Creating Digital Animations E-Book

Derek Breen

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Dummies Junior
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 93

Beschreibung

The easy way to start animating today! Creating Digital Animations is your ticket to learning animation! Learn how to animate your very own characters using Scratch--the free multimedia tool that lets you create interactive stories, games, and animations. Designed specifically for kids aged seven and up, this easy-to-follow, full-color guide introduces you to important game design concepts through three simple projects. Step-by-step instructions walk you through the four major phases of animation design, showing you how to turn your idea into a real animation with sound effects and more! You'll work just like the pros as you sketch out your main idea, add your own details, and develop a complete, workable character from scratch. If you're curious about coding, animation is the perfect place to start exploring. The Scratch platform doesn't require an actual programming language, but it gets you used to thinking like a programmer while you develop your very own animation. Short on rules but big on fun, this book is your friendly animation coach to get you started on the right foot. * Use stick figures to design your characters' 'bones' * Flesh out your design and animate movements * Create scenes and background locations * Add sound to take your animation to the next level Animation is fun! Building your own characters is exciting! And putting the finishing touches on your animation project shows you just how much you can learn while you play. Coding is a valuable skill that will serve you throughout school and beyond, and this book teaches you the basics in a way that leaves you hungry for more. Where will you take your new animation skills next? Creating Digital Animations takes you on the first steps of your journey to wherever you want to go!

Leseprobe

CREATING DIGITAL ANIMATIONS

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Kid logo, Dummies.com, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. Scratch is developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. See www.scratch.mit.edu. Project figures, illustrations and Scratch projects: Copyright © 2015 by Derek Breen. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS. THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY SITUATION. THIS WORK IS SOLD WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING LEGAL, ACCOUNTING, OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES. IF PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL PERSON SHOULD BE SOUGHT. NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. THE FACT THAT AN ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE IS REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK AS A CITATION AND/OR A POTENTIAL SOURCE OF FURTHER INFORMATION DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE AUTHOR OR THE PUBLISHER ENDORSES THE INFORMATION THE ORGANIZATION OR WEBSITE MAY PROVIDE OR RECOMMENDATIONS IT MAY MAKE. FURTHER, READERS SHOULD BE AWARE THAT INTERNET WEBSITES LISTED IN THIS WORK MAY HAVE CHANGED OR DISAPPEARED BETWEEN WHEN THIS WORK WAS WRITTEN AND WHEN IT IS READ.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931714

ISBN: 978-1-119-23352-7 (pbk); 978-1-119-23355-8 (ebk); 978-1-119-23354-1 (ebk)

Creating Digital Animations

Table of Contents

COVER

INTRODUCTION

About Scratch

About This Book

Icons Used in This Book

Access Scratch

PROJECT 1: ANIMATION ESSENTIALS

Draw Your First Character

Animate the Stick Figure

Animate with Code Blocks

Bring Humor to Your Animation

Add Stick Man’s Best Friend

Walk Like a Man

Animate the Dog

Talk Like a Man

PROJECT 2: ANIMATE GREAT CHARACTERS

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Getting a Head Start

A Little Body Work

Apply Finishing Touches

It’s Okay to Clone Scratch People

From Dead Skin to Furry Beast

Fangs Make the Beast

Undress the Beast

Strike a Pose

Add Finishing Touches

Create a Third Character

Assembling Your Cast

PROJECT 3: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Planning Animation Scenes

Design an Interior Scene

Make Scenes More Immersive

Design an Exterior Scene

PROJECT 4: SOUNDS GOOD TO ME

That’s What He Said

Record Dialogue in Scratch

Edit Audio Clips

Trim Beginning of Sound

Play Sound with Code Blocks

Animate Character Speech

PROJECT 5: LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

(Not) Starting from Scratch

Camera (or What Do I Focus On?)

Action! (or Let’s Get the Story Moving)

Broadcast Animation Messages

Switch between Animation Scenes

And Cut!

AUTHOR NOTES

Share Your Scratch Projects in the Scratch Online Community

Broadcast Scratch Animation on Any Website

Record/Export Scratch Videos

Export Scratch Graphics to Other Applications

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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INTRODUCTION

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, I HAVE WANTED TO TELL MY OWN STORIES WITH ANIMATION. My first project was an animated birthday card for my grandfather. A boat sailed across the screen and then displayed “Happy Birthday.” He was blown away, perhaps because this happened over 30 years ago, before computer animation appeared on television or in films.

Today, digital animation is everywhere, but most people think that animating on their own is too hard. Think again! Scratch makes it easy for anybody to get started with animation.

ABOUT SCRATCH

Scratch was created for you. The designers at the MIT Media Lab had several goals:

Give you powerful software for free

Make it easy for you to learn

Allow many different ways for you to use the software

Enable you to browse, play, and remix other projects

Enable you to share your projects

Create an online community where you can learn from one another

Now review that list of six goals. Where does it say, “Force parents or teachers or coaches or kids to buy a big, fat Scratch book”? Nowhere! So why are you still reading? Don’t you know you can go to scratch.mit.edu right now and start Scratching?!?

If you are completely new to Scratch, it might be a good idea to start with one of the built-in tutorials. To see them, click the question mark in the top-right corner.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In this book, you can start with any project. If you have not done much animating inside Scratch, you may find it useful to start with Project 1, which leads you through creating a basic stick figure animation. If you want to design your own cartoon characters, check out Project 2, where I share all kinds of tricks (and you discover that you don't have to be an awesome artist to create great-looking characters).

ICONS USED IN THIS BOOK

The Tip icon marks tips and shortcuts that you can use to make coding easier.

The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you from scratching your head a ton.

ACCESS SCRATCH

To use Scratch online visit www.scratch.mit.edu, create an online account, and start Scratching. To use Scratch without creating an account, you will have to download and install the offline version of Scratch (see the upcoming “Use Scratch offline” section).

Technically, you can use the Scratch website without an account, but you will have to save projects to your computer and then upload them each time you visit the Scratch website to continue working on them. With an account, you can save files online and share projects with other Scratch users.

CREATE ONLINE ACCOUNT

Go ahead and start Scratch! Turn on your computer, open a web browser, and visit scratch.mit.edu. If you already have a Scratch account, click the Sign In button in the top-right corner of the page. If you do not have an account, click the Join Scratch button and fill in the brief online form. If you are under 13 or do not have an email account, please ask an adult to help you create an account (or skip ahead to the upcoming “Use Scratch offline” section).

To run Scratch online, you need a relatively recent web browser (Chrome 35 or later, Firefox 31 or later, or Internet Explorer 8 or later) with Adobe Flash Player version 10.2 or later installed. Scratch 2 is designed to support screen sizes 1024 x 768 or larger.

USE SCRATCH OFFLINE

You can install the Scratch 2 Offline Editor to work on projects without a Scratch user account. After Scratch 2 is installed, you will not need an Internet connection to work on projects. This version will work on Mac, Windows, and some versions of Linux (32 bit). Visit www.scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download to download and install Adobe Air (required to run Scratch offline) and the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.

Okay ladies and gentlemen, let's get Scratching!

PROJECT 1

ANIMATION ESSENTIALS

THIS IS WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT THE HISTORY OF ANIMATION. And then describe all the different kinds and give a bunch of examples and … (yawn) … No thanks! Wouldn’t you rather start animating right now?

In this project, you begin by telling a short story with one of the simplest forms of animation: stick figures. An obvious advantage of stick figures is that they are almost as easy to animate as they are to draw.

DRAW YOUR FIRST CHARACTER

Go ahead and start drawing! Just kidding. Of course you must create a project before you can draw anything.

CREATE PROJECT

Go to

scratch.mit.edu

or open the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.

If you are online, click Create. If offline, choose File ⇒ New.