Animation at a Glance

Animation involves creating a series of pictures, then displaying them one after the other very quickly to make it look like the picture is moving. There are different kinds of animation. You are going to create a cel animation (yes, it is spelled with only one "L"). Cel animation is the old-fashioned way of creating animations, used to create most Disney movies. You create a series of pictures of figures or objects. These pictures are called "cels". In each picture, you change the position of the figure or object a little. When you display the pictures one after the other, quickly, it looks like the figure or object is moving. If you've ever created a flip book, then you've created a cel animation.

For example, to create the rocket animation, I created 16 separate pictures in Paint:

Picture	File Name
	rocket01
	rocket02
	rocket03
	rocket04
	rocket05
	rocket06
	rocket07
	rocket08
	rocket09
	rocket10
	rocket11
	rocket12
	rocket13
	rocket14
	rocket15
	rocket16

I did NOT redraw the rocket for each picture. Here is the process, step-by-step:

1) I drew the first picture from scratch, and saved it as "rocket01".

2) I used "Save As" to make a copy of that picture and named the new picture "rocket02".

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3) I used the "marquee" tool to move my rocket up, and used the "paintbrush" tool to add flames and smoke to the bottom. I used "Save" to save my changes.

4) I used "Save As" to make a copy of that picture and named the new picture "rocket03".

5) I repeated steps 3&4 until I had created 16 separate pictures, and moved my rocket all the way off the screen.

Once you have created all of your "cels" or pictures, you will use a program called "GIF Construction Kit" to display or show them one right after the other, very quickly.