How to Create a Prank Flash Animation
Prank Flash animations make great gags. The simplest pranks do little more than cutting an innocuous movie to a scary image and startling sound (in the tradition of Bambi Meets Godzilla). More complex pranks frustrate the user by playing tricks with the mouse. You can post them on your home page and email the link to your friends.
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Things You'll Need
- Digital images and/or video clips
- Sound files
- Any program that creates SWF movies
- Macromedia or Adobe Flash
- A basic knowledge of ActionScript
Instructions
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Simple Screamer Pranks
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1
Plan your prank. You need a setup and the prank itself. The set up is usually an innocuous image or animation and pleasant background music. The prank usually combines a startling image (a bloody eye or frightful face) and a scream.
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2
Collect your materials. You can draw your own images, use photographs, download images from the web or capture frames from movies. The web has plenty of free sound clips, but you can always record your own.
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3
Create your Flash Animation. Make sure the setup runs 15 to 20 seconds to lull the viewer into a sense of security. Cut abruptly to the shock image. Load sounds with the frame properties palette.
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4
Save your prank as an SWF animation. Load it to your web page and email your friends.
Frustrating Mouse Tricks
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Plan your prank. It should involve an interface element that doesn't work as anticipated. This could be a button that jumps when the mouse reaches it, a maze that blocks the mouse, or a hidden button that restarts the prank.
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Draw the stage elements. You should include at least one object intended to interact with the mouse.
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Create the animation keyframes. Tricks that move the button can be done in one frame. Tricks that move the user around in the movie require a keyframe for each different screen.
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Input the ActionScript code. Depending on your version of Flash you can attach it directly to the button, or use an event handler. The most important element is to execute the script when the mouse moves over the button rather than when the user clicks.
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Test your movie. When it works exactly the way you want, export it as an SWF file.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have artistic or musical skills, use your own art or music and tell your friends to look at your work. Or import a video of a family outing. The more contrast the better.
To enhance the joke create a temporary email account and email the link so your friends and family won't know who you are. Dress the email up like a mass "Did you hear about?" chain mails that people can't resist opening.
If you know how to work with movie clips, you can create your entire prank in a single frame. Just write ActionScript code to swap movie clips when the mouse moves over the trigger.
If you really want to have fun, combine scary and frustrating pranks.
Copyright restrictions still apply even to pranks. If you violate someone's copyright, a sense of humor won't get you off the hook.
