Basic Animation concept

Definition
An animation is a series of pictures displayed one right after another with a subtle change in each image picture. This represents the changes in the images over time. Each successive image is another time increment.

The FlipBook Model
Think of an animation as a flipbook. The oldtime flipbook was dependant on your changing the image fast enough so the changes in the picture looked fluent or continuous.  The images in an animation change quickly enough so that the mind does not see a break in the motion. The mind connects the "dots" so to speak and fills in the missing parts. The mind will interpret motion in the flipbook, but there is no real motion.

Animated Gif verses regular gif
On the web we use Animated Gif format to flip our pages or images. The regular GIF image, graphics image format, is a single image displayed in 256 colors or less, can be on a transparent or invisible background. The animated gif differs from animated gif in that the animated gif has successive images that appear over a timeline. It can have a transparent background, it can stop at the end or loop for a number of times, or even infinitely. There is no such thing as an animated jpg image. (included for my friend Nohowinc who has asked this several times)

Requirements for making the animated Gif

• Several images that have subtle changes in them, that when viewed in succession appear to yield an animation.

• A gif animating program such as

  • ULEAD gif animator

  • Paint shop pro

  • Microsoft image composer

  • Macromedia Flash