Computer Science RanD

View spline1
Spline animation. Draw your curves!
View raytrace2
Raytrace, with more fun. Pressing 'R' looks nice.
View raytrace1
Raytrace each pixel.
View fillTri2
Second try at rastering?
View fillTri1
Rasterizing triangles, drawing each pixel.
View sim02_joglshapes.htm
Primitive shapes, implemented in JOGL, an OpenGL supported java graphics platform. Sure java/browser needs to allow OpenGL, or applet will fallback to software render.
View sim02_shapes
Primitive shapes? Still using Java awt graphics.
View sim01
I don't know, whatever it is.
View transform01
Practice matrix transformations. It's probably slower than vector algebra, but matrix allows combining transforms more easily and uniformly. And it's significantly faster once multiple transformations are precomputed.
Java applet:
View draw01
Right now it's some meditation drawing. Your creations become alive and swayyyy...

I made a test drawn animation in Maya, 25 frames, done in a couple minutes (maybe 3?). It's very fast and produces unlimited frames. I'm thinking of using this technique to leverage easier 2D animating. The Maya scene does have a set of MEL script to run some conversions, but more on that later. I'm just doing tests for now. Yes Maya is a 3D app, but I'm figuring that the drawing tools + MEL might ease 2D animation, hopefully work better or similar to Flash.

 

Animate 2D process:

Create pencil curve tool (manually)

Rebuild curves (automated...)

Create blend shapes

Attach brush to curves

Animate blend shapes sliders (currently manual, but might be able to automate this)

Optional:

Bake simulation: clamped tangents

Delete or limit baked keys to preexisting keys

Set anim keys tangent for arc interpolation

Animate visibility (often used for varied freeform transformation)