What is animation?

Animation is the simulation of movement through a series of pictures that have objects in slightly different positions.

Cartoons are familiar forms of animation. You have probably seen other forms of animation on a computer, such as company logos that move on an Internet Web page, characters moving in a computer game, or even objects that move on the computer screen in a software demonstration or tutorial.

For animation to work, the pictures making up the animation must replace one another quickly enough to trick the human eye into believing there is movement. A replacement rate of at least 14 frames per second or faster accomplishes this sense of movement.

For example, a movie camera replaces the picture frames in a Disney cartoon at a rate of 28 frames per second.

About VSE Animation Maker

VSE Animation Maker allows you to create your own computer animations. You can use these animations in other programs to add liveliness or to draw attention to something—for example, in the welcome screen of a software program, on a web page, or in a computer-generated presentation.

You create animations in VSE Animation Maker by drawing pictures in a series of animation frames using the drawing tools that VSE Animation Maker provides. You can also create pictures in another drawing program and import them into VSE Animation Maker.

After you create a series of pictures that make up an animation, you save them in a file that VSE Animation Maker calls a set. VSE Animation Maker has a folder called Demo-Sets that contains several sample animations. These samples demonstrate the kinds of animations you can create.

The AM-helicopter sample is the animation that appears on the welcome screen when you open AM. This animation is made from the following series of pictures. Notice how the two propellers change position. These changes create the simulation of movement.