The

PIXL Art Animation Automation Project

The Project

The PIXL Art Animation Automation Project, is a technology being developed by StiX Figures 1.01. Its main goal is to simplify and speed up the Pixel Art Animation Process.

Introduction

  • Imagine being able to speed-up, slow-down or repeat sections of your Pixel Art Animation or individual frames.

  • Imagine including sections of your other Animation Projects without copying anything

  • Imagine being able to match music with your Animation down to a specific frame

  • Now ... imagine being able to achieve all that without editing or copying any images, just with a simple Lexicon

  • That is the aim of the PIXL Art Animation Automation Project

PALPABLE

The name of the Technology being developed by the Project is PALPABLE and consists of three parts:

  • PIXL Animation Logical Projects (PALP)

  • PIXL Animation Lexicon (PAL)

  • PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine (PALE)

The PIXL Animation Logical Projects - Naming System

The PIXL Animation Logical Projects Naming System allows cataloging or logical storage of Pixel Art Animation Projects and consists of a Project Structure (of folders and files) and a File-naming Convention.

Original images and Movie images are kept separately. That is, Key Frame Images and Tweened (Movie) Images are stored in separate repositories.

At any point, the Tweened (Movie) repository can be cleared and regenerated by the PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine.

The Project Structure also allows for common images, or image sequences, to be imported from another Project without requiring multiple copies.

The PIXL Animation Lexicon

The Lexicon is a simple language that allows instructions to be read and processed by the PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine.

It does not require special Editors or Exposure Sheets or, generally, Lists of any kind.

The Lexicon is entered/defined, along with the File-naming convention, as part of the filenames of the original (Key Frame) images.

The PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine

The Software Engine generates the Movie images.

It cycles sequentially through the Original (Key Frame) images and interprets the Lexicon instructions in the Filenames. Then generates the Movie (Tween) images and copies them into the Movie Repository.

Project Progress and Results

9128 images generated (304.26 seconds or 5 mins 4.26 secs) from 784 key frames (8.58 percent or 26.13 seconds).510 external images were imported (5.58 percent or 17.00 seconds).1294 total key frames (14.17 percent or 43.13 seconds).0 operations flagged: 0 Errors and 0 Warnings!

  • In simple terms it means that we used 1294 Original (Key Frame) images to generate 9128 Movie images or 14.17%

  • So 85.83% of the content was generated by the PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine.

So How Does It Work?

  • The Movies generated by the PIXL Animation Lexicon Engine use a default Frame Rate of 30 Frames/second (this is the recommended rate but it can be changed)

  • Generally 30 fps is much too fast for most animations, so the Lexicon allows a section of images or an individual image to be displayed for multiple frames (generally 4 but it can be almost anything)

  • If you choose a rate of 2 (on-twos) each image is displayed twice or 15 images/second, 3 (on-threes) would be 10 images/second etc

  • Individual images or a Section of images can be changed to a vast selection of rates

  • A Section or sequence of images, or an individual image can be repeated using the Lexicon

  • So this means you don't need multiple copies of images

  • A Section of images or individual images can be imported from a previous Project or a Common Library

  • So over time, you will build up a library of animations that will speed up your Projects by importing

  • Timing, repeats and imports can be changed easily in seconds

  • The Engine does not actually generate images or modify the Original images (Key Frames) in any way

  • All Tweens generated in the Movie Repository are just copies, counted and sequenced correctly

  • There are no Image Tweening Algorithms

  • The advantages of this System are simple modifications and that the Movie Repository can be regenerated at any time

  • Once you're happy, you can create a Video (.mov) file from the Movie Repository using QuickTime™

Where To From Here?

  • We will be moving into the Beta Phase soon

  • Once there, we will be looking for Beta testers

  • So check back and we'll let you know when we have a release date

The PIXL Art Animation Automation Project or PALPABLE: PIXL Animation Logical Projects And Basic Lexicon Engine