© anthony j. nowakowski, ph.d. animation & videovideo

© Anthony J. Nowakowski, Ph.D.

Animatio

n& Video

EDC 601 Instructional Technologies


Animation



“Animation can enhance your multimedia applications by significantly improving learning, motivation, and attitudes and to reducing the time needed for learning. An animation gives apparent life to a graph by representing a series of images that change over time. This motion resembles a video sequence, except that an artist creates that animation with a computer tool or sequence of manual drawings rather than a film of real objects in motion. For this reason, you may find video production easier than animation.”

Walsh, 1995, p. 166



High labor requirements tend to make animations a costly type of resource. Nontrivial animations usually require a labor-intensive process to complete.

You can buy many generic animation clips on CD-ROM that will enhance multimedia presentations and productions. However, it can be difficult finding ones that meet specific needs.

Some Considerations



More and more animations are appearing on the Internet. These can be simple animated gifs, or more sophisticated VRML sites. Just as with sound on the Internet, animation files must first be downloaded to the client computer, and then they are played. We will also examine the streaming of animation/video when we examine multimedia on the Internet.

Don’t Forget the Web!



mouse

from a CD-ROM



Animated Gifs

from the Web



VR

from the Web



from the Web

VR



Video Screen Capture



from the Internet

made with Digital Morph

2.7 MB

Morph



Morph

43.8 MB!!!43.8 MB!!!



Warp



Video



“Video can be the most stimulating element of multimedia because it includes the simultaneous playback of graphic images with synchronized sound. Video is the real life element of multi-media. When video is playing on the screen, a person’s attention will more likely be captivated than with the other elements. The video subtopic presents information about video techniques, compression, uses of video, computer generated effects and file formats.”

Sprankle and Johnson



Who hasn’t wanted

to do this !!!



Typical Video Production System

Digital

IEEE 1394Firewire (Mac)i.Link (Sony)

or USB 2.0

DVD



Need a digital camera to capture image

Need a 1394 card for the computer or a USB 2.0 port

Need a 1394 or USB cable to connect the digital camera to the computer

ANDSoftware to

transfer/capture the video information

ANDSoftware to


6-pin 4-pin

Transferring Analog Video to a Computer



Need an analog camera to capture image

Need a video capture device for the computer

Need a specific cables to connect the analog camera to the computer

RCA

S-video

ANDSoftware to


ANDSoftware to





ANDSoftware to

play/capture the video information

ANDSoftware to

play/capture the video information

Need a coaxial cable to connect Time-Warnerto the computerCoaxial

Cable

Need a video capture device for the computer

TV

Tuner




QuickCam (Mac & PC)

USB port

640 x 480 window (max)

5 KHz sampling rate

15 fps (max)

Webcam Video Input Devices



Note: It can also be used for still graphics


Webcam Video Input Devices



Sanyo MM-7400

USB port + Transfer software

175 x 145 window

30 seconds “economy” (max)

15 seconds “rich” (max)

Multimedia Cell Phones





Multimedia Cell Phones



FILEFORMATS



Animation/Video Files .AVI (PC)

.MOV (Mac)

.MPeG

.3g2

.GIF (Office2000/XP/2003/2007 & Browsers)

.SCM (Lotus)

.SWF (Shockwave)

.RA (streaming)



SOFTWARE



Basically there are three typesof software to:

Create/Capture

Edit

Play Note: These are not mutually exclusive.

Note: These are not mutually exclusive.

Animation/Video Software



GIF Construction Set - www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/gifcon.html

Kai’s Power Tools ($125) & Digital Morph ($19) -

Camtasia ($299)- www.techsmith.com/products/studio/default.asp

Animation Creation Software



• Purpose of this software is to capture, and compress video, and to interleave it with incoming audio.

• May be bundled with video capture hardware.

• Range in price and functionality:– Mid Range – Pinnacle Studio– High End – Adobe Premiere

Video Creation Software



VIDEOCOMPRESSION



• Uncompressed video takes huge amounts of storage space.

• With compression, anywhere up to to 72 minutes of MPEG quality compressed video will fit on a CD-ROM.

• Because of low bandwidth, the Web requires “streaming” video such as RealVideo, VIVO, or Shockwave.



• Popular Codecs include Cinepack, Indeo, Indeo Interactive, RLE, and Microsoft Video.

• Purpose is to eliminate redundant video artifacts/data via prediction between frames.

• Keep user platform in mind when choosing a Codec.

CODEC - COmpression/DECompression



Streamed

MediaRevisite

d



HHigh Compressionigh Compression



Consider the following example:

Floppy (.AVI – 8.9MB) Floppy (56k – .357MB)

Floppy (LAN – 1.7MB) Floppy (28k – .214MB)

In my computer literacy courses I have used FLOPPY.AVI to demonstrate how a floppy disk drive works. Let's see what happens if I placed this file on a streaming server…



In fall 1999, I used Distributed/Distance Leaning to teach EDC500. Since the file sizes were large, I used ScreenCam to narrate my PowerPoint presentations and placed them on a CD-ROM. I recently revised the videos using Camtasia, and, because of widespread broadband connections, I have placed these files on a Web server. Another method could be to stream them using RealPresenter. But since this software does not produce a clear screen image, I rejected it.

Consider the following example:



RealNetworks

RealPlayer (free – plus version $20) www.real.com/realsuperpass.html/?pcode=rn&rsrc=header&cpath=realhomeg&src=realhomeg_20050922

Real Producer (free – plus version $200) www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/basic.html

Universal Server (Basic - free – $1,995 serves 4 Mbps streams) forms.real.com/rnforms/products/servers/eval/mbps.html



Creation /Editing Software

Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 ($699) – (PC & Mac) www.adobe.com/products/premiere/

Movie Maker – comes with Windows Me/XP/Vista

Final Cut Pro ($1,000) - (Mac)www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/



MovieMaker



Playback SoftwareMedia Player (Windows) - player for AVI and MPG files(New Version!!!)

www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/ download/default.asp

Real Player (PC & Mac) - player for AVI, MPG, and MOV files www.real.com/realsuperpass.html/?pcode=rn&rsrc=header&cpath=realhomeg&src=realhomeg_20050922

Quick Time (PC & Mac) - player for AVI, MPG, and MOV files

www.apple.com/quicktime/



Animation Sources

I have found the best source for animation to be on CD’s. This is especially true of the supporting materials that publishers are supplying with conventional textbooks. We are presently examining new literacy texts, and all major publishers are producing CD’s to accompany their texts. As may be expected, the quality of these varies greatly. One of our decisions is how to use them - optionally packaged with the books or do we place a copy on the LAN?



Once again, I have found the best source for video to be on CD’s. This is also true of the previously mentioned supporting materials that publishers are supplying with their computer literacy textbooks. Since this a large market and students are already using the computer as a component of these courses, publishers have begun to produce multimedia materials on CD-ROM to supplement their textbooks. This may not be true for other subject areas.

Video Sources

© anthony j. nowakowski, ph.d. animation & videovideo

Documents

animation slide

web slide

cdrom slide

warp slide

animation videovideo

video screen capture

web vr slide

mb morph slide