Re: 2-D vector based animation?
- Posted by DanM May 04, 2009
- 1148 views
has anyone developed a simple, vector based animation creator?
What are your functional requirements? That is, what do you actually want the product to do and how do you want to get it to do that?
I assume by 'vector' you mean that you want to describe an image in terms of line segments and colors. And animate it by describing images at different 'ticks' and having the product calculate the line segment changes during the 'ticks' to form a smooth animation from one 'tick' to the next.
Your assumptions are correct, though my inexperience with animation means it's possible I don't really need vectors, just the ability to compute positions etc between key frames as you described, in order to have the program create the in-between frames. If that can be done with sprites, that would be ok.
What I want to do is to take something like the following,
http://outreach.mcb.harvard.edu/animations/actionpotential.swf
and, without attempting to create the nifty "click within the demo to select views" presented in the demo, I'd like to semi-duplicate the demonstration/animation of the neuron impulse propagation processes shown, but add more detail showing HOW the action potential is propagated along the neurons axon via ion movement facilitated by electric fields acting across short distances on ion channel proteins. Ditto at the synapse for calcium channels at pre-synaptic axon terminal, and sodium channels at post-synaptic dendrite spines. Also show the action and results of inhibitory neurotransmitters binding to post-synaptic receptors.
So, I need to be able to draw lines (an axon), balls (ions), some shapes (ion channels), mark key frames, move ions, re-mark key frames, cause the computed movement as you described, and then output the result to some kind of video file. I have some video file format converters, so it shouldn't matter what kind of output, though I'm looking for .wmv so it can play on Windows Media Player. I'd like to be able to add sound too, but could probably do that with some kind of post-productions software, I hope.
I'm not sure if I answered your question sufficiently?
And this is all (at least for now) just for my own edification.
Dan
