Creating Digital Animations: Animate Stories with Scratch!

INTRODUCTION

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER, I HAVE WANTED TO TELL MY OWN STORIES WITH ANIMATION. My first project was an animated birthday card for my grandfather. A boat sailed across the screen and then displayed Happy Birthday. He was blown away, perhaps because this happened over 30 years ago, before computer animation appeared on television or in films.

Today, digital animation is everywhere, but most people think that animating on their own is too hard. Think again! Scratch makes it easy for anybody to get started with animation.

ABOUT SCRATCH

Scratch was created for you. The designers at the MIT Media Lab had several goals:

Give you powerful software for free

Make it easy for you to learn

Allow many different ways for you to use the software

Enable you to browse, play, and remix other projects

Enable you to share your projects

Create an online community where you can learn from one another

Now review that list of six goals. Where does it say, Force parents or teachers or coaches or kids to buy a big, fat Scratch book? Nowhere! So why are you still reading? Don’t you know you can go to scratch.mit.edu right now and start Scratching?!?

If you are completely new to Scratch, it might be a good idea to start with one of the built-in tutorials. To see them, click the question mark in the top-right corner.

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In this book, you can start with any project. If you have not done much animating inside Scratch, you may find it useful to start with Project 1, which leads you through creating a basic stick figure animation. If you want to design your own cartoon characters, check out Project 2, where I share all kinds of tricks (and you discover that you don't have to be an awesome artist to create great-looking characters).

ICONS USED IN THIS BOOK

tip The Tip icon marks tips and shortcuts that you can use to make coding easier.

warning The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you from scratching your head a ton.

ACCESS SCRATCH

To use Scratch online visit www.scratch.mit.edu, create an online account, and start Scratching. To use Scratch without creating an account, you will have to download and install the offline version of Scratch (see the upcoming Use Scratch offline section).

Technically, you can use the Scratch website without an account, but you will have to save projects to your computer and then upload them each time you visit the Scratch website to continue working on them. With an account, you can save files online and share projects with other Scratch users.

CREATE ONLINE ACCOUNT

Go ahead and start Scratch! Turn on your computer, open a web browser, and visit scratch.mit.edu. If you already have a Scratch account, click the Sign In button in the top-right corner of the page. If you do not have an account, click the Join Scratch button and fill in the brief online form. If you are under 13 or do not have an email account, please ask an adult to help you create an account (or skip ahead to the upcoming Use Scratch offline section).

warning To run Scratch online, you need a relatively recent web browser (Chrome 35 or later, Firefox 31 or later, or Internet Explorer 8 or later) with Adobe Flash Player version 10.2 or later installed. Scratch 2 is designed to support screen sizes 1024 x 768 or larger.

USE SCRATCH OFFLINE

You can install the Scratch 2 Offline Editor to work on projects without a Scratch user account. After Scratch 2 is installed, you will not need an Internet connection to work on projects. This version will work on Mac, Windows, and some versions of Linux (32 bit). Visit www.scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download to download and install Adobe Air (required to run Scratch offline) and the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.

Okay ladies and gentlemen, let's get Scratching!

PROJECT 1

ANIMATION ESSENTIALS

THIS IS WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT THE HISTORY OF ANIMATION. And then describe all the different kinds and give a bunch of examples and … (yawn) … No thanks! Wouldn’t you rather start animating right now?

In this project, you begin by telling a short story with one of the simplest forms of animation: stick figures. An obvious advantage of stick figures is that they are almost as easy to animate as they are to draw.

DRAW YOUR FIRST CHARACTER

Go ahead and start drawing! Just kidding. Of course you must create a project before you can draw anything.

CREATE PROJECT

Go to scratch.mit.edu or open the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.

If you are online, click Create. If offline, choose File ⇒ New.

Name your project. (Online, select the title and type Stick Figure Animation. Offline, choose File ⇒ Save As and type Stick Figure Animation.)

Delete the cat. (Shift-click and select Delete.)

DRAW BODY PARTS

For your stick figure, you need a circle for a head, a rectangle for a body, and lines for arms and legs. Initially, drawing the parts separately might be easier.

Click the Paint New Sprite icon.

Click the Costumes tab.

Click the Convert to Vector button (bottom-right corner of the Paint Editor).

Click the Zoom In button one time for 200% scale.

This scale makes it easier to