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27 8776 CH21
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Hour 21
During the next hour, you meet a number of video and animation programs. You learn
where to find these programs, how to do the basics, and then use the programs to perform these tasks:
• Animate drawings you’ve created with other graphics applications
• Create 3D landscapes
• Use morphing techniques to animate pictures
• Edit video
Creating Saturday Morning Cartoons
The art of animation includes a broader world than just the cartoons you may have
watched on Saturday mornings. Animation isn’t just for kids. Many independent and
major motion picture studios use animation. Animation doesn’t necessarily consist of
cartoon drawings. Some animations appear to be larger than life.
Animation describes a sequence of drawings in which each drawing is contained in a separate frame. Each drawing is slightly different from the one
before; this is how motion is added to an animation. An animated film requires 24 drawings for each second of film in order to create smooth animation. Computer animation
may require more than 24 drawings per second.
NEW TERM
If you’re wondering how to get started with your animations, use some of the drawing
programs you learned about earlier (such as The Gimp in Hour 19 and Killustrator in
Hour 20) to create your cartoon characters and backgrounds. Then, check out the animation programs discussed in this section.
To learn more about how to create animations, visit these Web sites:
• The Animation Learner’s Site at come.to/animate provides a good general introduction to creating animations.
• Aimee’s Studio at aimee.wyvernweb.com contains a wealth of tutorials. You’ll find
animation articles and tutorials at aimee.wyvernweb.com/anim/animatr.html.
• Animation Meat at www.animationmeat.com/index2.html contains animation
tutorials, techniques, and tips.
• Royal Frazier’s GIF Animation at www6.uniovi.es/gifanim/gifmake.htm shows
you how to create animated GIFs, but the basics of creating animations are covered.