"Perhaps because of the noisy and chaotic nature of the creative process, development tools are located in the skyscraper ring architecture." (Bakersmith Report, 2015, p.37)

alternate world

Animation: A Multimedia Toolbench Chapter

 
Selected Animation Tools
Title Access Online Tutorials Reviews Examples Publications Company Costs
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Concepts

"Animation is the process of giving the illusion of movement or life to cinematographic drawings, models, or inanimate objects." Encyclopedia Britannica Online, [March, 2000]

As early as the 1830's the phenakistoscope and the zoetrope used revolving cylinders to simulate motion. By the 1900's stop motion photography had been demonstrated. Animated films have used this frame-by-frame assembly of stop-motion images ever since. One of the earliest of these works was titled, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, produced in 1906. Numerous additional current examples can be found by using 'stop motion' or 'stop motion photography' for a search at Youtube. and other video sites. Such stop motion animation work was and is time consuming, tedious and expensive to produce. However, short animation sequences are easy to achieve with computers and effective in communicating a sense of change. This need to communicate change in simpler ways than realistic video has led to numerous innovations in the use of computer graphics to produce animation. This digital work has become an important component of U.S. and world economic activity. The animated movie branch of this knowledge has become competitive with movies using human actors, which has led to movies which mix both animated and real actors. The gaming branch of this knowledge had created a market in the year 2002 of over $30 billion dollars in world wide sales, almost double that of cinema.

Animation is the distilled essence of video. This essence is some degree of visual change. Perhaps our instinctive attention to even the most basic outlines of motion comes from our predatory and hunting heritage. In the wilds, failure to attend to visual change meant death. For millions of years of development of our species, movement could mean the opportunity of dinner or the danger of an even tougher predator. Consequently, if it moves, people will look at  it. If it moves, they will initially have to concentrate to not look at it. If several things are moving, the item that can be perceived as moving faster will receive the greatest attention. To take advantage of the power of animation in communication means to have an awareness of all the ways that motion is created. Further, it means to know how to produce these forms of motion and to integrate them with other forms of communication. An educator especially needs to know how to put change into a format visible to the learner and integrate it with other ways of communicating.

Where video seeks to provide a full recreation of life, animation video requires but the hint or sketch of a model or outline of a figure. Animation can be two or three dimensional and works well without being particularly realistic. Entire television series are based on flat or two-dimensional (2D) art work, work which is increasingly computer generated. Such work does not have to be based on flat drawings. Clay-mation provides three-dimensional figures whose shape can be quickly changed and recorded as single digital pictures that can be assembled and played back at 30 frames per second, creating fluid looking animation.  This is rather painstaking work compared with using the power of the computer to create complex three dimensional objects and set them to motion. Pixar's movies such as Toy Story have demonstrated the widespread acceptance of the story telling power of three dimensional computer generated objects.

Knowledge of animation does much to inform the topic of a prior chapter, video composition. Since the topic of video communication has already been introduced, let us examine video motion then consider the degree to which animation is different. Video presents a new slide every 1/30 of a second. Film presents a new slide every 1/24 of a second. The change of slide occurs so fast that it is not perceived. Unless something within the frame is different, no perception of change occurs. As fewer frames per second are shown, the eye begins to perceive a flicker. Observers say that the viewing has become jerky. When the computer cannot present video frames fast enough, observers talk about a flicker even when there is no change within the frame. That is, if a video of a box that is sitting still on a table slows down to just a few frames per second, the eye is attracted, even if it is annoyed, by this flickering motion.

The illusion of animation can be achieved in many ways. An animated presenter is one who moves about and gestures a great deal. Another simple form of animation is to change the scene. Merely the act of showing the next slide in a slide show is a form of scene change and therefore of animation. The faster the slides change, the "more animated" the presentation. Where classic electronic slideshows such as Powerpoint have a scene (slide) change every couple of minutes (or longer), many slide presenters have moved to a highly animated slideshow format of a couple of seconds per slide. The original Did You Know or its many Did You Know slideshow variations are classic examples of this form and should be watched and studied for their own contribution to the ideas of animation.

The clip change in animation or video can be as simple as a different point of view (e.g., camera angle or camera position of the same scene), or of a very different scene. Movement of the camera itself also provides change. These include pan left or right, tilt up and down, zoom in and out, dolly and many others. The greater the contrast of change between one scene and the next, the greater the attention getting value until at some point of increase the viewer perceives chaos instead of meaning.

Like many fields, a specialized vocabulary has grown up around best practices. Learning the meaning of animation terms is essential to understanding it. Several animation authors have discussed and illustrated the Principles of Animation on the Web to various degrees (Phong; Siggraph, Salisbury, Belleman), generally building on an article by Lasseter (1987) that spelled out these concepts. These principles have persisted through meaning different technologies for the production and presentation of animation, a movement from 2D and manual drawings and to 2D and 3D computer drawing. As with this example of Squash and Stretch using Flash animation technique (Danielthelion, 2005), the animation concepts were created with Adobe Flash animation software which dominates the Web market for animation. The life, times and work of John Lasseter encompass the full range of the history of animation, beginning with his animation training by the masters of the Disney animation technique to his leadership in developing the field of computer animation and then his role as chief creative officer for Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studio. Renting and viewing some of his early and later work provides some sense of the significant evolution of the animation art form in recent history.

Television's thirty second commercials provide another kind of animation by having made an art form of scene change in order to provide the greatest amount of attention holding power. Many thirty second commercials change the camera angle and scene every one to two seconds. Further, when a scene holds for longer than a second or two, some other form of animation or movement continues within the scene. To better study this body of work, tape and digitize some of your favorite animated commercials and play these 30 second digital clips several times. Open a spreadsheet and develop a table that accounts for several things. Count the number of changes of view and add stop watch data how long each took. Next categorize these changes: scene change; camera angle change; animated text; video within video; actor animation and so forth. Provide a grand total for how many of these that occur. Include a column for how much it might have cost. Having done so, you will forever change the way you see animation and motion picture shows. When next engaged in animation or video composition or in evaluating the moving picture composition of others, consider the degree to which this sense of animation is a part of this work. This does not mean that all animated video composition needs the high-pace of visual change found in commercials. It does means that the value of such animation should be considered. Further, this need for visual change applies to more than just video. Animation should be considered in places where the other forms of communication are weak in their ability to maintain explanation, interest and attention.

Where video holds to a standard of 30 frames per second which provides a realistic sense of motion, the mind however is willing to adapt to much shower frame rates. One such common technique is "limited animation" in which the image displayed is merely moved to a new location several times before a new image or graphic is displayed. For example, the body might move within the frame but stay the same while just the facial expressions are redrawn. The inherent jerkiness of such animation is not an obstacle however to understanding what is being communicated. Another technique is "cycling" where much of the image remains the same, but important smaller repetitive elements change. For example, a pattern is created for the movement of legs for walking or the motion of lips for talking, then the same pattern is used again and again. These patterns are put in the foreground of simple outlined backgrounds, simple in the sense that even common details such as leaves on a tree are absent. These techniques can be commonly seen in television cartoon shows.

The procedures for figure creation fall into two general groups of techniques, cell animation and object animation (such as silhouette, puppet and clay animation). Cell animation starts with a base image. A semi-transparent layer is then placed over the base image and an adjustment of the image is made in the direction of the desired simulation of movement. Succeeding layers of semi-transparent surfaces follow with adjustments to each. Object animation starts with a fully completed figure, such as a puppet. Adjustments are made to the position of the puppet in the direction of the desired simulation of movement. A photograph is taken after each movement. In either approach, senior or key animators can define the most significant changes and then use assistants to fill in the differences. All of these procedures have their parallels in computer based animation.

However, motion is an attention getter but not necessarily an attention holder.  How is attention to change lost? The view may change too slowly or the changes may be too minor to be perceived. Motion also adds greater value if the subject of the animation is relevant to the topic at hand. Motion is attended to, but if no value within the motion is perceived, interest and attention are lost.

There is also much more to animation than just the capacity to capture and maintain attention. Animation can be used to reveal critical elements that need special focus. Methods and procedures from any content area invite the use of animation. Physical education, sports, the arts including music, dance, theater, drawing and painting are content areas that all depend on motion based procedures that are readily visible to the camera. In other contents areas, the changes are conceptual and intellectual and images must be created to represent what is happening. To find changes that can be magnified with animation, again look for change. Is there change in the results of a calculation, in historical costume and dress, in the number of animals in an ecological niche?

Many processes and procedures are heavily motion based. Sometimes motion (change) occurs over such long periods of time that this movement is not perceived. High-speed animation can make interesting patterns visible. Sometimes this change occurs so quickly that it is not observable at that speed. In this case slow motion (time-lapse) animation can make relevant patterns visible. An educator's challenge is to be able to recognize change at whatever speed and to so reveal or transform the experience so that it can be perceived and studied in greater depth.

Computer Animation

The focus in the rest of this chapter is on the use of computers for two-dimensional animation. Other forms of animation will be considered later in another chapter when discussing three dimensional communication. Whatever the dimension, computer-assisted animation refers to helping some phase of the labor intensive traditional process while computer generated animation means that computer language, graphics and mathematical modeling is used to create and complete every stage of the animation process. Computer precision makes such animation especially valuable for medical and other scientific researchers that need to study models of various motions and processes. The simplicity of many forms of computer creation of animation also makes it valuable to every educator for communicating the nature of certain changes in any subject or content area.

With animation, our study of comprehensive composition enters a second phase. Standard electronic slideshow tools do not display the output of most animation software programs. Other systems will be needed. To integrate animation with text, audio and video, more general purpose composition tools will be needed. The most commonly used system for integrating all manner of communication is HTML or hypertext markup language. It is the foundation stone for the global system of communication known as the World Wide Web.

Given the current speed or bandwidth of the Internet, computer-based animation also provides another very valuable feature. Given the greater graphic simplicity of animation versus video, animation allows the communication of visual change over the Internet in a way not currently possible with video. That is, animation files can be transmitted that communicate many motion concepts as well as video, but in a fraction of the storage space and transmission time. Most computer users cannot receive 30 frames per second of video in real time or even a fraction of that. Until Internet speeds not only increase significantly, but also high-speed Internet access becomes affordable to most of the population, animation is the best way to communicate motion concepts to a large general audience through the Internet .

Copyright and Legal Issues

There is another interesting facet of Internet animation that raises legal issues. The most common form of animation on the Internet is called GIF animation. Its use is not in the public domain though many believe this to be true. The patent or copyright on the algorithm used in GIF animation is owned by the computer company called Unisys. A computer network service company called Compuserve years ago thought it was public code and used it to distribute animated images. After its use became very widespread and popular, Unisys decided to enforce its claim. Unisys sought $5,000 per web site (server) for the distribution of web images. I have read on the web pages of companies selling software that produces GIF animation that there is a low cost solution. Some animation companies claim that since they have paid a fee for the rights to build GIF animation production into their software, that any images created by their software are exempt from any distribution fees to Unisys. In other words, if you buy certain GIF animation applications, the server owner would pay not pay any fees directly to Unisys since the purchase of authorized software covers this fee.

Fortunately there are many 2D web based animation formats besides GIF, which has no way to include audio. This includes Flash, Shockwave, dynamic HTML (introduction; dHTML directory) and video animation (including Quicktime and AVI). Though the Shockwave format is also from Adobe as is the Flash application, it is different from Flash and claims even more advanced interactivity and programming than Flash. The application Macromedia Director produces Shockwave files which use the DCR extension while Flash uses SWF extension. The Flash player can play both. Where Director was designed to be used in CD and DVD products and therefore had few concerns about how much data was being transferred from storage to the computer, Flash was built with the low bandwidth Internet in mind.

Input

The images for animation frames can be entered in numerous ways. Images that are hand drawn on paper or captured in photographs can be imported with scanners or drawn using the computer in still image programs. Digital still and digital video cameras can also be used to capture stop-action work. However, VHS and other consumer analog video formats are not adequate for stop-action work because they cannot accurately capture just one video frame and stop. Fortunately, most digital camcorders now come with a still shot or photo button which makes them perfect for capturing stop action sequences.

Graphing programs, whether specialized or those in spreadsheet applications such as Excel, Microsoft Works and Appleworks, also make a quick and easy source of stop action imagery. This has many applications for math and science education. For example, imagine a group of students recording water levels in a stream or temperatures for a city or region over an extended period of time. With each measurement the students create a graph and save the graph. This graph or chart is then input into a GIF animation program as another frame. The GIF animation is then programmed to play back the set of still frames at ever faster speeds as more data is included. Eventually, new patterns can be seen in this form of "high-speed photography" which might show periodic dips or increases in measurements that are not visible from daily observations or long columns of numbers and data in a spreadsheet.

The numerous animation programs also provide several ways to input or originate animation within the programs themselves. Consequently this study will move to the next category of software, manipulation software.
 

Manipulation


Manipulation software addresses both the creation or importing of original images and their assembly and manipulation within animation sequences. As a different chapter addresses 3D or three dimensional application software, it will receive little further discussion in this chapter other than the contrast of 3D examples on the demonstration page. On the Internet, two forms of two-dimensional (2D) animation have been dominant, GIF and Flash formats. Animation that is 3D, like video, requires much larger file sizes for which the Internet is not yet fast enough to make this common.

GIF animation was the primary system for animation for years. It is simple to create and small in file size allowing it transmit quickly. Both free and commercial software is available for its production. It is still the predominant form of animation used in countless web commercials and web page pop-ups. It requires no special plug-ins or set up on user's computers as the coding for displaying it is built in to almost all browsers, and certainly all the major and current ones. Major applications such as Photoshop and Fireworks have routines and help screens for teaching and supporting GIF animation. See the example of GIF animation in the demonstration page.

Flash is a software application from Adobe (formerly Macromedia). What ever can be done with GIF animation can also be done by the Flash application. It is now the dominant form of animation on the Internet. However, Flash files require a special plug-in to run which GIF does not. Flash uses vector drawing techniques and other routines to create tightly compressed animation. Flash goes beyond GIF animation in that it can also add sound, video and complex interactions with users. Flash provides authoring tools that enable the scripting of interactivity.

These interactions include user input from the mouse and typed characters from the keyboard. That is, Flash can also be used to create a wide variety of games that use two-dimensional graphics. Playing and collecting the web addresses of a wide variety of Flash games useful to different content areas and grade levels is an excellent way to understand what can be done with Flash software. See other Flash animation examples in the chapter's demonstration page and those sites identified in the searches linked in the chapter menu page.
 

Output


The output or finished animations can be used in numerous presentation formats. If assembled in video formats such as Quicktime or AVI, the output could be videotape, electronic slide shows or http video or streaming video systems. Video formats however are much too bulky for the current speeds of the Internet but are excellent if the composition will be accessed from CD or DVD. Output software can be as simple as the inserting of a GIF image link into a web page or as sophisticated as the streaming of animated images from a streaming server such as Flash technology.

If the animation is destined for the World Wide Web and the Internet, the factors of file size, network speed and rendering time become important. The larger the size of the GIF file for example, the longer it will take to download and display. The faster the network, the more quickly it will display. If the work is destined for a fast university or corporate intranet, the design and size of the animation might differ greatly from one intended for home and many schools with their slower network access.

Rendering time refers to the amount of time that is needed to create the images on the computer screen once they have been delivered from the web server to the client computer. In this case, the speed or newness of the client computer also becomes important.

Just as a writer becomes a better composer by reading widely and frequently, so does an animator becomes better by viewing a wide range of animation. Flash animation is a special form of animation that is used in numerous ways on the Web.  So, view as many Flash designs as you can. Use this page as one for many examples. Seek out more on your own. Technologies however are just means to deliver good ideas. That is, good animation is about good design and good concept. Create your own list of favorite Flash animation projects that help with your teaching and your own professional growth.
 

Multimedia - Linking Animation with Text and Audio/Video

Precedence

The problem of precedence never goes away. It just becomes more insistent. As composer, to what do we wish or design for the user to attend to first? Or is it important?  Clearly animation movement will draw the eye first without some concerted effort to look elsewhere. But if music or audio is playing, what does the mind attend to? Can it process several of these information systems successfully at the same time? Can we design in a kind of control of sequence as with an essay or has it become  hopeless?

The next link below will add animation to the arrangement of the prior weeks.

Through the use of web page frames, multiple files can appear at the same time in different places on the same screen. Consider the above questions in light of the example at the link below:

Summary

This chapter has addressed conceptual as well as technical issues related to the use of video in the computer age. Video in general is recognized by many as the most powerful medium of our age. Better and regular instruction on the use of video across curriculum and levels of education is long overdue. Because of Internet use and personal computers, use of video by educators has reached a new level of functionality and it is time that this fact is better recognized. Especially for educators, this means that basic skills with video composition are just as important as skills with imagery and the reading and writing of text.

2D Animation Bibliography

Bibliographies: Still - Audio - Video - 2D - 3D - Sensor - interact - MM

Brains

Newgroups

Animators

Animator History

An introduction to the history of some of the brains that have had major influence on the field of animation is provided below.

 The History of Animation: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Studio System in the Production of an Art Form. http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/animationhistory.html

Winsor McCay

Walt Disney

Tex Avery and Bob Clampett

Chuck Jones

Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Eric Radomski

Glen Keane and Andreas Deja

Jules Engel

 

Shelves: Books and Videotapes

Library of Congress subject search terms.

Selected New Books

  J. Scott Hamlin (1999). Effective Web Animation : Advanced Techniques for the Web. Addison-Wesley Pub Co. [List Price: $44.95; 309 pages Bk&CD Rom edition; ISBN: 0201606003]

John Hart (1999). The Art of the Storyboard: Storyboarding for Film, TV, and Animation. Focal Press. [$29.95; 223 pages; ISBN: 0240803299

Kit Laybourne (1998). The Animation Book : A Complete Guide to Animated Filmmaking-From Flip-Books to Sound Cartoons to 3-D Animation. Three Rivers Press. [ List Price: $24.95 320 pages; ; ISBN: 0517886022.

Lasseter, John (1987, July). "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH 87), 35-44, 21:4.

James L. Mohler (November, 1999). Graphics, Animation & Interactivity with Flash 4.0. Delmar Publishers. [ISBN: 0766816958; $39.95 352 pages Bk&CD Rom edition.]

Dale K. Myers (1999). Computer Animation. Oak Cliff Press Inc. [List Price: $19.95; 140 pages (August 1999); ISBN: 0966270967]

Sandy Eddy Schnyder, Sandra E. Eddy (1997). The Gif Animator's Guide.  IDG Books Worldwide. [List Price: $39.95;  256 pages Bk&Cd Rom edition; ISBN: 155828561X]

Williams, Richard (2002). The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators. Faber & Faber, ISBN: 0571202284.

Computer Animation Book Resources

Also:

  • Animating Facial Features and Expressions by Bill Fleming
  • Character Animation in Depth by Doug Kelly 3D Creature Workshop by Bill Fleming
  • 3D Graphics and Animation: From Starting Up to Standing Out by Mark Giambruno
  • 3-D Human Modeling and Animation by Peter Ratner
  • 3D Photorealism Toolkit by Bill Fleming
  • Getting Started with 3D by Janet Ashford and John Odam
  • The Macintosh 3D Handbook (Third Edition) by Craig Lyn and Ben Long
  • Bibliographies:  Animation texts by Michael Hill ; Animation texts by  John E. Scharmen
  • Web sites

    Flash

    GIF

     



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