Learning objectives

When you have completed this session, you should be able to

• define term "animation",
• find animations on Internet.

Computer Animation

Computer animation has built a great career in the last decade. The new technology that interested only computer programmers a few decades ago gradually penetrated into the world of art. Traditional drawing method of cartoons used in the movie industry has been succeeded by computer animation. Computer made three dimensional, stereoscopic presentations in the scenes, filled up with artificial characters, have become omnipresent parts of modern films. The current speed and storage capacity of processors have created a world of unbelievably rich images and sometimes we are unable to differentiate between the computer made and real life scenes. What is common and what is different between the two?

The starting point and the procedure is the same: when still pictures followed by one another are displayed in adequate speed in front of our eyes we cannot differentiate the slides and this phenomenon we perceive as motion picture. In the cinemas 24 slides are projected in every second. The procedure used for computer animation is a little bit more economical because in order to crate the illusion of motion pictures it is enough to play 15 images per second one after another.

One of the basic ideas of computer animations is known for long. We all played with those small figures drawn in our notebooks. When we rolled the pages they became "animated".

There are unlimited possibilities of creating illusions. The only question is which method shall be chosen. The background or the foreground of the pictures should be changed. The position or the shape (or both) of an object can also be changed. In each phase we can proceed along a chosen track. There is a vide variety and imagination creates the only limit we have.

Graphic programs significantly simplify the production of images. Permanent backgrounds have to de drawn only once for instance and afterwards they can be copied from one picture to the other. In case of some specific type of animations there is hardly any need for drawing due to the fact that some kind of algorithms are implemented in the software which can automatically transform the objects. For example, if we would like a butterfly flying across the screen we have to input the trajectory and create some of butterfly’s postures in the key positions of the trajectory. The phases in between are generated by the software automatically.

The effects can be increased. Objects can be influenced by other effects during motion. It can become smaller or larger, may change its own shape and transform itself from butterfly into a dragon for instance.

The finished product can be saved as a standard format digital file and later it can be inserted in any educational multimedia material or loaded up to an Internet page. A very important thing regarding to the final result, that the image pictures are not stored by the graphic programs in most cases. They create a small program which contains the mathematic algorithm that generates the image pictures.

In the electronic syllabus animation plays a key role. They are tools for creating attention, illustrate, creating interactivity, and they are also the proper tools for demonstrating processes simulate machine operation and create life like 3D presentations.

Animations are the most critical parts of the electronic syllabus in respect of planning and production. For the planning methodological, ergonomic, and psychological considerations are required primarily. Secondary, artistic quality graphic planning and accomplishment and proper technical solution is needed. Animations have to be calculated always as the greatest amount among production expenses.

Editing Animation

The most known and most popular animation editor software is the Macromedia Flash application which is mainly used for creating web animations and creating wed pages. Flash is basically a vector-graphic program. This way, animations need smaller area and down loading takes less time. This software uses the same units that other vector-graphic programs (e.g. Corel Draw) but it is supplemented with a high level command tool for programming interactive components (games, tests, etc.). Beside the explicitly animation specialized software, in almost all graphic programs (e.g. PhotoShop, CorelDraw) a tool kit for making simple animations can be found.

Software used for creating stereoscopic (3D) animations may deserve a separate chapter. Among them the most widely used is 3D StudioMax. In this program 3D animations can be created that make the impression of vivid virtual reality. The VRLM language (Virtual Reality Markup Language) was created in 1995 by the initiation of Tim Barners Lee and Dave Ragett for developing stereoscopic animation appearing on the Internet. According to the aims of the designers the VRLM platform is independent, open, and has a relatively small need of broad band. It is constantly improved; the newest versions support the programming of interactivity.

Finally, it should be mentioned that mathematic teachers can select among software that can demonstrate more sophisticated functions with 2D or 3D animations. (On the figure a 3D torus can be seen which was generated by an Apple Grapher). One of them is the Maple program pack the Mathematica.

Animations have different file formats, depending on which programs they were made by. The most used animation making programs are Macromedia Director (.dir, .dcr), Flash (.swf), 3D StudioMax (.max), etc. The completed animation can be converted in standard (AVI, MOV, MPEG, GIF) format in most cases. This makes easier the publishing on the Internet and the integration in multimedia presentation.

Exercise

Search the internet for animations. Can you find those kind of animations that were not intended as an advertisement but for demonstration / illustration purposes? Think about it, what kind of animation could you use in your own subject!?

Reference Work:

[1] Tay Vaughan: Multimedia, Published by Osborne, Berkeley, California, USA, 1996

[2] Csendes Béla: Ablak az aktuális világra, Budapest, 1998.

[2] Csánky Lajos: Multimédia PC-s környezetben, LSI Oktatóközpont, Budapest, 2000.