Lesson 7-Animation
Overview
The power of motion.
Computer-generated animation.
File formats used in animation.
Making successful animations.
The power of motion
Animation is defined as the act of making something come alive.
It is concerned with the visual or aesthetic aspect of the project.
Visual effects such as wipes, fades, zooms, and dissolves are available
in most authoring packages, and some of these can be used for
primitive animation
Animation is an object moving across or into or out of the screen.
The power of motion
Figure 7-1. Macromedia
Director and Adobe Premiere
offer many visual effects and
transition
Principle of Animation
Animation is possible because of a biological phenomenon
known as persistence of vision and a psychological phenomenon
called phi.
In animation, a series of images are rapidly changed to create an
illusion of movement.
Cels, or frames, of a rotating logo. When the images are progressively and
rapidly changed, the arrow of the compass is perceived to be spinning.
Principle of Animation
TV video builds 30 entire frames or pictures every seconds
Movies on film are typically shot at a shutter rate of 24 frames per
second, but using projection tricks (the projector’s shutter flashes light
through each image twice), the flicker rate is increased to 48 times per
second, and the human eye thus sees a motion picture
On some projectors, each frame is shown three times before the pull-
down claw moves to the next frame, for a total of 72 flickers per
second
Animation by Computer
Animation space.
Animation techniques.
Animation Space
Animation can be rendered in:
2-D space - 2-D animations are very simple and static.
Color-cycling
2D-animation
Path animation
2-1/2D space - An illusion of depth is created through shadowing,
highlighting, and forced perspective, though in reality the image rests in
two dimensions.
3-D space - Complicated and realistic animations are done in 3-D space.
Animation Techniques
Animation process
Cel animation.
Computer animation.
Animation Process
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.
Build and tweak the sequences by creating objects, planning their
movement, texturing their surfaces, adding lights, experimenting
with lighting effects, and positioning the camera or point of view.
Post-process the completed animation.
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.
Cel animation begins with keyframes.
Cel Animation
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 takes place between keyframes.
Tweening is followed by the pencil test.
Computer Animation
Computer animation is very similar to cel animation.
The primary difference is in how much must be drawn by the
animator and how much is automatically generated by the
software.
Computer Animation
Kinematics is the study of the movement and motion of
structures that have joints.
Inverse kinematics is the process of linking objects, and defining
their relationship and limits.
Morphing is an effect in which a still or moving image is
transformed into another.
Computer Animation
Figure 7-2. Curious Lab’s Poser understands human motion and
inverse kinematics: move an arm, and the shoulders follow
Computer Animation
Figure 7-3. Morphing software
was used to seamlessly
transform the images of 16
kindergartners. When a sound
track of music and voices was
added to the four-minute piece,
it made a compelling
QuickTime video about how
similar children are to each
other. Matching key points (red)
in the start and end image
guide the morphing transition
File Formats used in Animation
.dir and .dcr - Director files.
.fli and .flc - AnimatorPro files.
.max - 3D Studio Max files.
.pics - SuperCard and Director files.
.fla and .swf - Flash files.
File Formats used in Animation
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.
Making Successful Animations
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.
Multimedia authoring systems typically provide tools to simplify creating
animations within that authoring system. And they often have a mechanism for
playing the special animation files created by dedicated animation software.
Making Successful Animations
Some animation tools are:
Macromedia's Flash.
Kai's Power Tools' Spheroid Designer.
Alias|Wavefront's Maya.
NewTek's Lightwave.
Making Animations That Work
A rolling ball: Billiard-ball spheres can be made quickly
using Photoshop and Kai’s Power Tools’ Spheroid
(a)
Designer available in KPT3 (see Figure 7-4), a set of
graphic manipulation plug-ins.
(a) First, create a new, blank image file that is 100×100
pixels, and fill it with a sphere: (b)
(b) Create a new layer in Phtoshop, and place some
white text on this layer at the center of the image:
(c) Sphererize the text using Photoshop’s distortion filter,
and save the result: (c)
Making Animations That Work
(d) To animate the sphere by rolling it across the screen, you first need to
make a number of rotated images of the sphere. Rotate the image in 45-
degree increments to create a total of eight images, rotating a full circle of
360 degrees. Whendisplayed sequentially at the same location, the sphere
spins:
(d)
Making Animations That Work
Figure 7-4. KPT3 from
Corel provides a
spheroid designer
Making Animations That Work
A Bouncing Ball
Figure 7-5. To make a
bouncing ball seem natural,
don’t forget the effects of
gravity. If you loop the 18
images shown here, the
ball will bounce forever
Making Animations That Work
GIF Animation
Making Animations That Work
Figure 7-6. GIFmation
from BoxTop Software
lets you organize images
into animated GIF files
playable by Web browsers
Creating an Animation Scene
(a) (c)
Figure 7-7. The upper portion of the
photo was placed behind the
runners (b) and the lower portion in
front of them, to make them appear
to run behind the bridge railing (c)
(b)
Summary
Animation is visual change over time and adds great power to
multimedia.
Cell animation uses a series of progressively different graphics
on each frame of movie film.
Computer animation has eased the process of creating
animation.
Many file formats are designed specifically to contain animation.
