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Animation
Animation is a tool that can make your images come alive for the Internet viewer. It is simply a sequence of distilled images displayed one after the other. Animation is being used quite heavily on the Web and can bother the viewer if it is used too often on one site. However, if animation is used sparingly it can catch your visitor’s attention.
Due to the sophistication of animation on the Internet, there are several ways to animate your image. You can download animated images from the Web, animate the images yourself by using a looping command in your HTML markup, or you can purchase software to assist you. The following sites provide helpful tutorials helpful tutorials:
Below are some general steps to animate your image:
- Webreference (http://webreference.internet.com/graphics/tutorials.html)
- ZDNet (http://zdnet.com/products/garage/graph.html)
- Animated GIFs (http://desktoppublishing.com/anigifs.html)
Sites that use animation simply and effectively are:
- Choose various frames of the same image, keeping in mind to leave the images small. You should aim to keep the total file size of images used on a page to less than 30K. If you need to use a larger image, you might want to consider using a thumbnail of the image that is linked to the full-size copy. You can also compress the image so it utilizes less memory. Keeping the file size of your image down will decrease the length of time it takes for your Web site to upload from the browser.
- Save the frames as either a GIF or a JPEG file. When deciding whether to save the file as a GIF or JPEG, keep in mind that GIF files lack the higher quality of JPEG files. JPEG files are usually faster because they are more compact and are optimized for electronic downloading.
- Tag the frames on your Web site. If this seems intimidating, software such as JAVA Applets can assist you in this endeavor. JAVA Applets range in price from $20 for a basic program to $250 for a more advanced program. JAVA Applets do not require any coding experience because they rely on prebuilt components. However, the technical knowledge needed does depend on the sophistication of the program purchased.
- Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (http://www.nhm.org)
- Exploratorium in San Francisco, CA (http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/exhibits.html)
- The new Getty Center in California (http://www.getty.edu/center/center2.htm)