The advantages and limitations of animated GIF’s

The advantages and limitations of animated GIF’s

DHTML (Dynamic HTML) is standard HTML combined with scripting such as JavaScript and CSS. DHTML can be used to create animation among a webpage, often operational rather than aesthetic such as a rollover button and/or a menu, and can also be used to make simple browser based games. There is a problem with DHTML though due to the way browsers view web languages, and there were communication issues between users using different browsers such as Firefox. DHTML is made in Flash, which is currently the biggest and most common format among the internet. 

Flash is the virtual machine that runs animations among a browser, it allows users to create animation frame by frame including scripting. The user can use both audio and video in this format and can make various animations among the web, whether it be for entertainment purposes or for just functional purposes. It is often used a lot in advertising, often in banners which have an interactive element. Lower end animation is often made in Flash and is seen as the industry standard. 

Shockwave is another format for animation and specializes in 3D graphics and streaming and has a much faster rendering than that of Flash. Shockwave can handle multiple different types of assets in one project on a larger scale than Flash. 

QuickTime, a program by Apple, runs on both platforms, Mac and Windows. It is a multimedia player which displays all animation, sound, videos. There are also variants of this such as QuickTime Broadcaster which allows the user to present videos live and the pro version which allows for creating movies. 

RealPlayer is another cross platform multimedia player that supports other media player formats. A big solution to format issues among media players, but still has its issues. RealPlayer shows adverts and even popup messages during use, forcing the user into buying the full premium account if they want to get rid of these annoyances. RealPlayer is used on the BBC website for pod-casts as a sort of 'listen again' service.

The advantages of GIF's over other file formats for things such as animation are such things as: when converting a collection of images into GIF format, the conversion is lossless and the quality does not degrade; Being that it is only 256 colours the file format is usually a small file size and often a good choice for small animations; GIF's support transparent backgrounds, as such you can play an animation over whatever background you would like; it also has very good integration to online documents, being very compatible if you would like to include it in any webpage.

The disadvantages of GIF's over other file formats for things such as animation are such things as: a GIF is the less preferred choice say if you would like to make a detailed or long animation with a wider colour palette; colours within a GIF often appear blocky and pixelated, and not as clear as other file types so is less preferred for bigger, more colourful projects; dithering reduces the amount that the file size can be compressed, which is a big downside considering dithering is a nice feature in removing pixilation.

GIF’s are limited to specific things due to them being small in file size and usually only for short animations. They only use a specific amount of colours, this lack of colours make GIF’s less detailed as say such things as flash animations. Size is also an issue when using GIF’s, GIF’s are usually limited to a small size due to enhancing them causes heavy pixilation. Like I said, GIF’s are limited to a small length, only being able to show a small clip compared to a bigger animation project.

Explain different uses of animation

How animation is used in the following cases? 

Advertising

Animation is used in this advert to create a fictional environment that shows what the jest of the game being advertised is about. In this animation it uses various animation techniques but one of the main features is that it uses is motion capture. The man at the end of the clip slams his fist on a computer, this is mapped by the movement of a real persons hand with motion sensors attached to it, the person then moves his hand and the in-clip character masks the same movements. There are various other animation features such as a blob-let moving on the screen and other things which could not exist without the world of animation which are used.

Creative Arts

Animation in creative arts is usually used to give an effect which includes or interests the user, something that they want to watch. By this I mean that, when watching a video you want to enjoy it, or to be drawn in to what you are saying. My example of a cinema-graph does just that, it animates a part of the video so that it draws the viewers eyes to that particular area, making them intrigued. Certain artists on the internet believe that animation has revolutionized the way we see art, for example they believe it gives life to an image, and is now used in most art forms.

Education

Animation in education is used simply to learn from. Animation is a massive topic and can be broken down into chunks for a student to learn, the reason that this is such a fun and relatively easy thing to learn is that while learning animation you can actually watch animations to learn as not only are they educational but fun to watch. It can be used to teach to a big audience as it is almost always digital and can be portrayed onto a big screen, in say such things as an assembly.

Entertainment

Animation in entertainment is rather self explanatory in it's use, as animation is mainly used as an enjoyable thing to watch. Animation is so enjoyable to watch as it adds depth and life to what you are watching and as a viewer we love to be more involved. It is used all across the entertainment front from theater production in projections and to the movie screen where we see what we call 'motion pictures'.

Simulation

Animation in simulation is used to provide a somewhat life like experience, through the use of movement and depth it can portray life like emotion and movement. CGI is an example of simulation, as it reproduces and/or simulates what the computer is telling it, so for example a mix of mesh and motion capture would map together a simulated image based of what information it has. Simulation can also be used to predict things and show a visual representation of it, say if you wanted to see how a cyst would develop, simulation in animation could show you what it could look like in about four months.

Computer Animation techniques – how movement is achieved?

Unit 31 - Computer Animation – Task 1a/P1 – Jordan Shirley

Animation is the event of an image moving or doing an action through multiple techniques, creating a visual effect on the eye that gives the impression of movement. A picture is a still image, animation takes this still image and gives it a more 3D movement effect and brings the pictures to life. There are many examples of how pioneers developed these ideals in making a picture seem more life-like, for example:

One of these techniques that are non-computer based is a zoetrope. Created by William Horner this is the event of looking through a slit on a round object that would rotate so that the images on the inside of the round object would pass by the slit. As such one image could be a man lying down and the next image could be a man standing up, the way you would see it through the slit would the man getting up from the floor as the moving of the image from one to the other would transition due to the rotation of the round object.

Another of these techniques is Disney animation, Disney widely used cell animation. Cell animation is where each character within the animation is hand drawn on a separate piece of paper which are then overlaid over a background while filming to give the effect that the picture is moving from one image to the next slightly different image, for example the old mickey mouse in black and white was often seen stutter as it used this form of animation. Now a day though, Disney is popular for using different kinds of animation, mostly computer animation although cartoon like animation is among what they develop. Computer animation is created on a computer through drawing images which differ from frame to frame so that they can be played back as a smooth animation. Other kinds of computer animation they use is where a piece of kit is attached to a human being then applied to a mesh on the computer, this maps the persons movements then details can be applied to the mesh.

Computer animation is a very widely used type of animation, for its usability and its great finished looks. The following of this computer animation have led to a wide variety of programs that have been made for it, as such Adobe Flash which contains a very easy to understand GUI and many techniques within it that allow the user to make their own animations.

Such techniques include frame by frame, in which you can edit 'frames' within the animation you are creating to contain different images. Usually these images are consistent and often copy the last frame before them but edited slightly whether that be different colour or moved ever so slightly so that when playing back the two frames it simulates the character moving. The user can set the speed that the frames cycle through so that certain scenes play out quicker and these animations often contain millions of frames for a feature length movie, or for a short cartoon even as much as tens of thousands. Simple animations such as a box spinning can be created in as much as one hundred frames.

Another technique is tweening; tweening is where frames are generated between two predetermined frames which contain images. These generated frames contain the resources to convert the first image to the second, so say if your first image was a cup and the second was a guitar, the pixels of the image would break apart and convert in to the second image, all in the space of a few set generated frames. This is often used in transformations within an animation. like a dampened down transformers. Certain settings can be put in place on this so that you can choose how the pixels convert between images, and how the tween runs such as how smooth.

Yet another technique is morphing, much like tweening it is the conversion of one image into another through a more than seamless animation. Morphing instead of breaking up the frames entirely, rather converts the image into the other, so the first image remain while converting into the second compared to tweening where the first image gets broken up before converting. For example, an image of a celebrity morphing into another, in between the transformation the image of both faces would remain and create a combination of the two.

My last example of a technique is masking, masking is where you take your image or video and stick a virtual ‘mask’ over it so that only part of the image/video is visible. This is helpful if you only want to see part of an image or if you want a pictures textures on a mask of your choice. For example, if you had an image of space and wanted it as the background of text you are writing out instead of a base colour, you could apply a mask to the image. A mask applies over the image, potentially blocking out what it lies in front of, the picture then applies to the mask and gives it a depth feel.