Task 2 - Developing an idea for interaction work

After a quick team discussion we decided to make an animation where you could interact with the fish by feeding them, moving them about ect, it was also decided I was to make the graphics for the animation, Paige to research and Billy, who is talented at coding to put it all together in flash. When we first visited the aquarium it was explained that each tank had a main attraction, like the shark tank ect. so we chose the coral sea's tank because its token was a loggerhead turtle that was blind and had epilepsy, which was the most interesting animal there. After choosing our tank and what we wanted our fish to do as well as a final list of the fish we'll be using I made a quick mock up of an image of the turtle in two different art styles for a presentation to the aquarium people about our idea's so far.

We decided to use six fish; the Loggerhead turtle, Red Lionfish’s, Clown fish's, Arctic reef shark’s and Ray’s.

We also decided on a set of actions inspired by the animations I researched.

Click – reacts e.g. tries to bite the cursor

Roll over - small reaction e.g. move away

Click and drag – moves the fish around the tank

Roll over rock/coral - goes invisible to see through/inside/under

Double click - info comes up

We also decided to have a tool bar where the option to feed the fish different foods would be. You wouls simply click and drag the food onto a fish and if fed the right food the fish will react in a good way and if fed the wrong food it will react in a bad way.

We also decided on a set of  7 reactions/expressions for the fish, these would be expressed by either a thought bubble or change in expression, depending on what art style the aquarium felt was most appropriate.

Normal 

Happy –fed the right food

Ill – fed the wrong food

Hungry

Reaction 1 – roll over

Reaction 2 – click

Dizzy – after click and drag

We were also going to have a loading animation of the aquarium logo rotating made by Billy. After presenting we got some good feedback and with the help of this we decided to go for cartoony graphics made in an art program called Paint Tool Sai by me to get a more realistic shading, like fake 3D. I offered to animate the swimming movement for Billy but he decided he wanted to make it in photoshop using the puppet warp tool so it was decided when finished I would save the file as a PSD with fins and suck on differnt layers for Billy. Paige was chosen to find out about the fish for the information panel's as well as looking up what the tank looks like and what would be in there.