Multimedia: making it Work Animation

Overview The Power of Motion Principles of Animation Animation by Computer Making Animations That Work

The Power of Motion You can animate bulleted text or fly it onto the screen, or you can use charts with quantities that grow or dwindle Visual effects such as wipes, fades, zooms, and dissolves are available in most multimedia authoring packages, and some of these can be used for primitive animation But animation is more than wipes, fades, and zooms. Animation is an object actually moving across or into or out of the screen a spinning globe of our earth; a car driving along a line-art highway; Warning: Overuse of animation and annoying visual effects can ruin a multimedia project

Principles of Animation An object seen by the human eye remains chemically mapped on the eye’s retina for a brief time after viewing. Combined with the human mind’s need to conceptually complete a perceived action, this makes it possible for a series of images that are changed very slightly and very rapidly, one after the other, to seemingly blend together into a visual illusion of movement. When the images are progressively and rapidly changed, the arrow of the compass is perceived to be spinning.

Animation by Computer Animation can be rendered in: 2-D space - 2-D animations are very simple and static. flat Cartesian x and y axes of the screen Authoring and presentation softwar such as Flash or PowerPoint 2-1/2D space - An illusion of depth is created through shadowing, highlighting, and forced perspective Image itself still rests on the flat x and y axes in two dimensions 3-D space - Complicated and realistic animations are done in 3-D space. changes (motion) are calculated along all three axes (x, y, and z)

Animation Techniques The steps to be followed in creating animation are: Organize the execution in a series of logical steps. Choose an animation tool best suited for the job. Post-process the completed animation, doing any special renderings and adding sound effects.

Animation Techniques Cel Animation Cel animation is a technique in which a series of progressively different graphics are used on each frame of movie film. The term "cel" is derived from the clear celluloid sheets that were used for drawing each frame, which have been replaced today by layers of digital imagery. Cel animation begins with keyframes. Keyframes refer to the first and the last frame of an action. The frames in between the keyframes are drawn in the tweening process. Tweening depicts the action that requires calculating the number of frames b/w keyframes and the path the action takes,

Animation Techniques Computer animation Computer animation is very similar to cel animation. use the vocabulary of classic cel animation — terms such as layer, keyframe, and tweening. The primary difference is in how much must be drawn by the animator and how much is automatically generated by the software.

Animation Techniques Computer animation Kinematics is the study of the movement and motion of structures that have joints, such as a walking man. Inverse kinematics is the process of linking objects such as hands to arms, and defining their relationship and limits. (for example, elbows cannot bend backward).

Animation Techniques Computer animation Morphing is an effect in which a still or moving image is transformed into another.

Animation File Formats .dir and .dcr - Director files. .fli and .flc - AnimatorPro files. .max - 3D Studio Max files. .fla and .swf - Flash files. GIF89a file format: It is a version of the GIF image format. GIF89a allows multiple images to be put into a single file and then be displayed as an animation in the Web browser. Applications like BoxTop Software's GIFmation or ULead's GIF Animator are needed to create GIF89a animation.

Animation File Formats Because file size is a critical factor when downloading animations to play on web pages, file compression is an essential part of preparing animation files for the Web. New with HTML5 is animation built within a .svg (scalable vector graphics) file, where graphic elements can be programmed to change over time <svg width="8cm" height="3cm" viewBox="0 0 800 300" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1"> <rect x="1" y="1" width="800" height="300" fill="none" stroke="rgb(255,0,255)" stroke-width="4" /> <rect id="RectElement" x="300" y="100" width="300" height="100" fill="rgb(255,0,0)" > <animate attributeName="x" attributeType="XML" begin="0s" dur="3s" fill="freeze" from="300" to="0" /> <animate attributeName="y" attributeType="XML" begin="0s" dur="3s" fill="freeze" from="100" to="0" /> <animate attributeName="width" attributeType="XML" begin="0s" dur="3s" fill="freeze" from="300" to="800" /> <animate attributeName="height" attributeType="XML" begin="0s" dur="3s" fill="freeze" from="100" to="300" /> </rect> </svg>

Making Animations That Work Use animation carefully and sparingly. High quality animations require superior display platforms and hardware, as well as raw computing horsepower. File compression is very important when preparing animation files for the Web. Some animation tools are: Adobe’s Flash. Kai's Power Tools' Spheroid Designer. Alias|Wavefront's Maya. NewTek's Lightwave.

Making Animations That Work A Rolling Ball A Bouncing Ball