Introduction

In I.C.T, I did the following exercise in which we used a programme that allowed us to create a moving cartoon character. We were told that we had to make an animation of this cartoon character dancing.

What we did:

The programme we used to do this exercise was called Crocodile I.C.T. Our task on this programme was to make a character move by inserting buttons and making a sequence of movements for our cartoon.

We started our work by clicking on the button called 'Character'. By doing this, s male character appeared on the screen. This process of making the character appear on screen is known as 'dragging'.

We then clicked on the 'Input' box that allowed us to drag a 'Start' button onto the screen.  This Start button also had a 'Play' function inside it.

In the same way a 'Call Action' button was dragged onto the screen and manually connected to the Start button. In the Call Action button there was a target which when clicked on allowed us to link with the character. By doing this, the face of the character then appeared in the Call Action button and replaced the target. I then clicked on the word 'Call Action' which was written in the Call Action button a drop down menu with a list of different dance steps appeared. By selecting a dance step, it then appears in the Call Action button next to the characters face.  In this way several different dance steps were selected by repeating the above process.

Finally, we then clicked on the Input box and dragged a 'Stop' button onto the screen and connected it to the end of the sequence. This Stop button had a 'Stop' function inside it.

This was the entire sequence from Start to Finish. To see the whole sequence of dance steps I clicked on the 'Play' function that was part of the Start button and this played the whole sequence that then stopped at the end.

But it was also possible for the character to continuously repeat the dance sequence by connecting the step before the Stop function and connect it back to the beginning of the first Call Function.

This was a really interesting exercise that sort of taught me how simple moving cartoons can be made and made me realise how much work it must take to make a feature length cartoon film.