Evaluate the tools and techniques used to create finished animations

Advantages

The advantages with fireworks are that you can create animations in fireworks by frame by frame; this will keep you in control entirely of the animation because you are able to edit frames easily by just clicking on the frame and changing the certain aspects of it that you want too. Also you are able to create images and edit them because fireworks is a graphics program so you can make different images to put on the animation. You can also open up allot of different files in fireworks so if you created an image in a different program and saved it you can easily open up the image in fireworks because it is very compatible with all sorts of files. You are also able to preview the animation that you have created in a web browser so that you will be able to see how it looks in a web browser. This can be advantageous to you because you are able to see exactly how it would look if it was uploaded to the internet, so you can see the speed of the animation as its uploaded. There are also other advantages such as you can put sounds onto the animation so that when the animation is in play that you will have music or speech going whilst the animation is in motion. Another advantage with fireworks is when you create the animation and upload it on the internet that you don’t need a plug-in too see the file in motion it will work without a plug in because the animation is not too much graphically enhanced.

Limitations

There are limitations for fireworks on the aspect of animations because it is not primarily an animation program, it is mainly/generally used to create and manipulate graphics. When you create an animation in fireworks a limitation is that you have to create an animation frame by frame, the problem with this is that it takes a long time to fully make and create an animation. When you create an animation in flash it is allot easier and faster because it does all of the hard work for you because it bases the animation differently it does it by motion tweening, which makes frames for you instead of having to create frames separately. Another limitation with the fireworks program is that when you create the animation it looks a bit weak compared to other software animations because the image (if you’re using an image) is stationary and you will have to move it yourself so it will not look too good because of this fact. Compared to flash because it fills in the frames that you have missed when you are moving the image so that it looks like it is moving in one motion rather looking like it is stopping and starting like it does in fireworks.

Alternatives

There are alternatives to the fireworks package when you are creating animations. You are able to create animations in flash, that are better than you can do in fireworks because flash is primarily used for animations whereas fireworks isent. Flash is generally used by more professional people whereas fireworks is used by beginners because in fireworks you have more control over the animation even if it takes allot longer to create compared to the flash program. You can also create animations in Photoshop that will work very well, Photoshop is similar to fireworks in that it is primarily used for graphics but you can also create animations in Photoshop. In Photoshop the animations that you create are generally very enhanced graphically because Photoshop is a program that is generally used for graphics and very powerful ones at that. Professional graphic designers will generally do there animations in Photoshop because Photoshop has allot more options that can be used for both graphics and animations. Photoshop is also the package that costs the most the newer version being CS4 costs in the range of £500 which is allot of money for a graphics/animation software creating program.

Conclusion

Overall I don’t think that fireworks is a very good animation making program, everything just seems a little static to me, and there is not much going on. I prefer the flash animation over this because you are able to create animations allot faster than you can with the others. I believe that Photoshop is a very good animation program but it is hard to use. Really i don’t think that fireworks is very good, it’s ok for beginners to show them how animations work and how to create them but that’s pretty much it.