Animations from first principles

EuroPython 2024


In this live-coded talk I answered the question of "how do you create an animation from first principles"?

We started out by only being able to draw pixels on the screen and by the time the clock was over, we could animate the rotating spiral that is shown below.

Abstract

How do you create an animation?

What if you want to morph a circle into a figure eight?

As it turns out, all you need is two or three functions and a loop!

In this live-coded talk, we’ll go over the basic concepts and code needed to create an animation from first principles.

Because the talk presents the ideas and the code from first principles, you will be able to take the key concepts and build your own animations after!

We’ll start simple and build from there:

  • How can you draw a circle if all you can do is colour single pixels?
  • How can you animate the process of drawing a circle?
  • How can you animate the process of drawing something other than a circle?
  • How can you animate the process of morphing two figures?
  • How do you add colour to your animations?

This visually appealing talk will show you all of the code without skipping a single line and by the time we’re done you’ll be jumping in your seat to create your own animations!

Feedback

An attendee wrote, "The talk was really dynamic and the idea of programming while talking was awesome."

References

  • https://mathspp.com/blog/animations-from-first-principles-in-5-minutes
  • https://mathspp.com/blog/more-animations-from-first-principles-in-5-minutes
  • https://mathspp.com/blog/animating-a-rotating-spiral

Watch the recording