Hello everyone! Today, we’re going to learn how to add animated GIFs to your Scratch projects. It’s a fun way to make your projects more exciting. Let’s dive in!
Imagine you have a Scratch project, and you want to add some cool animations like a spinning Rainbow Heart or colorful Fireworks. Here’s how you can do it:
First, find the “Choose a Sprite” button in Scratch. Hover over it and select “Upload Sprite.” This lets you pick a GIF from your computer. Let’s start with the Rainbow Heart GIF. Once you upload it, you might notice it’s quite large. You can resize it to something like 40 to fit your project better.
When you upload a GIF, Scratch breaks it down into different frames called “costumes.” You can see all these frames in the “Costumes” tab. Each frame is a part of the animation.
To make your GIF animate, go to the “Looks” category and find the “next costume” block. This block lets you move through the frames. To make it play continuously, use a “forever” loop from the “Control” category and wrap it around the “next costume” block. Add a “When green flag clicked” block on top so the animation starts when you click the green flag.
Now, let’s say you want an animation, like the Fireworks, to play just once. Here’s how you can do that:
Just like before, hover over “Choose a Sprite,” click “Upload,” and select your Fireworks GIF. Check the size to make sure it fits well.
To play the animation once, use the “repeat” block from the “Control” category. First, check how many costumes (frames) the GIF has by looking in the “Costumes” tab. If it has 41 costumes, you want to repeat the “next costume” block 40 times. This is because starting from the first costume and going through 40 times will show all frames without repeating.
Use the “switch costume” block from the “Looks” category to start the animation from the first frame. This ensures the animation begins correctly. Then, add the “When green flag clicked” block to start the animation when you press the green flag.
Finally, you can make the sprite hide after the animation finishes, so you don’t see any leftover frames.
And there you have it! Now you know how to add and animate GIFs in your Scratch projects. It’s a great way to make your projects come alive. Have fun experimenting with different GIFs, and happy scratching!
Imagine you are a digital artist! Use a simple drawing tool to create a series of images that can be turned into an animated GIF. Once you’ve created your frames, upload them to Scratch as a new sprite and animate them using the “next costume” block. This will help you understand how GIFs are made and animated.
Go on a scavenger hunt to find different GIFs online that you think would be fun to animate in Scratch. Make sure they are appropriate and have a clear animation sequence. Upload them to Scratch and experiment with resizing and animating them using the techniques you’ve learned.
Choose a short story or create your own, and use GIFs to animate the key scenes in Scratch. Upload different GIFs for each scene and use the “switch costume” and “next costume” blocks to bring your story to life. Share your animated story with your classmates!
Challenge yourself to animate a GIF that plays only once, like the Fireworks example. Choose a GIF, upload it to Scratch, and use the “repeat” block to control the number of frames. Make sure it starts from the first frame and hides after the animation completes. Test your skills and see if you can get it just right!
Work in pairs or small groups to create a collaborative animation project. Each member can choose a different GIF to animate, and then combine them into a single Scratch project. Use the “when green flag clicked” block to synchronize the animations and create a seamless presentation.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the YouTube transcript:
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Hi everyone, it’s Zia here. Today, I wanted to make a quick tutorial and show you how you can take animated GIF images and incorporate them into any Scratch project. Let’s get started!
First, let’s say I have a Scratch project, and on my computer, I have a Rainbow Heart spinning GIF and a Fireworks GIF that I want to add to my Scratch project and have them animate. Here’s how you can do that.
If you hover over the “Choose a Sprite” button and then go up to “Upload Sprite” and click on it, you can search for an item on your computer. Let’s start with the Rainbow Heart GIF. I can click to add that, and it will import. It comes in quite large, so I might set the size to something like 40.
If you go to the costumes tab, you can see that it uploads all of the frames of the GIF animation as different costumes of the sprite. We have the whole animation right here. To have that animation play in your project, go to the “Looks” category of blocks and drag out the “next costume” block. Clicking on that will cycle through the frames.
To make it play continuously, go to the “Control” category and drag out a “forever” loop. Place this around the “next costume” block, and now the animation will play continuously. You can also add a “When green flag clicked” block on top so that this animation starts when you press the green flag.
Now, let’s say you have an animation like the fireworks animation, and you want it to play just once. Here’s how you can do that. Hover over the “Choose a Sprite” button again, click “Upload,” and select the fireworks this time. It’s a good size, and just like with the heart, you can drag out the “next costume” block to see all the frames of the animation.
If you want it to cycle forever, you can use the “Forever” loop. But if you want it to go through the costumes a certain number of times, the “repeat” block is really useful. I’ll place that there.
Now, how many times do we want it to play through its costumes? Let’s check how many costumes it has. If you click on the costumes tab and scroll down, you’ll see it has 41 costumes. So, we can make it repeat 41 times.
However, we want it to start at the first costume, like at the beginning of the animation. In the “Looks” category, there’s a block called “switch costume” right above the “next costume” block. This block allows you to switch to a specific costume in the list. Let’s have it switch to the first costume and then go through the animation.
Now, we need to adjust the number of times it goes to the next costume. We only need it to go to the next costume 40 times because if we go through 41 times, it will return to the beginning. So, for any GIF, if you want it to play once, you should use the “switch costume” block and then repeat the number of costumes minus one.
Let’s put a green flag on top and try that out. Now we have the fireworks playing! I’ll also make it show at the beginning of the animation and then hide at the end, so after it plays, you don’t see any leftover frames.
There we go! Now we’ve got the fireworks working perfectly. I hope this helps you add GIFs to your Scratch projects and have them animate. I’ll see you next time, and happy scratching!
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This version maintains the instructional content while removing any informal language or filler phrases.
Scratch – A programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations. – In Scratch, I made a fun game where a cat chases a mouse.
GIF – A type of image file that can show simple animations. – I used a GIF to show a bouncing ball on my website.
Animate – To make something move or give it the appearance of movement. – I learned how to animate a character to walk across the screen in my coding class.
Costumes – Different appearances or outfits that a character or sprite can have in a program. – I changed the costumes of my sprite to make it look like it was dancing.
Sprite – A character or object in a computer program that can be moved and controlled. – I created a sprite of a dog that can jump over obstacles in my game.
Upload – To transfer a file from your computer to a website or online platform. – I uploaded my project to the class website so everyone could see it.
Block – A piece of code that performs a specific function in programming, often used in block-based coding languages like Scratch. – I used a “move 10 steps” block to make my sprite move forward.
Control – Commands in programming that manage the flow of a program, like loops and conditionals. – I used a control block to repeat the action five times in my animation.
Frames – Individual images that are shown in sequence to create an animation. – I drew several frames to make my sprite look like it was running.
Project – A complete piece of work created using a programming language or software. – My final project for the coding class was a game where you catch falling stars.
