vicki's e-portfolio

Still playing. Xtranormal took much longer than animoto. (My first animoto, roughly an hour – see animoto page; this one, I started & left (went to animoto) & came back… all told, probably 4 hours, multi-tasking.) I found the text would get to a point where it wouldn’t allow anymore in a single text box. The solution turned out to be to create another text box even though I only have the one actor in here. Editing also seemed to present blocks at times, but this was workable with persistence. I also prefer animoto’s share options: I can share to a social networking site in either, but my animotos I am able to download, no questions asked. I’m not seeing that on xtranormal without upgrading to the high-quality download… oops, I just used the remainder of my XP (xtranormal points) to do just that! So I recind: it’s not hard to download on xtranormal, it’ll just cost you a few points. Really, the xtranormal is quite friendly regarding being up front about how points work and such. The information is there for those who look for it and it is presented in good spirit, which is always appreciable.

Xtranormal requires a little play time in the beginning to find out what the options are. I still am not really understanding why I might opt to download State… it sounds to be much like the online movie maker. I suppose if you have unlimited memory on your computer it might make sense, or for a greater sense of ownership &/or privacy. I am confident enough with this being located on xtranormal (I will read the privacy policy more carefully before having students work on the site – if I go there at all. It would likely be more of their own choosing than by my direction), and happy to save my GBs for other software.

As for a comparison to Roxio Photoshow, I almost feel that I need to go back to Roxio to try again. I may have learned enough in the last half year or so that that has influenced how long it took me to do each of these projects. I am thinking at this time – especially for sharing options & apparent longevity – that animoto is the way to go. Xtranormal holds a spot for the uniqueness of animation.

Anyway, here it is: