Sketch Machine Notes

Drawing ✏️ Animation

• Sketch Machine is a simple tool to explore animation
• Drawing is emphasized in childhood, but not animation
• Sketch Machine encourages people to draw animations and to share them online
• Digital drawings by coloring pixels, not pigment on paper

History of Direct Animation

• Influence from Lye, Smith, McLaren, Brakhage
• Influence from TURUX (Dextro, Lia)

System Ideas

• Each tool can be customized with "type", color, and size
• Draw with more than one tool at a time
• Draw into multiple frames as once

Early Web

• Default web colors and interface, c. 1995
• Nostalgia for the young web, but utilizes current technology

GIF

• Graphics Interchange Format, 1987. Developed at CompuServe. Patents expired 2003/4.
• GIF loops have an uncanny similarity to pre-cinema looping animations (e.g. Zoetrope strips.)
• Embrace robust, old tech
• 256 Colors (216 web palette for Sketch Machine)
• 1-bit transparency

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Description A

Sketch Machine (www.sketchmachine.net) is public animation software for creating freehand animations in real time or frame by frame. The software is simple and intuitive to use and additional features can be enabled when the animator is ready for more. Animations can be exported as GIFs and immediately shared through the web. Sketch Machine is created within the tradition of “direct animation” works by Len Lye and Stan Brakhage and exploratory drawing software like Kid Pix and TURUX.

Description B

The Sketch Machine (www.sketchmachine.net) wants you to draw; it's waiting for you. The Sketch Machine is a quick and simple way to create short, looping animations and to turn them into GIFs to share through the web. Sketch Machine was created by Casey REAS (http://caesuras.net/) in 2018, with help from GIPHY. It was created within the tradition of “direct animation” works by Len Lye and Stan Brakhage and exploratory drawing software like Kid Pix and TURUX.