The 2CaSS Archive

Bev's Backgrounds

Thanks to Bev Evans, creator of the Communication4all website, for creating these wonderful backgrounds for use in all kinds of 2CaSS activities;

 Countryside background;

• 760x360 for the "Simple", "Auto" and "Activity" templates (all pages) View this photo
• 800x600 for the "Full Screen" template (all pages) View this photo
• 680x310 for the "Scroll" template (all pages) View this photo
• 360x330 for the "Portrait", "2x2" templates (first page) and "Textured" template (all pages) View this photo
• 320x410 for the "Reference" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x250 for the "Square book" template (first page) View this photo
• 260x130 for the "Landscape" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x360 for inner pages in the "Square book" template View this photo
• 260x180 for inner pages in the "Landscape" template View this photo
• 360x530 for inner pages in the "Portrait" template View this photo
• 160x240 for inner pages in the "2x2" template View this photo
• 320x510 for inner pages in the "Reference" template View this photo

 Grass background;

• 760x360 for the "Simple", "Auto" and "Activity" templates (all pages) View this photo
• 800x600 for the "Full Screen" template (all pages) View this photo
• 680x310 for the "Scroll" template (all pages) View this photo
• 360x330 for the "Portrait" , "2x2" templates (first page) and "Textured" template (all pages) View this photo
• 320x410 for the "Reference" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x250 for the "Square book" template (first page) View this photo
• 260x130 for the "Landscape" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x360 for inner pages in the "Square book" template View this photo
• 260x180 for inner pages in the "Landscape" template View this photo
• 360x530 for inner pages in the "Portrait" template View this photo
• 160x240 for inner pages in the "2x2" template View this photo
• 320x510 for inner pages in the "Reference" template View this photo

Grassy Bank background;

• 760x360 for the "Simple", "Auto" and "Activity" templates (all pages) View this photo
• 800x600 for the "Full Screen" template (all pages) View this photo
• 680x310 for the "Scroll" template (all pages) View this photo
• 360x330 for the "Portrait" , "2x2" templates (first page) and "Textured" template (all pages) View this photo
• 320x410 for the "Reference" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x250 for the "Square book" template (first page) View this photo
• 260x130 for the "Landscape" template (first page) View this photo
• 360x360 for inner pages in the "Square book" template View this photo
• 260x180 for inner pages in the "Landscape" template View this photo
• 360x530 for inner pages in the "Portrait" template View this photo
• 160x240 for inner pages in the "2x2" template View this photo
• 320x510 for inner pages in the "Reference" template View this photo

Creating Draggable Objects and Target Locations

In the last activity posted on this archive, The Three Pigs story, it included pages where the user had to drag objects to a set location on screen before the story would continue. This is a straight forward effect that is achieved as follows;

Choose the 'Activity' template and begin to build your story / activity. When you want to create draggable objects with a target location, click on the dice icon "games" on the right of the screen.

Click and drag the '_drag' icon onto the page (it is the first option in the list shown below), and in it's edit window create the image you want. If you want to have more than one object to drag you can either drag more of the '_drag' icons onto the page, or just copy and paste the first one (if all draggable objects are to look the same - like in the three pigs story)

At the moment there is nowhere to drag these objects to, so we need to add the 'drag target' icon. Click and drag the icon onto the page (it is the third option in the image above), and then create the image for it (in the three pigs example it was the pig). Scale it to the size you want, and place it on screen.

Now when you test the activity, you will notice that there is no next page arrow. The arrow will not appear until you have moved all the draggable objects onto the drag target.

Copy and Paste

When creating stories with a central character, you can spend a long time working on how the character looks and is coloured on your first screen, and then simply right click on it, choose "copy" and paste that character into a second, third, fourth page as you need.

Once pasted into another page, you can resize or recolour it, or give it a complete new set of actions to follow.

Remember though, if the character has been given actions to follow on the first page before you copy it, you will copy those actions as well and will need to double click on the rubbish bin on the right of the editing screen to remove those actions. 

New Search Facility

We've added a new search system to the archive (see the bottom of the screen) that now allows you to search through all the posts, pages and comments easily and quickly. Simply type in your request, press enter and see the difference!

Character Creation

This site - http://sp-studio.de/ - allows you to create great South Park-esque characters for use in your 2CaSS presentations. When you've made a character, print screen the page (use the PRTSCR function on your computer), copy it into an image program, and crop. 

Once you use the character within 2CaSS, you should be able to select the outer (white) background and make it transparent using the chequerboard pattern within the 2CaSS tools.

 

2CaSS and non IE Flash

After a change of work laptops, I set up my new Windows7 machine, downloaded Chrome to use a browser and installed the Flash plugin for Chrome.

Then 2Create a Superstory was installed onto the machine, but when I tried to run it, I was given an error message related to Flash. Confused by this, I checked Chrome again, and Flash was working fine within it. 

Eventually I realised the problem - the Flash plugin for Chrome is different to Flash on Internet Explorer (IE uses ActiveX to install). Once Flash has been updated on Internet Explorer, 2Create a Superstory worked just fine.

So, a word of warning if you are moving over to Windows7, and planning not to use Internet Explorer, - you still need to update Flash on it to enable 2Create a Superstory to work properly.

Ghosting around

Using the "this._alpha=xx;" code you can make an object become see through. The value of xx can vary between 0 (see through) to 100 (solid)

This effect can also be applied to clickable objects - so you could have a hotspot on screen even if you have chosen alpha=0.

Curtain Raiser

Why not start a story with younger children with a curtain raising to reveal the setting? This animation is achieved by enlarging an object element to fill the screen, and adding the "up" animation to it.

The side curtains are two additional elements added to the screen (one was created, copied to the second and flipped to create a mirror image). The .2c2 file is also listed below so you can load and experiment with how it works. 

Full Screen

Download .2c2 Curtain file

Try removing the "up" animation from the timeline and put it as a mouse click. The curtain will open a small amount with each mouse click, then stop.

This effect would also work for a steel shutter effect door / a lift / etc

Note: Make sure that the two side curtain elements are positioned using "bring to front" so that they sit in front of the raising curtain

Knowing an objects name

If you're ready to play with actionscript, but have no idea which object on a page is which, here's a useful feature. Click on the object in question, and look at the top right of the screen (between the timeframe clock and the minimise icon). You should see the name of the object in a light blue colour as in the example shown below. 

This is the name you will need to use when adding actionscript for that object.

Duplicating Pages

Here's a really useful feature. If you are creating work where several pages need to contain the same elements (background and objects too), it can be really tricky to make sure the objects appear in the same place on each page.

However, you can click on the border of a page and choose "duplicate" to create an identical version of the page as the next page. Wonderful!

This is also useful if you want to add title page to your work, but forgot to when you started. Duplicate the first page, (making it the second), then return to the first page, remove the objects / animations and add a title. You now have a static page to use as a title page.

This tip also allows you to delete a specific page, or change the background colour of a page as well.