[Xerte] Re: Creating Animation

[Rick Ashby]

Google Web Designer is an interesting new addition to this arena. I just
came across it a few days ago.
https://www.google.com/webdesigner/



On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 4:44 AM, Smith, John <J.J.Smith at gcu.ac.uk> wrote:

> I would be very surprised if there wasn't already (or in the pipeline) an
> html5 editor and engine to rival what flash can do. Or it would make a good
> github project that i think would attract developers.
>
> Regards
>
> John Smith
> Learning Technologist
> School of Health and Life Sciences
>
> Sent from Samsung Galaxy SII
>
>
> Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> It would be an interesting project to build a simple but powerful
> animation tool. I nearly did it with the drawing tools, because it struck
> me that you have all the xml info to create graphics, so why not add a
> timeline...
>
> ...but that seemed like a lot of work at the time. I reckon you could do
> something easily enough using imported graphics and transitions for move /
> scale / etc. I think the trick would be the FWS test.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Smith, John
> Sent: 07 July 2014 10:08
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> Hi,
>
> I don't disagree with Julian that Flash etc still often have their place
> within the Xerte LO development cycle and some users (Alistair and Ron are
> definitely near if not at the top of that list) are very innovative in
> their use of different packages to create something to enhance the user
> experience but I definitely agree with Ron's point that something that
> allowed 'simple' animation would be a useful feature, especially for those
> without Flash experience and who dislike PPT. What that looks like or how
> complicated it gets i don't know yet...
>
> I think my bugbear with alternative solutions is that you then have to
> somehow manage the support files. It's like PDFs - it's a regular occurance
> that people lose the original Word doc and although there are good
> converters back to Word, none are perfect and I doubt they ever will be...
> it's the same when you start using support Flash files, PPTs, etc that then
> get lost and need to be recreated.
>
> I also like the simple 'updatability' of some of the pages in Xerte. Some
> could equally argue that the Table and Chart pages in Xerte are pointless
> (other than for backward compatibility). You can create better looking
> tables/charts in Excel, take a screenshot and import that but when you come
> to add the latest year's data then you have to do it again... the benefits
> with Xerte are that you just add a new line...
>
> People will always navigate towards tools that they know they can make
> work in the time they have - I don't think that's a problem but could we
> make it easier for those who have no experience of any package?
>
> Regards,
>
> John Smith | Learning Technologist
> Room A250, Govan Mbeki Building | School of Health & Life Sciences |
> Glasgow Caledonian University Cowcaddens Road | Glasgow | G4 0BA
>
> Please address ALL support requests to hlsblt at gcu.ac.uk where one of the
> School Learning Technologists will pick up the job. This will ensure that
> all jobs are completed as promptly as possible.
> ________________________________________
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney [
> Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
> Sent: 07 July 2014 09:35
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> > That kind of animation from Nottingham done in PowerPoint, saved as a
> movie and then converted to mp4 or uploaded to a streaming service does
> work very well but obviously there isn't really any potential for user
> interaction via that route unless perhaps keeping the movies granular and
> linking to different next steps based on user choice via links or multiple
> choice etc.
>
> I get that, but this is a non-technical user who has done something pretty
> decent, and I don’t want to start pointing out shortcomings – what I was
> asking was about how to do this easily / more easily because I suspect his
> process may be ‘non-optimum’ in that it is taken significant time to put
> together. I wondered if there were any tools / approaches that makes this
> quick and easy – I can talk to him more about xerte and interactivity
> separately, but there is a place for movies, obviously, and this is about
> finding efficient ways to make them.
>
> Personally I’d use Flash, import a narration, and then animate on the
> timeline to synch it all up, and then export a movie and run it through
> format factory. What would be good would be a simpler timeline based
> animation tool I suppose, or perhaps Flash is pretty good for this sort of
> thing. The idea of doing it in ppt gives me the willies.
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
> Sent: 06 July 2014 11:19
> To: 'Xerte discussion list'
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> Viewed this thread with interest at an event on Friday but no time to
> respond until now. I'd add the following comments…
>
> Creating this sort of narrated and sequenced animation is a common reason
> people say they prefer other tools like Captivate or Storyline or even
> Camtasia Studio. Obviously we all know that these can be used together with
> Xerte and no single tool does everything and obviously cost and arguably
> the specialist skills required mean these tools aren't the option for the
> majority.
>
> That kind of animation from Nottingham done in PowerPoint, saved as a
> movie and then converted to mp4 or uploaded to a streaming service does
> work very well but obviously there isn't really any potential for user
> interaction via that route unless perhaps keeping the movies granular and
> linking to different next steps based on user choice via links or multiple
> choice etc.
>
> Converting the PowerPoint with a tool like iSpring Pro does offer
> potential for interaction and obviously these days the converted animation
> can be html rather than Flash but because the output is multiple files and
> sub folders can't easily be uploaded via XOT and needs to be uploaded
> somewhere first. The same applies to creating this sort of thing direct in
> Articulate Storyline or Captivate or similar. I've often thought it would
> be good to upload and extract zip files via media and quota to make this
> sort of use with output from other tools easier. But I guess there could be
> security risks to that too and perhaps challenges with export. There's
> quite a few different examples in the http://learningmathsonline.ac.uk
> stuff.
>
> In my experience not everyone likes or takes to the custom animation
> settings etc in PowerPoint but another way to do this depending on the
> animation required is to add all the elements around the edges of a slide
> and then use a tool like screencast-o-matic or screenr to record the
> 'stage' area of the slide while you drag the elements onto the recorded
> area e.g. for creating common craft style explanations.
>
> If the author has a tablet then apps like Explain Everything or Doceri or
> the myriad of other annotation or animation apps provide loads of options
> arguably much quicker and more flexible than PowerPoint and are very low
> cost or free compared with desktop or online apps. e.g.
> http://mitchellmedia.co.uk/xot/play_36?template_id=html5&_36#resume=2
>
> It would be good even to just have some simple sequenced transition
> effects in Xerte but if there were a way to strike the right balance
> between ease of use and flexibility within Xerte itself it would add even
> more value to the new editor features where adding mutiple images/graphics
> to a page is so easy.
>
> Ron
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair McNaught
> Sent: 04 July 2014 20:11
> To: xerte at pgogywebstuff.com<mailto:xerte at pgogywebstuff.com>; Xerte
> discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> Well if we were talking about cakes and icing I’d go for both options ☺
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Pat L (pgogy)
> Sent: 04 July 2014 15:46
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> recording and saving directly? Or uploaded MP3?
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Julian Tenney <
> Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
> In terms of ease of use, this is what I’m thinking:
>
>
> -          Powerpoint or something is used to draw the graphics. A
> background, and items that can move;
>
> -          The presenter talks through the content and creates the
> animation live, either by dragging things around, or having things animate
> to where the mouse is clicked (click object -> click screen -> object moves
> etc);
>
> -          Maybe some other actions like scale / vanish / move fast / move
> slow
>
> -          Some sort of screen recording is made to capture the video of
> the presentation;
>
> Does it sound like it might work?
>
> Does that work with your real world use cases?
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>] On Behalf Of Alistair McNaught
> Sent: 04 July 2014 14:30
> To: xerte at pgogywebstuff.com<mailto:xerte at pgogywebstuff.com>; Xerte
> discussion list
>
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> If it was easy for end user it would be great
>
> A
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Pat L (pgogy)
> Sent: 04 July 2014 13:13
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
> Would an animated gif maker be a good template?
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2014 at 11:44 AM, Alistair McNaught <
> Alistair.McNaught at heacademy.ac.uk<mailto:Alistair.McNaught at heacademy.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> From a non technical viewpoint I do this sort of thing by
>
> •         setting up a bespoke PowerPoint slide (maybe 6 x 8 cm page
> dimensions)
>
> •         drawing the first frame
>
> •         duplicating the slide
>
> •         making the small changes needed for the second frame
>
> •         duplicating the second frame
>
> •         repeating
>
> •         save finished presentation as gifs
>
> •         use free tool like Photoscape or UnFreez (both portable so no
> admin rights needed to install) to determine the frame delays between them.
>
> •         Save as animated gif.
>
> •         Add to any relevant Xerte page
>
>
>
> There is real advantage in using PPT to create the frames because it is
> really familiar to people, flexible and easy to use. It doesn’t allow onion
> skinning etc but I’ve produced several things using this approach – see
> slide 4 of http://vle.jisctechdis.ac.uk/xerte/play_477 where the beach
> transect process is illustrated.
>
> [cid:image001.jpg at 01CF99C6.840F18F0]
>
>
>
> A
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>] On Behalf Of Smith, John
> Sent: 04 July 2014 10:21
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating Animation
>
>
>
> I've often thought that we could use a page type that allows you to then
> add sub elements (media) each with their own script to control or a
> predefined script (such as move to the left, etc) and possibly a timer to
> tell the page when to run the script... shouldn't be that hard to do
> something like that...
>
>
>
> John Smith | Learning Technologist
>
> Room A250, Govan Mbeki Building | School of Health & Life Sciences |
> Glasgow Caledonian University Cowcaddens Road | Glasgow | G4 0BA
>
>
>
> Please address ALL support requests to hlsblt at gcu.ac.uk<mailto:
> hlsblt at gcu.ac.uk> where one of the School Learning Technologists will
> pick up the job. This will ensure that all jobs are completed as promptly
> as possible.
>
> ________________________________________
>
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney [
> Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>]
>
> Sent: 04 July 2014 09:48
>
> To: Xerte discussion list (xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:
> xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>)
>
> Subject: [Xerte] Creating Animation
>
>
>
> I’m just wondering what approaches people use for this sort of thing: we
> have a lecturer who wants to create animation simply. He’s currently using
> powerpoint to create this sort of thing:
> http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_10711
>
>
>
> I think the results are really good, and it’s taken some time to get
> right. I’m interested in optimising the approach a bit, to make it fast and
> efficient: maybe this is the best way of doing it, maybe there are others?
>
>
>
> What I’m interested in is what approaches / tools do people use for this
> sort of thing? It doesn’t have to be high end output: it could be a mixture
> of screen capture, whilst dragging things around and narrating the process
> for example. We’re not looking to turn staff into Flash developers, it’s
> more about simple approaches that are easy and quick to do.
>
>
>
> Ideas?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Julian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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