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How Web Animation Works

How Web Animation Works

This material is a tutorial on web animation. It has been developed by HowStuffWorks, a media company that provides information on how things work. The tutorial is organized as a hypertext document and covers Animated GIFs, Dynamic HTML, Java, Shockwave and Flash. An introduction to how all of these technologies work is provided, along with their advantages and disadvantages.... Show More

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Kathy Fransham
Kathy Fransham (Staff)
20 years ago
I spent about 30 minutes going through the entire animation explanation. As it
is a tutorial, not a simulation, there were no hands-on activities associated
with it.

How Web Animation Works does a very good job of describing the various types of
animation currently used on the web (including gif, DHTML, java applets, browser
plug-ins, video, Flash and Shockwave) as well as a description of what's coming
(3-D Graphics). It is written in easy-to-understand language, so novices have
no trouble following along.

Although the audience has been listed as being college and professional, I think
that anyone already familiar with web animation would find this introductory
lesson a little too simple.

One thing that I didn't like was that the interface was very commercial.
Although the document itself was plain text with appropriate graphics, along
both sides of the browser window were colorful boxes full of blinking buttons
and links to other sites. It didn't look very educationally professional.