   #copyright

Animation

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Computer & Video games;
Films

   Image:Animexample3edit.png
   The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames.
   Image:Animexample.gif
   This animation moves at 10 frames per second.

   Animation is the filming a sequence of drawings or positions of models
   to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion
   due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision.

Early animation

   There is no such being as the creator of animation, as there were
   several people doing several projects which could be considered various
   types of animation all around the same time. The following is a brief
   on those who are often acknowledged as significant to the development
   of animation. Note that this list is by no means a comprehensive list
   of contributors to early animation.

   Georges Méliès was a creator of special effect films, such as A Trip to
   the Moon. He used many techniques – one of which was to stop the camera
   rolling, change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the
   film. This is a very similar idea to that of stop motion animation.
   Meleises accidentally happened upon the technique when his camera broke
   down while shooting a bus driving by. When the camera was fixed, a
   horse happened to be passing by just as Méliès continued to film. The
   result was that the bus appeared to change into a horse.

   Émile Cohl began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908
   called Fantasmagorie. The film was largely comprised of a stick figure
   moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a
   wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of
   live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film
   was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame
   onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look.

   Winsor McCay created detailed animations that required a team of
   artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on
   paper, requiring backgrounds to be redrawn, as well characters to be
   animated. His films such as Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking
   of the Lusitania (1918) were of an impressive scale, althought The
   Sinking of the Lusitania used cels.

   In 1919 Otto Messmer created the character of Felix the cat for Pat
   Sullivan's animation studios. The importance of Felix lies in the
   character's strong personality, created largely through gesture and
   actions.

Animation techniques

   Animation techniques are incredibly varied and difficult to categorize.
   Techniques are often related or combined. The following is a brief on
   common types of animation. Again, this list is by no means
   comprehensive.

Traditional animation

   An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping
   from Edweard Muybridge's 19th century photos.
   Enlarge
   An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping
   from Edweard Muybridge's 19th century photos.

   Also called cel animation, the frames of a traditionally animated movie
   are hand-drawn. The drawings are traced or copied onto transparent
   plastic sheets called cels, which are then placed over a painted
   background and photographed one by one on a rostrum camera. Nowadays,
   the use of cels (and cameras) is mostly obsolete, since the drawings
   are scanned into computers, and digitally transferred directly to 35 mm
   film. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and
   the character animator's work has remained essentially the same over
   the past 70 years. Because of the digital influence over modern cel
   animation, it is also known as tradigital animation.
   Examples: The Lion King, Spirited Away, Les Triplettes de Belleville

          Full animation
          The most common style in animation, known for its realistic and
          often very detailed art.
          Examples: All Disney feature length animated films, The Secret
          of NIMH, The Iron Giant

          Limited animation
          A cheaper process of making animated cartoons that does not
          follow a "realistic" approach.
          Examples: The Flintstones, Yellow Submarine

          Rubber hose
          The characters are usually cartoony, and the animators have a
          lot of artistic freedom as rubber hose animation dont have to
          follow the laws of physics and anatomy in the same degree as the
          other main styles in animation.
          Examples: Early Mickey Mouse cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, Popeye

          Rotoscoping
          A technique where animators trace live action movement, frame by
          frame, for use in animated films.
          Examples: Gulliver's Travels, A Scanner Darkly, American Pop

Stop motion

   This is any type of animation which requires the animator to alter the
   scene, shoot frame, alter the scene and shoot a frame and so on, to
   create the animation.

          Cutout animation
          This is a type of stop motion animation. Here the figures are
          comprised of several 2-dimensional pieces which are moved
          individually, frame by frame, to create movement.
          Examples: the animated sequences of Monty Python's Flying
          Circus, Tale of Tales

                Silhouette animation
                A type of cutout animation where the viewer only sees
                black silhouettes. The world's oldest surviving animated
                feature film ( The Adventures of Prince Achmed, 1926) used
                this method.

          Graphic animation

          Puppet animation
          Again a type of stop motion animation. Here figures are puppets,
          generally with an armature inside of them to keep them still and
          steady as well as allow them to move at particular joints. The
          puppets are moved frame by frame, much like in cutout animation.
          Examples: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Robot Chicken, The
          Tale of the Fox

                Brickfilm

                Model animation

                      Go motion

          Clay animation

   A clay animation scene from a TV commercial.
   Enlarge
   A clay animation scene from a TV commercial.

          Often abbreviated to claymation, this is also a type of
          stop-motion animation. The difference of course being that the
          figures are made of clay or a similar malleable material. The
          figures often have an armature inside of them, effectively
          making it a type of puppet animation. However, this is not
          always the case, notably in the films of Bruce Bickford where
          clay creatures continuosly morph into a variety of different
          shapes.
          Examples: Creature Comforts, Dimensions of Dialogue by Jan
          Švankmajer, The Amazing Mr. Bickford

          Object animation

          Pixilation

          Puppetoon

Computer animation

   Like stop motion, this encompasses a variety of techniques, the
   unifying idea being that the animation is created digitally on a
   computer.

          3D animation

   A completely synthetic, computer-generated scene.
   Enlarge
   A completely synthetic, computer-generated scene.

          Figures are created in the computer using polygons. To allow
          these meshes to move they are given a digital armature. This
          process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be
          applied, such a simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and
          water and the use of motion capture to name but a few.
          Examples: The Incredibles, Shrek

                Cel-shaded animation

                Morph target animation

                Motion capture

          Analog computer animation

          Flash animation

Less common techniques

   Drawn on film animation
   A technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly
   on film stock.

   Paint-on-glass animation
   A technique for making animated films by manipulating slow-drying oil
   paints on sheets of glass.

   Pinscreen animation
   Makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in
   or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from
   the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to
   create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to
   achieve with traditional cel animation.

   Sand animation
   Sand is moved around on a backlighted piece of glass to create each
   frame for an animated film.

Combining techniques

   As mentioned, techniques are often combined for either creative or
   economic reasons. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper
   Morello is a cutout animated film, but is created on a computer. South
   Park has gone from being composed of paper cutouts, to being created of
   cutouts created in the computer. The Iron Giant, meanwhile, was
   completely cel animated with the exception of its title character, who
   was created in 3D and cel shaded.

Other techniques and approaches

     * Character animation
     * Chuckimation
     * Multi-sketching
     * Onion skinning
     * PowerPoint animation
     * Skeletal animation
     * Special effects animation
     * Windows Movie Maker Animation

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
