Making A Pacman Ghost on Inkscape

As a class we went to http://howto.nicubunu.ro/inkscape_pacman_baddies/
This was an example that we made so we would be able to use Inkscape for our Assignment.
This is the Process we followed;
Draw a circle using the ellipse tool (keep the Ctrl key pressed while dragging to get a circle) and then convert the circle to path (Path > Object to Path).
Convert to the node editor and add (by double-clicking) two nodes near the extreme left and right nodes of the circle.


Select the two newly created nodes (with Shift) and drag them to the bottom (keep the Ctrl key pressed while dragging to restrict the movement to the vertical).


Select the newly created left node and the bottom node and press twice the insert new node button. Select the right and bottom nodes and repeat the operation (two insert nodes). Each segment will be split with 3 new nodes. You may now delete the left and right segmenting nodes to simplify the shape.


Select (with Shift) the two nodes left and right nearest to the original bottom node and move them up a bit (with Ctrl key pressed, to restrict the movement to the vertical).
This is the "ghost" shape.


The hard part has ended, we have the basic ghost shape, we can add the eyes (a white and a black circle, duplicate) and we have a simple Pac-Man baddie.


But we will do something fancier, duplicate the ghost shape and make the duplicate black. Change the black color with a radial gradient going from completely transparent black at the center to partly transparent black at the margins. Move the center of the gradient up and left to have a light source.


For the eye create a white circle, duplicate it and fill the duplicate with the same radial gradient. Add a smaller black circle. Group them, duplicate the group to get the second eye.


Add a highlight: create an white ellipse, move it in the upper-left, rotate a bit apply some blur and reduce the opacity.
 
Optionally, create a second highlight in the same way.
 
For increased realism, add a shadow: a black ellipse at the bottom, move it below the rest of the graphic and fill with a radial gradient going from solid black at the center to partly transparent black at the margins.
 
Add a bit of blur to the shadow and we are done.

*Instructions from the given website

Assesment ; Creating an Animation

.

Describe what software you used and why you chose it:

In the actual process of creating each frame I used Inkscape because it was simple and had all the tools I required on the side bar instead of me having to search for them. I tried using shapes on Microsoft Office Word to make some shapes but I found it easier to use Inkscape. To create the actual animation I used Windows Live Movie Maker and used 91 frames.

Describe the creation process you followed:

I first copied an image of Manaphy (Blue Pokemon) as a PNG file and pasted it onto Inkscape. Using the Circle tool I created a circle for its head, body and 2 ovals for it's arms. To shape the head and the body I clicked 'Object to Path' and stretched the cirlce to shape it is now. to create it's ears I used the Bezier tool and smoothed the object path. To make the eyes I made 4 different circles. One yellow for the outer eye, One blue for the eye colour, one black for the pupil and one white for the eye moving it on top of each other to make it look like an eye. To make the stars I used shapes and filled them blue, to make the swirls of water I used the Calligraphic Brush Stroke tool, the Letters I used the Font tool and the bubbles I used the Circle tool. To create the flashing effect I changed the background colour to black and white for different frames. After each frame I exported the Vector image as a PNG file to use on Windows Live Movie Maker. I adjusted each frames time period so some were 0.03 seconds, 0.2 seconds, 0.11 seconds and others 0.15 seconds. When the frames were together I saved it as a movie and FINISHED :)

What image format were you saving your work in during the development of the frames/ What image format did you save your frames as?

While creating the frames I saved them as a Vector Image, then exported the all to PNG files so I would be able to use them on Windoes Live Movie Maker. When the animation was finished I saved it as a WMV file.

What frame rate were you aiming for?

I was aiming to be able to have around 10 frames per second. At times I made that goes and at other times I had it more than 10  frames a second, this was when I had the bubbles coming into the image saying M E R C E D E S.

What difficulties did you encounter and how did you overcome them?

Difficulties I had included not having Windows Live Movie Maker on my home computer and the fact that Inkscape always stopped working while I was in the middle of my frames making me delete those frames and start again. I ended up just making the frames at hom and doing the animation work at school and to overcome the problem with inkscape I saved the file each time i made a frame.

Assessment Planning ;

For my assessment I have had many ideas for my animation supporting Mercedes House.
At the moment I'm thinking of using either;

- Phione and Manaphy from Pokemon
- Sasuke from Naruto
- Suicune from Pokemon
- Articuno from Pokemon
- Dragonair from Pokemon
- Lucario and Riolu from Pokemon

All of my characters are from animes (japanese cartoons) and that's because I have an interest in it. :)

(images in character order ; suicune, sasuke, articuno, dragonair, manaphy and phione, lucario and riolu)

Bouncing Ball animation



As a class we created a bouncing ball animation.

We did this by creating a single frame with a ball and a straight line. To make the ball bounce up and down we had to take each frame moving the ball down 5 - 15 times each time.

What made this easy was being able to use the same frames going back up. As sir described "the good thing about computers is that you can cheat!'

This animation is approximately one second long? But has 22 frames. The First few frames have a black background because the settings weren't set then but the next time we do an animation, I'm sure that would change :)

We made this animation by putting in the different frames in order onto Windows Live Movie Maker and adjusting the speeds so it would realistic in the way that it bounces.

It was the first animation I've ever made and I find it fun ^^

Playing with Artpad

This is an example of digital media and was created on artpad.art.com/artpad/painter