[Etoys] Animations in Squeak/Scratch and Flash

[karl]

Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
>> To give you an idea of the kind work Phi does, take a look at this. If anyone 
>> knows of example animations made with eToys that look as good as what Phi did 
>> here, please let us know."
>>
>> reminded me of my wish that Squeak be used instead of Flash :) in addition to 
>> it being so nice for exploring..
>>
>> That aside, I think the person who made the comment is right - I do not think 
>> Squeak can be used to create animations shown in there, at least I do not 
>> know how to. Does anyone have enough experience with Scratch to comment that 
>> perhaps Scratch could be used to create animations similar to those with 
>> equivalent or lower effort?
>>     
>
>   Either in Etoys or Scratch, a script for that kind of animation
> would look like a long, serial chain of commands, and would not be too
> pleasant to edit or make.
>
>   There have been discussions to make a tool for making timeline-based
> animations.  One could imagine to start from something that
> EventTheatre offers (press "Record" in EV, do something, hit escape
> key and press the double-ring button).
>   

I think the Skeleton system could be a good starting point for such a 
system.

Karl
>   However, filling details that makes such a tool (i.e., an animation
> making tool) useful would require a lot of work.  Frame-based
> animation in Etoys doesn't really scale, and adjusting the rotation
> centers of frames to make the animation look right is hard, etc.
> Also, our 2D scaling and rotation isn't fast enough to show that on
> XO.
>
>   BTW, the "LearniT" animations are fun to watch and have hip style,
> but to see that some people think they are good for "education"
> (implies that they are informative and teaching something) gives me a
> strange impression.  "How the mesh network works?" and the animation
> essentially tells you that "the middle man relays".  Do you need one
> minute animation to convey the four words idea?
>
> -- Yoshiki
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