Multimedia Applications

Chapter 5

Animation
• Animation is defined as the act of making
something come alive
• It is concerned with the visual or
aesthetic aspect of the project
• Animation is an object moving across or
into or out of the screen

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Usage of Animtation
• Artistic purposes
• Storytelling
• Displaying data
(scientific visualization)
• Instructional purposes

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The Power of Animation
• Animation grabs attention
• Transitions are simple forms
of animation
Wipe
Zoom

Dissolve
Principles of animation
• Animation is possible because of a
biological phenomenon known as
persistence of vision and a
psychological phenomenon called phi
• Still images are flashed in sequence
 Frame rate measures the speed of
change
Principles of Animation
• Persistence of Vision -biological
phenomenon - an object seen by the
human eye remains mapped on the
retina for a brief time after viewing.
• Causes the visual illusion of
movement, when images change
slightly and rapidly
 Principles of Animation
• Television video creates 30 frames per
second
• Movies are shot at a rate of 24 frames
per second and replayed at 48 frames
per second because shutter flashes
light through each image twice.
• Both are used to create motion and
animation
Animation Techniques
• Cel Animation
– The technique made famous by Disney
– Progressively different graphics on
each frame of movie film
– Clear celluloid sheets were used to
draw each frame
– ( 24 frames/sec. * 60 sec/min) = 1440
separate frames needed to produce one
minute of a movie
Animation Techniques
• Cel Animation
– Begins with keyframes (first and last
frames of an action)
– Tweening – the series of frames drawn
in between the first and last
– Originally hand drawn and “flipped”
through to check the “motion”
– Now replaced by computer generated
graphics
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.

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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 key frames.

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Tweening in computer
animation
 Tweening is a key process in all
types of animation,
including computer animation.
It is the process of generating
intermediate frames between
two images, called key frames,
to give the appearance that the
first image evolves smoothly
into the second image.

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PATH ANIMATION
 The movement of an object
happened along a predetermined
path on the screen.
 The path could be a straight line or
any number of curves.
 The object does not change,
although it might be resized or
reshape.

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Principles of Animation
• Cel Animation
 Keyframes identify the start and end of
action
 The process of filling in the action is
called tweening
 Computer Animation
Electronically generated movement of anything on
your computer screen.
 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.
 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.

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Principles of Animation
• Computer Animation
 Kinematics is the study of motion of
jointed structures
 Computer Animation
• Based on the same model as cel
animation
– Uses layers, keyframes, and tweening
techniques
– Inks special methods for computing RGB pixel
values, providing edge detection and layering
so that images can blend or produce
transparencies, inversions and effects
– Speed of the animation depends on computer.
Kinematics
• Study of movement and motion of
structures that have joints, (such as a
person or a walking dog)
• Complex- need to calculate position,
velocity, rotation and acceleration of all
joint and body parts involved
• Inverse kinematics – process of linking
objects together and define their
relationships and limits and then drag the
parts and let the computer calculate the
result ( for example, connect hands and arms and bent
the elbow in various directions)
• Fractal Design’s Poser – a 3-D modeling
program
Computer Animation
Still or moving images transformed into another
 Morphing is a special effect in motion pictures that changes
(or morphs) one image or shape into another through a
seamless transition.
 Morphing means stretching or as part of a fantasy or
surreal sequence.
 Traditionally such a depiction would be achieved through
cross-fading techniques on film.

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Principles of Animation
 Morphing is the process of
transitioning from one image to
another
Morphing
• A special effect in which one image
transforms into another
• Process involves connecting a series
of key points, which are mapped
from the start image to the end image
to make a smooth transition
• ( See p.328)
Principles of Animation
• Animation file formats
Windows Media – .AVI, .ASF, or .WMV
Apple QuickTime – .QT or .MOV
Motion Video – .MPG or .MPEG
Flash – .SWF
Shockwave – .DCR
Animated GIF – .GIF
Animation File Formats
• Director (dir) compressed into a
Shockwave animation file (dcr) for the web
• Windows Audio Video Interleaved Format
(avi)
• Macintosh ( quicktime, mov)
• Motion Video ( mpeg, mpg)
• Compuserv ( gif)
• Shockwave (dcr)
• Compression for Director is 75%+ turning
a 100k file into a 25k file
 Creating Animation
• Software helps create objects
such as:
 A rolling ball
 Creating Animation
• Software helps create objects
such as:
 A rolling ball
 A bouncing ball

s=1/2gt2
Bouncing Ball
• Requires a series of rotations
• A knowledge of physics (s= 1/2gt2)
• Ball will uniformly accelerate and
decelerate by squares 1,4,9,16,….
(as Galileo discovered)
(See examples, pp.329-334)
 Creating Animation
• Software helps create objects
such as:
 A rolling ball
A bouncing ball

•An animated scene

 Creating an Animated Scene
• (See text p.335)
• A background is chosen
• Then an “actor” is video taped running
against a blue or green screen
• A few frames of the running man are
captured by a video capture board and the
blue background is removed
• Finally, the action is placed on the
background…. And King Kong, or Jurassic
Park is born
Slide Title
The animation production
pipeline is the path by which a
movie goes from a creator’s
brain to the screen for the world
to see.

STEP: 1
Kick off - Time, location and
speed, for this we just need a
concept, brief and any other
relevant information
Script—What ANIMATION
is the story or
PRODUCTIO
underlying message of the
animation? N STEPS
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STEP: 2
Design - It is always hugely
helpful for us to get references
from the start.
Depending on the project, clients
are provided with one or more
style frames

ANIMATION
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STEP 3:
Storyboard - The storyboard
shows the building blocks of the
animation, and gives an idea of
how the voiceover will match up
with the visuals.

ANIMATION
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STEP 4:
Animatic - pull together
everything we’ve got so far,
create a fully timed-out rough
film. Its purpose is to
demonstrate timing, flow and
pace alongside key movements
and transitions.

STEP 5:
Production - bringing the story
to life frame by frame
ANIMATION
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STEP 6:
Feedback and sign-off- stage
applies throughout the whole
project process, culminating in
the final sign-off before we
deliver the finished piece.

Prompt feedback is important to

ensure we keep the process
moving, and it’s always useful to
get the requests listed in order
priority
ANIMATION
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STEP 7:
Render & Final Delivery -
With agreed amendments in
place project is ready to be
delivered in low resolution MP4
file for final sign-off.
Once we get the thumbs-up,
we’ll render and deliver a full
quality file to the client

ANIMATION
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 Animation tools
Some animation tools are:
– Wick Editor
– Macromedia's Flash
– Adobe Premiere
– Hyperstudio
– Alias|Wavefront's Maya
– NewTek's Lightwave
– Cartoon Animator
– Adobe Photoshop

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 Gif Animation Resources
• http://computers.lycos.com/downloads/dgi
f.asp
• http://shareware.lycos.com/tucows/imgani
95.shtml