ScratchComputer Animation Level 3

What You’ll Learn… The history of animation About traditional and computer animation methods How to use traditional and modern techniques to

animate a story How to use object-oriented programming to create a

complex animation

Stuff You’ll Need… Scratch Account

Evernote Suggestions… Write down three interesting things you learn every day. Keep a glossary of words you learn during these activities. Pay

particular attention to the bold, italicized words you find. If you write a story for this project, include it in your Portfolio. Explain why you selected the story or scene that you animated. Include your storyboard in your Portfolio. Use screen capture tools to record the steps you take to program

the objects in your story. Explain the objects, states and behaviors used in your

animation. Keep a record of the “bugs” in your program and how you fixed

each bug.

What You Should Know…What you should already know

Be very familiar with creating and combining programming scripts to control Sprites

Be familiar with a wide variety of palettes and blocks and be able to learn the functions of those you have not yet used

Know how to find Scratch resources and project examples online

Know how to import images and sounds into Scratch Know where to find help or advice from other Scratch users Understand the program debugging process and how to

debug in Scratch

Before beginning this Learning Launcher, you should already be familiar with programming in Scratch. You should:

If you feel defeated by Level 3, Perhaps you should revisit the lessons in Level 1 and 2 before proceeding.

What You Should Know…

Ways to make drawings appear to move have been around for thousands of years. The zoetrope was first developed in China around 200 A.D. It gives images the illusion of movement by combining a series of pictures with a spinning cylinder.

Animation rapidly displays still images to create the appearance of movement. You may have created an animation using a pad of paper at some time. If you draw a stick figure in the corner of a page and change the figure a little on each page, then when you flip the pages, the figure looks like it is moving! This is called a kineograph or flip book and was first invented around 1850.

Animation: The Illusion of Motion

Zoetrope means “wheel of life”

Click on the camera to watch the first animated film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by J.

Stuart Blackton, 1906.

What You Should Know…Early Animated Films

Early animated films projected a light through images drawn on clear sheets of plastic or combined a series of still photos in rapid succession. The first animated film (1906), was called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. The artist is photographed drawing cartoons. Each photograph is a little different than the previous photograph. The sequence of photos is shown rapidly to produce the illusion of movement.

What You Should Know…

Traditional animation requires artists to draw multiple images of their characters by hand, much the same way you would make a flip book.

Each change in the action requires a new drawing. To save time, the background or unchanging parts of the image, are drawn once.

Traditional vs. Computer Animation

Images from the Disney Archives

What You Should Know…Traditional Animation

Before filming begins, the images are transferred onto clear plastic, called celluloid. The images are stacked one on top of the other and photographed with a camera made for frame-by-frame shooting.

Source: http://automanga.sourceforge.net/Doc/node3.html

What You Should Know…Computer AnimationLearning to program a computer allows you to create computer animated games and stories. Like traditional animation, computer animation replaces one image of the character with a similar image that changes little by little to suggest movement.

There are two methods for creating animated characters using computers. The first method, uses animation variables. This approach requires the programmer to create a model of the character, like a stick figure. The parts of the model are individual objects. The objects are programmed to look and behave in specific ways.

Animation variables...or Avar for short….Hmm sounds like “avatar”!

Image a complex stick figure used to create the animated

character, Dr. X. Source: Autodesk 3ds Max

What You Should Know…Object-oriented Programming and Film Making

Working with artists, the computer programmer makes a model of the character. Characters have many parts. Each part that needs to behave in a specific way is made into its own object. For example, if a character has eyes, then the eyes are objects and are programmed to look and behave specific ways.

One often used example is of Woody, the character in Toy Story. Woody requires 212 different behaviors just to animate his face!

Image from the Disney Archives

What You Should Know…Computer Animation

In a second method, called motion capture, actors are filmed playing the parts of the characters. Later, using special software, the performance is converted into the actions of the animated character.

Actors wear a motion capture suit that contains sensors. As the actors move, the sensors move. Cameras capture these movements. A computer is used to process the information from the cameras to create the motions of the animated characters.

Motion capture began as a research tool!

It was used to learn how the body moves.

What You Should Know…Great StoriesIn these pictures, you can see how the book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was used to create the animated film. The book and drawings on the left provided artists, actors, and computer programmers the resources to make the movie. Actors wearing special suits performed their scenes. Computer programmers used motion capture software to create the final product!

What You Should Know…In the Level 2 – Animated Greeting Cards Learning Launcher, we explored how to import images for Sprites and backgrounds and how to record or import your own sounds.

You’ll probably want to use your own images and sounds for your animation project. If you need to learn or review these techniques, refer to the What You Should Know section of the Animated Greeting Card Learning Launcher.

Do It!

Your challenge in this Learning Launcher is to animate a story using Scratch! This challenge requires a great story, careful planning and advanced Scratch programming skills.

First, choose a story to animate. You can write one yourself. You can choose a scene from a favorite book, poem or movie. Comic strips also are also a great source for animation story ideas! Unless you’re a programming wizard in Scratch, it’s probably best to use a fairly simple story or scene for this challenge.

Animate a Great Story

Do It!

Before you begin programming in Scratch, plan each step in your animation. Draw simple scenes by hand, or use one of the technology tools in the SmartLab.

This is called a storyboard and it’s a critical step for any movie or animation! Don’t worry too much about how your storyboard looks, it’s planning each element of each scene that’s important!

Animate a Great Story

Check out the video production Learning Launchers to learn

more about creating storyboards.

Do It!

When you’ve selected your story and completed your storyboard, it’s time to begin programming your animation in Scratch! Take your time, remember your debugging tips and have fun!

Animate a Great Story

When you’re finished, you might want to

upload your project to the Scratch website to

share with other Scratchers!

A big advantage for programming in Scratch is the huge online user community! You can find lots of project ideas, tutorials, and helpful hints online. You can even download other user’s projects and build upon their work, and post your own projects!

Go Online for Ideas, Help, Tutorials and to Share Projects

Check out the official MIT Scratch Site: http://scratch.mit.edu/ Browse the many great tutorials on YouTube (if you can’t access YouTube from

your SmartLab, you may have to do this from home) Explore the video tutorials at http://learnscratch.org/ Do an online search for other great Scratch resources and tutorials (HINT: Search

for “Scratch software” or Scratch MIT” to narrow your search)

Extend Yourself…

Extend Yourself… Learn about the origins of motion capture. It was first used to study

how the body moves. Go online to learn more about the history of animation. What are

some key concepts that have stayed the same over time? What elements have changed the most?

Learn more about object-oriented programming. How is object-oriented programming related to creating animated films?

Create a list of links to helpful Scratch online resources for your classmates.

Go online and explore careers in computer programming. What kind of education do computer programmers and software engineers require?

Use the Internet to learn more about the types of work animators do. What types of skills and knowledge do they need to develop to be successful in their profession?

Go online to learn about other types of animation such as claymation and stop-action film.