Multimedia Authoring1 Animation Animation File Formats Animated GIF 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.

Multimedia Authoring2 Animation File Formats Animated GIFs have several drawbacks. One concerns the user interface. GIF animations do not provide interface controls, so users have no easy way to stop a looping animation short of closing the browser window. Second, the animated GIF format does not perform interframe compression, which means that if you create a ten-frame animation and each frame is a 20 KB GIF, you'll be putting a 200 KB file on your page.

Multimedia Authoring3 Animation File Formats SWF A compressed Adobe Flash file Small files which support streaming Movies built of mainly two elements: vector based objects and images. SWF files are typically derived from a FLA file (Flash Project File) It drew attention early for its ability to create animations that were fairly compact and fast-loading. Subsequently, Flash has become more sophisticated, with a powerful scripting language (called ActionScript) Flash can incorporate sound and video.

Multimedia Authoring4 Animation File Formats Quicktime (MOV) Apple’s animation and movie file format Need quicktime player to play.mov files MPEG MPEG files tend to be much smaller but with good quality as they use sophisticated compression techniques AVI Microsoft’s animation and movie file format Compression is not as high as some other formats therefore downloading time can be an issue Conversion programs exist to allow you to convert AVI to other formats

Multimedia Authoring5 Animation Flash and Website Design 1. Information embedded in Flash is often invisible to search engines. 2. Website reporting on Flash navigation is problematic and cumbersome. 3. Flash breaks web usability standards. 4. Lack of consistent cross platform support. 5. Code embedding Flash objects doesn’t pass w3c validation. 6. Some users disable Flash to avoid flash based advertising. 7. Website updates continually require Flash skills 8. Flash breaks Search Engine Site Previews

Multimedia Authoring6 Animation SUMMARY There is a place for animation on the Web. Simple animation on a Web site's main home page can provide just the right amount of visual interest to invite users to explore your materials. Animation can also be useful in illustrating concepts or procedures, such as change over time. When you have animation that relates to the content of your site, one way to minimize the potential distraction is to present the animation in a secondary window. This technique offers a measure of viewer control: readers can open the window to view the animation and then close the window when they're finished.

Multimedia Authoring7 Animation REFERENCES Adobe CS4 Video Workshop Vaughan, T. (2008) Multimedia: Making IT Work, 7 th Ed. New York: McGraw- Hill, Chapter 7 and pages