By now, everyone has visited a website that utilizes Flash multimedia within its design. Since 1996, the use of Flash has grown in popularity thanks to its ability to add animation and interactivity to websites. More recently, Flash has become an essential component in the prolific distribution of intrusive “pop-ups,” or web-based advertisements. Flash also grants designers the ability to integrate video into web pages, and this has led many within the Web 2.0 space to use Flash to develop rich Internet applications. Many companies, including my own, Denver interactive agency Fusionbox, offer streaming Flash Video Solutions to clients in need of online video.
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The JavaFX Script programming language lets you create modern looking applications with sophisticated graphical user interfaces. It was designed from the ground up to make GUI programming easy; its declarative syntax, data binding model, animation support, and built-in visual effects let you accomplish more work with less code, resulting in shorter development cycles and increased productivity.
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YouTube, Podcasting, Blogs, Wikis and RSS are buzz words currently associated with the term Web 2.0 and represent a shifting pedagogical paradigm for the use of a new set of tools within education. The implication here is a possible shift from the basic archetypical vehicles used for (e)learning today (lecture notes, printed material, PowerPoint, websites, animation) towards a ubiquitous user-centric, user-content generated and user- guided experience. It is not sufficient to use online learning and teaching technologies simply for the delivery of content to students. A new “Learning Ecology” is present where these Web 2.0 technologies can be explored for collaborative and (co)creative purposes as well as for the critical assessment, evaluation and personalization of information.
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Animations, whether they are in movies, television, or video games, would not capture the viewer’s interest if they were not accompanied by music. Music can set the tone for a scene and is generally added after the animation has been completed. It takes a large amount of work to coordinate a piece of music with a final animation, especially when specific movements must occur at certain times in the song. This paper describes a method of automatically synthesizing an animation that synchronizes with the input music. Our system allows the user to choose a piece of music and a character and outputs a synchronized animation that expresses the emotion and intent of the music through movement.
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When 15-year-old Daniel Grigsby attended the 6th Form Open Evening, an event showcasing pre-university courses available for study, he had no idea his destiny was about to reveal itself. He immediately headed over to the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) stand with an air of curiosity and child-like excitement. “What’s Maya?” he asked the man behind the stand, as he pointed to a small book on the table. “It’s computer animation software. Films like Spider-Man®, The Lord of the Rings™
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Creating art in a 3D modeling package such as Max or Maya and then trying to get it to work in the Unreal Editor can sometimes be quite a feat, especially if you’ve never done it before. Hopefully this process will provide a basic understanding of the art pipeline for Unreal Ed and answer any questions you may have about getting your static meshes from the 3D package of your choice into the Unreal Editor and into your Mod.
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This tutorial is intended to teach new animation students a few basic animation techniques and workflow based on fundamental animation principles using Maya and a free character setup named walkingBall_v2.3 created by the author. This character setup or “rig” has many useful features without being overwhelming to newer students. This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of how to navigate the Maya interface, find menu commands, and other basic computer file management skills.
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T his tutorial will explain how to export static textured models (meaning no animation yet) from Maya into Crysis. I’ll update this tutorial as I learn more about the process and more tools become available. Big thanks to Psychojohno and Spiderdan for their tutorials which taught me a lot!
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