Hypercompendia

Without even thinking twice, I automatically set up for "Animation" and story in a project playing with this software.  There are games, interactive pieces, music and stories suggested and some examples of each included with the free download.  This helps tremendously because if there is an action or sequence that you’d like to mimic, the projects are set up in the same format as the program so that you can see the scripts to see how they are set up to work.

My method was to leap ahead and take several steps back before I got a plan in mind.  I started out with the kitty character provided–which looks to be the posterboy for the Scratch program–and messed around a bit with the script to see what I could make him accomplish.  It was easy enough to make him move, change size and color and direction, add some noise and music, and give him a buddy.  Right there I got sidetracked by the desire to be completely original and so drew him a rabbit buddy in a Paint-like screen, although you can import images from other sources, and in fact, I did import one f my own photos for a background and considered playing with one of my drawings (Edgar? Jesus? Any one of my numerous penciled ladies?) as a character. 

Eventually, after I had played with the rabbit a bit and made some interesting stuff happen, a story came together and decided to book kitty out and drew another character that would suit the simple story line, and also imported a new photo image of my garden that seemed perfect for the setting.

I am now in the process of making the two characters interact, each character having three or four "costumes" or different stance so that a cartoonish motion effect can be accomplished by quick-switching between costumes.

With any luck, I may finish up something tonight to post with a link to the Scratch site to show the finished product.  There is a way of embedding the video into the weblog, but it seems  much simpler and more likely to work if it’s just downloaded to their site.

Did I honest-to-God say that I tried Scratch first because of its snob appeal, having been produced by MIT?

Did I not look beyond the cutesie website graphics at Alice to see who it was put together by?

Like, Carnegie Mellon?

Anyone else likely would’ve learned, created a project and gotten bored with this program in two days tops.  But if I find my interest waning, yet want to get something out of the learning process, it’s hard for me to push myself to finish–especially when there’s no one to answer to but myself and no deadlines to meet.  And when I ain’t havin’ fun, I ain’t mentally invested.  But sometimes there’s a way around this procrastination. 

Though as I mentioned, there’s a character-creator capability that’s similar to Paint, it’s hokey at best, but at least it does mean that I have an original image to work with rather than those available–and there’s plenty of them–within the program.  It also means that I am willing to spend some time in the drawing area of the project.

I’ve created a new character and made four "costumes" of it–that is, I’ve changed the image to assume some differences in stance that may come out looking like a primitive motion effect when used in sequence.  In fact, going back to real cartooning techniques.  But see, I was having fun doing that, despite the low level accuracy and my own ineptness with the drawing tools.  It did keep me on the project and now more enthused about seeing how my figures work out.

So a couple hours spent on drawing when I should’ve been playing with motion and effects are not completely wasted if it keeps me involved enough to learn. 

I’m not sure I’ve got the right temperment for this kind of thing.  I seem to be half-heartedly playing without any serious purpose to making the "Sprites" (characters) interact or even move around the screen. 

The format of Scratch is easy, and yet challenging enough to make it a pleasant experience for the new new media animator–that is, one who is not quite ready to jump into a more elaborate program such as Flash or Storytron.  I’m beginning to think that my method and manner of creative output isn’t geared towards deciding how thick I want a pen to be, how many times I want a character to walk how many steps, when I want the drums to bang, etc. 

Maybe it takes a more disciplined mind.  In working with this, I seem to want to just click on a character to move him, draw him to change his position, point him from here to there rather than program his directions.  Storytron posed similar problems for me; I had little to no interest in the technical manipulation and would have preferred to just either write the directions out–this I believe I could do with more enthusiasm–or manually maneuver the characters and the environment.

I’ll continue playing until I come up with even 30 seconds of some sort of story and action that’s presentable–dear Lord, this program is, after all, for ages 8 and up–but my head’s just not wrapped around this method of creation. 

Working with new media software has me thinking again about my own projects in the planning.  One of the stumbling blocks for me has been audio–both in the recording and the selection.  John has suggested a fix for my munchkin voice, one of the programs available in the Adobe Premiere bundle.  A far as selection, I’m once again reluctant to "borrow" even public domain music, although the tune itself isn’t as much of a problem as the actual recording.  A thought occurred to me that perhaps I could play it myself.

The problem is that I can only play the harmonica.

And I can only play Red River Valley.

I was able to import an image of my own into the test project–the front lawn in a snowy dawn–so Kitty and Wabbit might be a little cold.  Of course, if I learn it right, I suppose I could animate them to shiver.

The other thing I’m seeing is that I believe I can only share these online by signing onto the Scratch website and uploading it there, linking it on my site here.

Which means, of course, that it’s going to have to be really, really decent for me to even consider putting it up and I’m not sure I’m willing to play with it that long.  After all, Alice calls, and then I might be ready for Premiere.

A bit bored with Kitty, though I’m determined to work my way through the program (Scratch) and try everything out and come out with a complete project, I went back to the Alice site and that looks like a lot more fun and the figures are indeed a lot more professional than what is offered by Scratch. 

Alice appears to incorporate some of the things I’ve seen in Storytron: if X happens, then Z will do Y.  Though it’s not on such an elaborate level as Storytron, whose main purpose is to create multiple possibilities in narrative style, the Alice demo did show how it works to keep a skater from falling into a hole in the ice (the environment, or background). 

Though I’m not sure that I have any real interest in creating animation or getting a job in the field (hah!), it is a fascinating process to get my hands dirty while learning something just for the fun of it.

So now Blue Gradient Kitty has a change of costume to lavendar, and he’s got a little buddy, a grey bunny rabbit that looks suspiciously like what we all drew in our copybooks in grade school as our version of Bugs Bunny. 

The drawing module is very similar to Windows Paint–which I never did very well in, never quite managing the straight lines or curves I tried to maneuver with the mouse.  Thankfully, the same approach I used in Paint was available here: zoom in, erase and redraw the pixels. 

The screen setup of Scratch is thoughtfully plotted out very much like the Adobe flash programs so that a transition to the "big kids" software should be made with ease. 

In the meantime, I’ve got Kitty walking and playing the Chinese Cymbals and a cowbell.  Wabbit is just standing there for now, but I’ve got great plans for him…

Just got started with this about an hour ago.  Drop-by friends that stay for a meal always take precedence over even the most anticipated computer playing, and I did go out and do more gardening this weekend.

The format is very user-friendly and inviting.  As I suspected, the colors and even choice of font makes it appear more like a game than a serious animation program.

Though I downloaded Alice as well, I rather snobbishly  felt that a program put out by MIT might be more sophisticated in the technical end, though it surprises me that Scratch is only a 35 mb download versus Alice’s 115 mb.  It does appear that the average 8 year-old will have no problem with this program, especially if he follows the easy starter instructions.  I realize now that it’s not always the program’s complexity that inhibits me; it’s the failure refusal to read instructions.  It’s likely that a kid who knows enough to listen and learn will forever have that advantage over me.

That said, I’ve broken down and printed out the "getting started" tutorial and after playing and ending up with a motionless animation, will go through the easy example next. Nothing I can show you yet, but I do have a gradient-blue kitty walking and saying "hello!" 

Well I downloaded Scratch onto one of the computers so I may play around with that today.  It doesn’t look like it allows  for a very sophisticated project, but it may be the icebreaker I need.

The other thing I want to play with is Photoshop to get into areas that I haven’t explored–like 75% of the program, I’m sure.

In the meantime, I’m praying for rain to justify my staying inside on such a beautiful day.