Animation Programs: Scenarios and Storyboards

Alice

What is a program?

Specification – general description of a problem someone wants to solveExamples: I want to bake a prize-winning chocolate cake.I want to enter my work hours and find out what my paycheck amount should be.I want to make a video of the story of the Three Bears with a techno score.

"Scenarios"

Algorithm – a general description of a process for solving a problem.

Examples: General rules of thumb on baking cakes

Steps to follow to calculate paycheck from hours, pay rate, tax rate, etc.

Storyboard for the Three Bears scenario

Program – a sequence of steps in a programming language that can be executed by a computer to solve a problem.

Grandma Barnett's exceptionally tasty chocolate cake recipe.

CalculatePaycheck.java

Alice movie: The Three Bears, a modern fable (nominated for Best Animated Short-subject Film, 2006 Cannes Film Festival)

Design stages

Read a scenario (problem statement, requirements gathering)

Design a program

Implement the program

Test the program (better when done "iteratively")

Program Design

Decide on the problem to be solvedOften the problem to be solved is given to you by your instructor, team leader, etc.

Other times, you get to make it up!

Design a solution We will use a storyboard design

Example

The scenario is: Several snow-people are outdoors, on a snow-

covered landscape. A snowman is trying to meet a snowwoman who is talking with a group of her friends (other snowwomen.) He says "Ahem" and blinks his eyes, trying to get her attention. Snowwoman looks at snowman and blushes.

The problem is: How can we design this animation?

StoryboardOption 1: Sketches

None

StoryboardOption 2: Screen Shots

Initial scene Snowman tries to catch snowwoman’s attention

Snowwoman looks around

Storyboard Option 3: Text

Animation Artists sketch their storyboards. If you don't enjoy drawing, you can use a textual form that like this:

This is like a "to-do" list. The Learning to Program in Alice textbook

puts a textual storyboard in a box.

Do the following actions in order snowman turns to face snowwoman snowman “blinks eyes” and calls out to the snowwoman. snowwoman turns around. snowwoman blushes

Create Initial World

Assignment

Read Chapter 2 section 1

Homework 2 (handout)