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Simple Computer Animation using Bryce, Director, Photoshop, Final Cut Express, and Garageband

Simple Computer Animation



For the Tobacco Free Florida Contest I created a short video in about five days (before and after work) using a variety of programs that are still capable of running on my old Mac G4.

Graphics were created in BRYCE, a simple 3D animation program that is mostly useful for creating amazing landscapes, like for the video game MYST. Because my computer's rendering time is so slow (two weeks to render about three seconds of 3D animation), I opted instead to experiment with exporting the 3D graphics 2D, and then animating them 2D.

The actual animation and movements were extremely simple and created in Macromedia Director. It was important to keep the color palette similar (greens, oranges, yellows, reds...no blue). This I achieved by setting the graphics to transparent, darkened, or "not ghost". By doing this, the images always reflected the colors of the sky behind.

Audio was compiled using the free program Say IT, a program that makes audio files through the computer voice, and Apple's Garageband. Because of an annoying glitch in Director, the video had to be exported without sound and then the audio synced again in Final Cut Express.

Not Oscar material, but not too bad for a five-day project on a five-year-old computer.

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