ANIMATION

Illusion of movement of a sequence of images in a rapid display using 2D artwork or model positions is called Animation. Animations are an optical illusion of motion due to a persistence of vision. Flipbooks, picture films, children’s movies are made interesting using Animations.

There are different kinds of Animation Techniques. They are:

• Traditional Animation Technique
• Stop Motion Animation Technique
• Computer Animation Technique
• Less Frequently used Animation Technique

Traditional Animation Techniques

Traditional animation techniques are commonly known as CEL animations. The frames of a CEL animated movie are drawn with hands.

The drawings are traced in transparent CELS sheets, which are made of acetate. They are then placed on a painted background. Once placed, they are photographed on a rostrum camera individually. Nowadays, the use of cels has almost become extinct with the arrival of computers. The drawings are transferred to a 35mm film by scanning them in to computers and getting them digitally transferred. With the influence of digital works over modern cell animation, this animation has been given the new royal term tradigital animations.

The types of Traditional Animations are:

Stop Motion Animations

Stop motion animation is where the physical contribution of animator is required. Animator has to first alter the required scene, shoot the frame, alter the scene, and shoot the frame and so on. Thus the required animation is made.

The different types of Stop Motion animation are:

Computer Animations

Computer Animation is very much similar to that of Stop Motion Animation. Computer Animation too comprises of various techniques as the animator uses various digital formats.

There are two main types of Computer Animation. They are:

2D Animation:

In 2D Animation, the images are created and edited on the computer by using the 2D bitmap graphics. Images are also created and edited using the 2D Vector graphics. Tweening, Morphing, onion skinning and Interpolated rotoscoping are the computer versions of traditional animation techniques used in 2D Animation.

3D Animations

In 3D Animation, the images are created using Polygons. Images are given Digital sculptures to allow the images to move. Digital sculptures are also called armature. The process is commonly known as Rigging. Many techniques are applied to give special effects such as, mathematical functions, fire effect, water effect, capture the motion, and many more.

The different kinds of 3D Animation are:

Less Frequently used Animation Techniques

There are some Less frequently used animations. They are:

Drawing on Film Animation

In drawn on film animation technique, the images are directly created on the film stock for the footage to be produced.

Paint on glass animation

In paint on glass animation technique, slow drying oil paints are manipulated on various sheets of glass. The animation films are created using paint on animation technique.

Pin Screen Animations

Pin screen animation technique is solely used for animation films with textural effects. These textual effects cannot be produced with Traditional animation. Animators use movable pins on the whole screen. These movable pins can be moved in or out by pressing an object on the screen. These movable pins cast shadows when the screen is lit from the sides.

Sand Animations

In Sand animation technique, sand is moved around on a piece of glass to create frame-by-frame animation film. The glass is either front lighted or backlighted.

The other kinds Animations are: