Parallax overview

- [Voiceover] Parallax is an optical illusion that gives an otherwise flat 2D image the illusion of depth. If you've ever driven in a car you have experienced parallax. Pay close attention to this video that was shot along the Trans-Canada Highway. The foreground seems to zip along while the trees on the other side of the pond don't move as fast. If you look at the sky and the hill in the background their movement is even slower still. On the web parallax scrolling is all the rage. In this example, a site for the movie Life of Pi, all you need to do is rotate the scroll wheel of the mouse to navigate through the various pages of the site. As you scroll one page seems to slide over the other. Though scrolling can be regarded as motion it is not exactly in the same league as the technique Ken Burns used to bring grainy Civil War movies to life in his PBS series, The Civil War. As the camera would seemingly move into and out of an image. This is the technique we will be exploring. Creating parallax motion is not terribly difficult. But as you saw during our short drive along the Trans-Canada Highway, you need to pay attention the world around you. Typically the technique requires three images or layers that are in motion. The background layer in this example here, the rock facing the sky, moves rather slowly. The mid-ground, the abandoned mill, moves a little quicker. And the foreground image, the log, moves even faster. Put those three together and you have simulated depth. We will be exploring this technique as we create an animated banner ad using Google Web Designer and Flash CC. To really seal the deal, you can add the illusion of depth to feel by applying subtle blurs to objects as they seem to go out of focus and the objects behind them come into focus. This will be accomplished by using blurs in Edge Animate. So what's the plan? The first project will involve a banner ad for a mythical airline. The animation starts with the ground slowing moving in one direction, the clouds moving a little quicker in another direction, and an airliner flying into the scene. Some text will slide across the screen and a clickable button appears. This project will be assembled first in Google Web Designer, which is a new application designed to create motion for interactive banner ads. The project will next be assembled in Flash CC. Contrary to reports elsewhere, Flash's latest update easily brings the traditional power of flash to the somewhat plugin free HTML universe. In this exercise we will be exploring these new HTML5 features. The final project will be further exploration of the parallax effect. And will be assembled in Edge Animate. This project uses blur's motion to add even more impact to the illusion to depth. One final note, the imaging for parallax motion is critical. Spend time in Photoshop or another imaging application to ensure transparent edges are sharp. And if you need to fill holes in an image spend the necessary time to ensure the fills look natural. With that out of the way let's get started.