Storytelling Through Computer Animation

Building stories...

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Animation in Alice

Objectives

  • Learn to use Movement in Alice

Animation

So far, we have created only static single panel scenes in Alice.

But, by one definition, an animation is the rapid display of a sequence of 2-D or 3-D images which create an illusion of movement in both time and space. Thus, at this point, we have not yet created any animations. That will change today as we learn to incorporate movement into our Alice scenes.

Have you ever received an animated e-card?

How is animation and sound used to enhance (or detract from) the message of the card in each of these examples?


The Task

(which is to be completed individually, though consultations are encouraged...)

An Animated E-Card

Your task is to create an animated e-card using Alice. This card can be designed as a general typical greeting card purpose such as "Thinking of you!" or "Happy birthday!" or "Happy Easter!" or can be designed more specifically with a particular recipient or set of recipients in mind. For example, it might be "Thanks for your help with my paper!" or "Thanks for making our movie night so fun!"

  • Purpose: The purpose of the card is up to you, however, the message should be personal and the card should make its purpose clear.
  • Audience: The audience of your greeting card might be a specific friend or a specific group of your friends.
  • Movement: Your card must make use of both "Do in order" and "Do together" methods, each at least once.
  • Storyboard: You are required to use at least a 3 panel storyboard to plan your animated e-card. This should be submitted on paper.

Since today's focus is on creating movement, I would like you to focus on using movement effectively, so please refrain from including sound. (We will focus on adding sound in Alice in a later exercise...)

Please save your work in Alice as username-the-ecard. You will submit this to Moodle.

Moodle Link: http://moodle2.berea.edu/course/view.php?id=2239

In addition, type an Artist's Statement in Microsoft Word. As you know, an artist's statement helps the audience to understand what the artist believes to be the most important aspects of his/her art and the techniques used to make it. A paragraph of two to five sentences should certainly suffice which answers the following questions:

  • What is the purpose of the e-card?
  • Who is the intended audience of your e-card?
  • Are any other tools are employed: symbols? exaggeration? analogy? irony? If so, why are they used?

Please save this Artist's statement as username-ecard-artists-statement. Please submit both to Moodle before our next class.



This assignment is adapted from work that was originally authored by Jan Pearce, and with her permission,
is released here under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.



This website is provided under a CC BY-SA license by the The Berea CS Department.
Fall 2013 offering of Storytelling taught by Matt Jadud