Animation
Follow these instructions carefully...
The image of a trotting horse below was created by the pioneer photographer Eadweard Muybridge who was active in the late 19th and early 20th century. He did many studies of moving figures using a stop-frame method in order to better understand movement. His images are very easy to animate. In this lesson, we will use one of his photographs to create an animated gif file.
figure 1.1 completed animation
figure 1.2 stop frame images
Exercise 1: Creating an animation using the Muybridge photograph
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Right click the still image (4 frames figure 1.2) and choose copy from the list of commands.
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Go to the Start menu, go to Programs > 'Photoshop Elements' (or other graphics editor; eg Windows Paint, MS Image Composer, Paint Shop Pro etc.) then let go of the mouse button.
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When in the graphics editing program, go to the edit menu and choose paste. A copy of the image should appear.
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Use the rectangular selection tool to select the last frame of the image. (We will copy the frames in reverse order to make life easy for ourselves...)
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Go to the edit menu and choose copy.
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Go to the Start menu, go to
Programs > Microsoft Image Composer > Microsoft Gif Animator. -
Paste the image into the gif animation program.
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Go back to the graphics editing program, select the next frame of the image and copy it. Repeat the process until all 4 frames have been pasted into the animation program.
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Press the play button to test your animation. You may need to adjust some settings, such as duration if the animation plays too fast.
Your animation can now be used as part of a web page or multimedia presentation. You might like to experiment with animations for other images found on the internet or one your own drawings.
Exercise 2. Inserting the animation into a web page
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Browse the internet or use the clip art gallery to find an image you like. Use the method outlined above to create your own animation.
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Use a webpage editor such as MS Frontpage or Dreamweaver to create a page about Eadweard Muybridge. Use the internet to research this photographer. Include at least one paragraph of information.
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Insert the horse animation you as an example.
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Insert your animation into the webpage. Include a title and a brief explanation about how you made the animation.
