

Ask HN: How to author animation like today's Google Doodle? - portman

Today's (2011-05-11) Google Doodle is an elegant animation in honor of Martha Graham.<p>The source of the animation is some JavaScript and a large .png sprite:
http://www.google.com/logos/2011/graham11-hp-sprite.png<p>What kinds of tools are used to create animations like this?<p>(I assume this was made by a tool or framework, but I guess there's always a chance that this was lovingly constructed by hand.)
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fractallyte
One could use animation software like TVPaint
(<http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/home/>), or any number of other
high-end packages.

Then there's the legendary, zephr-like LivingCels, a revolutionary vector
animation package that was briefly available as a free beta download - then
Microsoft bought the company (Creature House) and it vanished forever...

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briansage
Here's code to re-animate the _exact_ dancing Google doodle:
<http://www.acumenholdings.com/blog/?p=64>

However, I've been looking for software to do the same thing, and I haven't
seen anything that takes all the pain out of mapping all the image
coordinates.

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maxbrown
My guess is that this was done mostly by hand during Google 20% time. That
said, I know there are a number of javascript/jQuery animation frameworks
(<http://bit.ly/FpVAM>)

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dailygrind
it might be some swfsheet (<http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2948>) type of
software. Having that sprite (what a design!!!), you can animate it with
jquery easily...

