seconds in total which will loop.
Data Size: This is important because a big file can mean long loading times which no one wants. I am aiming to keep my production below 2MB once finished and published. I need to keep a close eye on the amount of resources i am using and the amount of frames and layers i will have.
Sound: I may include background music which will most likely be the South Park theme tune. I would then have a stop and play option available if the user did not want to hear the sounds. I aim to include buttons which upon pressing will play a sound and activate an animation making it look like Cartman is speaking.
Layers: I aim to have a lot of layers which will make it easier to animate separate parts of the character. Layers of the character which will be key to animate include things such as the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, hands and feet. Once i have produced each part of the character and separated them into layers i aim to group the layers into appropriate folders. For example all the parts of the head of Cartman will go into a folder called head, the same will happen for Cartman’s body, the background and any buttons i create.
Assets: All parts of the static Cartman body will be converted into graphic symbols. Any parts of the character which i decide to animate will be converted into movie clip symbols which play on request. All the buttons which are intractable by the user will be converted into button symbols.
User Interaction: I aim to make all the interaction done by the user via buttons. This will make it easier to know what the character is able to do. If i get chance i may add in a couple of hidden buttons which can be clicked to activate an animation. I feel this would be a good extra to add but may not be in the right context for the project.
The layout: I feel the simpler the better with layout, i have seen very advanced flash with drop down menus and other advanced features but i do not feel that is required or would fit with the theme of my piece to have these features. The layout will have the character in the centre of the screen with buttons around him.
Movement: I aim to have Cartman moving in a number of different ways. Initial ideas i have had include, waving, smiling, walking, running and swearing. There are obviously endless possibilities when it comes to the movement of the character. I feel however that i need to make sure Cartman isn’t doing anything which he would not usually do and would be out of character.
