THE USES OF ANIMATION IN
MULTIMEDIAMULTIMEDIA
Objective
What is an animation?
Animation categories
Animation Special Effects
Animation
Animation is made from a series of stills and
relies on something called persistence of vision.
Persistence of vision is the phenomenon where
an object seen by human eyes is mapped on the
eyes retina remains for a brief time after viewing.
This means that a series of still images which
varies slightly and rapidly will give the illusion of
movement.
Animation
If each of the eight pictures below were
shown at the same point in rapid succession,
the result would be a rotating arrow.
The pictures shown below are stills of the
rotating Ford logo from the Ford Motor
Company site.
Animation
TV gives the illusion of continuous movement by
showing the stills at the rate of 30 frames per second.
Movies on films are filmed at a rate of 24 frames per
second but shown at a rate of 48 frames per second.
Today, most animation is performed by computer.
Examples are Bugs, Toy Story, Jurassic Park and the
BBCs Walking with Dinosaurs.
The computer will produce a wire frame of the scene,
then apply textures and light effects before moving
onto the production of the next frame, each of which
may take hours or even days to produce.
Animation Categories
Two categories :
1. Traditional Animation
All frame in an animation had to be drawn by
hand.
2. Computer Graphics Animation
The use of computers to create animations.
Traditional Animation
Different techniques for creating animation by
hand:
Key frames
Cell Animation
Rotascoping
Computer Graphics Animation
Two types of Computer Graphics:
1. Linear animation or 2D animation
Page flipping
Cell Animation
Object Animation or Path Animation
2. 3D animation
Modeling
Animating
Rendering
Animation Special Effects : Morphing
Morphing is the effect in which one image
transforms into another through a series of
intermediate frames.
This is done by first creating or scanning the first
and last images.
Then key points are specified, i.e. points on the
original image which should become points on
the final image.
The computer then produces the frames in
between, with each successive frame becoming
progressively more morphed into the last image.
Morphing
The creator can usually specify the number of
intermediate frames to be produced as well
the number of key points.
Both the number of the key points and
number of frames will impact on the time
taken to produce the sequence of frames.
The diagrams on the next page show start and
end frames and the intermediate frames
produced by morphing software.
Morphing software:
Photo Morph,
Hijact Morph
Elastic Reality
Animation Special Effects : Warping
Special effect that allows you to manipulate a
single image.
Example:
You could stretch a facial feature to change a
frown into a smile.
Warping software : Kai Super Goo
Advantages and Disadvantages of
using Animation
Animation captures the imagination like no other
tool, portraying actions and spatial relationships
that are not readily visible in reality or that may
not exist at all.
Advantages
Attracts and holds attention
Show otherwise invisible actions or physical processes
Increases retention
Allows visualization of imagined concepts, objects and
relationships.
Advantages and Disadvantages of
using Animation
Disadvantages
Requires extensive memory and storage space
Requires special equipment for a quality
presentation
Cannot depict actuality like video or photography
