Intermediate

40 mins

Teacher/Student led

+65 XP

Pupils work on their own device

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC
Wick Editor needs no account

Animate a Pendulum, Part 2: Reverse, Balance and Export

Students reverse and mirror their frames into a full swing cycle, delete the guide layer, refine the timing and export a looping GIF. This lesson counts towards outcome 3.8: students use these editing skills to build their digital montage in the montage lessons that follow.

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1 Start
2 Why Reversing Works
3 Hands-on: Reverse and Mirror the Swing
4 Hands-on: Clean Up, Refine and Export
5 Make Sense
Quiz

1 - Start ~3 mins

Illustration for Start Last lesson your pendulum swung one way and stopped. Today you will add the swing back, make both sides match, and export it as a GIF file.

If your project is gone

Click open at the top right and choose last lesson's .wick file. If you do not have it, rebuild a short version at wickeditor.com. Draw the line and the bob (the ball), add the guide arc behind them, and make three frames swinging out from the centre.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Why Reversing Works ~5 mins

A pendulum's swing back is its swing out played backwards, so you do not need to draw it again. You can reuse your frames in reverse order.

Part of the cycle	Where the frames come from
Centre out to the left	You drew these last lesson
Left back to centre	The same frames, reversed
Centre out to the right	Copied forward frame by frame, with the bob dragged along the arc to the right
Right back to centre	Reversed once more

Key point

This also makes both sides match exactly, which a swing drawn by hand never quite does.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Hands-on: Reverse and Mirror the Swing ~12 mins

Build the swing back, then the right side. Use the same number of frames on each side.

+15 XP

4 - Hands-on: Clean Up, Refine and Export ~13 mins

Follow the steps below to remove the guide arc, fix the timing and export your GIF.

+15 XP

5 - Make Sense ~5 mins

You built the swings out to each side, then reversed them for the swings back.

Key point

Most of animation is reusing what you have drawn and taking care over the spacing, which is how far things move between frames. The drawing is the small part.

Play your pendulum again. Every frame is the same simple drawing, so what makes it look like a real swing?

+10 XP

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