Optimisation

Optimisation: means you can make the product look the best it possibly can. You'll need to consider the purpose of the animation, how the colour, size, frame, compression and export file fit the purpose. You should use vector rather than bitmap for this.

Bitmaps: when you zoom in on a raster/bitmap file, the pixels become visible as tiny squares, and the overall effect is rather blurred.

Vector: vector graphics store the image information as a series of coordinates (vectors), and when zooming in on the image, it does not blur/pixelate.

10 ways to optimise and animated GIF file: 

• trimming animation 
• reducing image size 
• save for web
• reduce the amount of frames
• number of colours 
• which colour reduction algorithm to choose?
• Dithering 
• web snap, lossy, transparency and interlaced
• compare original and optimised versions 
• preview, save preset, and optimise to file size 

Exporting the animation: the file format must correlate with the requirements of the brief. As this unit is concerned with producing an animation for online distribution - specifically, a phone app - you need to consider the correct export option. For this, you will need to compress the file you have created in Final Cut. 

Test plan and debugging:

once an animation has been created, it needs to be tested and debugged. The test plan allows you to check that the animation runs as expected. A screen test could be created in order to ascertain whether what is in the animation marries with the desired outcomes, e.g. if a zombie dog attacks a zombie cat, does it actually look like this on screen?

A screen test would typically be played to an audience in order to ascertain whether it is fit for purpose.