Scratch For Kids For Dummies

CHAPTER 10

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

After you have come up with a story, casted your characters, created your backdrops, and recorded some dialogue, you can put all the elements together into an animation. The mix of design and programming tips in this chapter can streamline your animation process. I’m no Brad Bird (his films Iron Giant and The Incredibles are two of my very favorites), but I can provide you many techniques to help you produce your own ANIMASTERPIECE!

(Not) Starting from Scratch

Unless you skipped the previous chapters in this part of the book, you should begin by opening a project that contains any characters, backdrops, or sounds (preferably all three) that you want to include in your animation. It’s a good idea to save a copy of your project each time you are preparing to make major changes. That way, you can start over if your project spirals out of control.

If you have never animated with Scratch before and want to create your own animated story, skim Chapter 6, where I lead you through the creation of a stick-figure animation.

1. Go to www.scratch.mit.edu or open the Scratch 2 Offline Editor.
2. If you are online, browse for and open the project you want to copy. If offline, choose File ⇒ Open and select your project.
3. If online, choose File ⇒ Save a Copy; ...