Animation

I made a monkey screech, jump, and roll over today. That's right, I tackled a computer animation software. I'm really impressed with myself, if that isn't already apparent. Thanks to a fellow student, and her colleague at Hillcrest High School (cheers Kristen :)), I downloaded a free software called Alice. I was able to animate Elizabeth Sieta (my monkey was named by my daughter) within the half hour. I qualify this program as easy to use. The tutorials were very helpful, and definitely gave me the tools I needed. I would say the only advice I have for this organization is to create a text page with help tips. I had to go through pretty lengthy tutorials of things I had already figured out how to do on my own before I got to the part that I could not do. To be honest, this was a little frustrating. But, it's only frustrating because I'm looking for something to critique. Perhaps I'm being pretty hard on the software. Overall, it was a fun experience.

I am working on a web page for a research project that is really going to challenge me. I intend to incorporate quite a few multimedia components, and animation is one of these components. The animation idea has been developed, but now I am searching for the right program to use. Unfortunately, I don't think Alice is going to be useful for this particular assignment. Although Alice has cute graphics, and quite a few templates and items to animate, they aren't going to help me with the map/geometric style I need to create. However, for the classroom teacher looking for an attention grabber, or hoping to add a little spice to an assignment, this is your program. I'm off to search for another animation program. Feel free to leave suggestions if you have any.