Kylie Skinner
Student Number: S0039007
Constructing Cyberspace Assessment
Assignment 1: Create a GIF animation

Essay
Through use of the Internet there are many possibilities available for the general public and an endless stream of information is available, but because there is no face to face meetings through cyberspace it is possible for the user to assume a different identity with certain characteristics. In Reading 4 (Turkle, S.:152), it states "…virtual gender-swapping is easier than doing it in real life. For a man to present himself as a female in a chat room…only requires writing a description". Therefore I have chosen the theme 'Unlimited identities in Cyberspace', because it relates to the fact that, though many honest relationships are formed on the Internet, the user has the option and freedom of changing or slightly altering their identity. Therefore it is possible for Internet users to basically assume any identity they wish, which includes things like gender-swapping, change of age and different appearances and occupations. My theme is centered around gender swapping because it seems to hold a large part in users changing their identities on the Internet.

This theme is represented, in the GIF animation presented above, through use of line, colour, shape and text among other things. A lot of the identities that people assume on the Internet involve swapping their gender. So through using the draw tool and colour palette the male and female symbols have been created to symbolise the interaction of the genders. The initial frames state the theme in black, modern typeface. The font and colour were used to reveal the theme as being contemporary and technology based. The colour and font are simple but they also display the words effectively without being too fancy. Also on these first frames, black ellipse circles have been placed around the text, increasing and expanding on each frame. These were drawn to represent the Internet as an ever-expanding online community. As technology increases, so does the virtual world of cyberspace. Hopefully, also the ellipse circles enforce the message of the text and focus the text as the center and dominating element of the initial frames. Cyberspace is attracting more and more people as technology grows, so it is necessary to establish this.

The frames that follow represent interaction between the genders through using the nationally recognised male and female symbols, also only using two basic colours; pink and blue. The final frame shows many symbols drawn to represent the number of people that interact together online. Created in Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, this animation is generally simple and clear. Initially the first layer, which was the text, was created in the Paint Shop and then it was saved and reopened in the Jasc Animation Shop. After it was reopened in Animation Shop extra frames were added wtih the option of, 'carry forward contents of preceding frames', checked, so that the text would still be in the next frames. Then increasing ellipse circles were drawn around each text of each of the 3 frames. Another 5 frames had to be added on the animation with blank white canvas, so that the symbols could be added to the animated text. The whole animation took about one week to create.

It is very difficult to produce an animation when only limited use of colour and frames are allowed because of the overall size limitations. However, because it is necessary for the time the animation takes to download, to remain fast and efficient, it is important to reduce any unnecessary elements. Using methods like dithering to reduce the amount of colours used by swapping and altering certain colours. It is also difficult to keep the number of frames in animation minimal, because generally the more frames used, the more impressive the final animation will probably be.

Also because the animation program that was used to produce this animation was Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 7, it was a little bit difficult to find information on how to use the program. Because there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on Paint Shop Pro around, maybe because it's a British program. If I had to do this animation again, next time I would probably use a more common program like Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks because there seems to be much information available on how to operate these programs.

There are many lessons to be learned through creating a GIF animation for the first time. From reducing the file size to experimenting with design and colour. Compressing an animation, in my opinion, is one of the most important elements in creating one, because if the file is too large than there is a good chance that it may never get seen by the user, as they would probably lose patience waiting for it to download. The methods I used to reduce this particular animation were mainly to delete a lot of excess frames or to alter them so that they did not contain so many colours and shapes. Simplicity proved to be the key to the animation. Another skill I learned through this animation, was design and creativity through things like shape, line and colour. Though there was limited tools to use,

Overall, creating and building an animation independantly is an important learning curve and a very useful skill to have and to improve upon. It is evident to see, when browsing through the web, that animation is quite an important element. Designing advertising banners, so that they can attract the user and encourage them to click on the link, is a convinient skill to hold. Through use of animation the designer can express creativity to reveal a certain idea to the Internet user, it frees the restrictions that are placed upon such things as static images and text. It is a very useful way of catching attention and stimulating the users senses. Therefore it was very useful to learn to produce an animation, as it is a skill that will be very useful in the future of cyberspace.

References

Brown, M. Jung, J. Savola, T. Using HTML 2nd Edition, Que Corporations, Indiana, 1996

Hamlin, SJ. Effective Web Animation: advanced techniques for the Web, Addison-Wesley, 1999

Siegel, D. Creating Killer WebSites: The Art of 3rd Generation Site Design, Hayden Books, Indiana, 1996

Mullet, K. Sano, D. Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication Oriented Techniques, Sun Microsystems Inc., California, 1995

Koman, R. GIF animation studio: Animating your Web site, Songline Studios Inc, California, 1996.