What is animation-
The difference between animation and video is video takes continuous motion and breaks it up into discrete frames, animation starts with independent pictures and puts them together to form the illusion of continuous motion
Animation is a type of optical illusion. It involves the appearance of motion caused by displaying still images one after another. Often, animation is used for entertainment purposes. It is often displayed and celebrated in film festivals throughout the world. Also used for educational purposes, animation has a place in learning and instructional applications as well. Cartoon animation is often considered to be animation in its classic form. The animated cartoon made its debut in the early part of the 20th century and calls for the use of 24 different drawings per second. In traditional animated cartoons, frames are hand drawn. Animation is both time-consuming and costly to produce. For this reason, most of the animation made for television and film is produced by professorial studios. However, there are also many independent studios. In fact, there are many resources, such as lower-cost animation programs and distribution networks, that make the work of the independent animator much easier than it was in the past.
When animation is used for films, each frame is produced on an individual basis. Frames can be produced using computers or photographs of images that are either drawn or painted. Frames can also be generated by altering a model unit in small ways and using a special camera to take pictures of the results. No matter what method is used, the film that results fools the eye into seeing continuous movement. Though the work of producing animated movies and cartoons can be intense and laborious, computer animation can make the process much faster. Computer technology is steadily improving, and professionals are able to create life-like characters using computers and special animation software. However, skilled animators are still necessary for producing quality animations. After all, computers are not yet capable of making artistic choices and bringing real passion to simple images.
The different types of Animation
Web Animation-
Web animation –
The advantages of web animation usually involve both advertisements and enhancing the interactivity of websites, or both. Animated advertisements may provide an eye-catching platform if designers have the interest of "end-users" in mind.
Animated Advertisements
Similar to any other artistic medium, advantages of web animation involving animated advertisements are unlimited in terms of creativity. For example, a web-designer can create a visually compelling advertisement displayed next to an article that presents exactly the same premise. This type of "targeted advertising" paired with compelling web-animation prevents end-users from being interrupted, and ultimately adds value to a web-page as a whole.
Dynamic Visual Aids for Navigation
Although there are standard templates and expectation involving web-navigation, web-navigation itself can be designed in an infinite amount of varieties. With the risk of departing from ease of use, web-animation expressed as a navigational platform may engage the end-user into a plot or storyline.
Web Animation on YouTube
With the advent of YouTube, advantages of web animation can empower a designer to interact with their audience similarly to traditional broadcast stations, but with the added advantage of doing it for free "on the web."
Web Animation for Automated Presentations
Leveraging the capabilities of Adobe-Flash empowers a web-designer to be in more than one place at a time. For example, advantages of web animation involve presenting an idea "PowerPoint style" to a potentially huge audience on the web, supplementing an article. In fact, a web animation could incorporate the actual article within the body of the animation, catering to various learning styles.
Animation Software
There are many software platforms enabling a web-designer to add animations to a website. Although not an exhaustive list, notable animation software enabling web-designers are: Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Maya, and Poser.
Photoshop enables a web animator to manipulate images and create textures.
Adobe-Flash enables a web animator to animate photos, vector graphics, and utilizing a robust object-oriented programming language "ActionScript 3.0" to achieve this.
Maya is a highly sophisticated software platform (industry standard) enabling animators to create computer generated images (CGI).
Poser is also a CGI programming platform specializing in human animation; i.e., posing.
The collective combination of this software listed above makes for an empowering studio providing advantages for web animators
When someone says the word "cartoon," what we see in our head is usually cel animation. Cartoons today rarely use the pure cel animation of the past, instead employing computers and digital technology to help streamline the process.
A cel is a sheet of transparent cellulose acetate used as a medium for painting animation frames. It is transparent so that it can be laid over other cels and/or a painted background, then photographed.
Cel animation is incredibly time consuming and requires incredible organization and attention to detail. Communicating Your Idea
After the idea pops up, a storyboard is created to visually communicate the story to the production team. Then an animatic is created, to see how the film's timing works. Once the story and timing is approved, the artists go to work creating backgrounds and characters that fit "the look" they're going for. At this time, the actors record their lines and animators use the vocal track to synchronize lip movements of the characters. The director then uses the sound track and animatic to work out the timing of the movement, sounds and scenes. The director puts this information on a dope sheet.
Drawing and Painting the Cels
This part of the animation process is the most time-consuming and tedious.
The lead animator makes rough sketches of the key frames (extremes of an action) in a scene. The assistant animator takes those roughs and cleans up the linework, possibly creating some of the in-between drawings. These sheets are passed on to the in-betweener, who draws the rest of the action on separate sheets in order to complete the action established by the animator's key frames. The in-betweener uses the dope sheet to determine how many drawings are needed.
Once the drawings are finished, a pencil test is done to check all that all the movements flow and nothing is missing. A pencil test is essentially a crude animation of the rough drawings.
After the pencil test is approved, a cleanup artist traces the roughs to ensure that the linework is consistent from frame to frame. The cleanup artist's work is then passed on to the inker, who transfers the cleaned-up drawings onto cels before they are given to the paint department to color. If the images are scanned to be used by computers, a lot of the cleanup, inking and painting is done by one person.
Backgrounds of scenes are painted by special background artists. Because the background is seen for longer periods of time, and cover more area than any other single item of animation, they are created with lots of detail and attention to shading, lighting and perspective. The background cels are placed behind the painted action cels in the photographing process (see below).
Filming the Cels
Once all the cels have been inked and painted, they are given to the camera person who photographs the backgrounds, along with their matching cels, according to the instructions on the dope sheet. The processed film, vocal tracks, music and sound tracks are then synchronized and edited together. The final film is sent to the lab to make a film project print or to be put on video. If the studio is employing digital equipment, all these stages happen in the computer before the finished film is output.
As you can see, each step along the way to creating a cel animation requires a lot of work and time, which is usually why shows such as The Simpsons uses teams of people to get the work done.
It also should be noted, if you haven't guessed, that the more frames you create, the more money you spend, either on materials or man hours. That's why shows with low budgets, such as Venture Brothers, repeat backgrounds and frames. Having fewer frames keeps the costs down
Early Animation Techniques
- Even though animation was conceived as early as 1824 by Peter Roget, the very first actual methods of animation were made possible by a device called a zoetrope. The zoetrope was a spinning cylinder with open slits that would allow viewing of certain still images in a certain sequence. Someone viewing a zoetrope at a particular angle could see images that appeared to be moving.
After Edison and the invention of motion pictures in 1889, film director Emile Cohl combined more than 700 still drawings, which were then each meticulously photographed individually. When Cohl combined all of the shots together, the drawings appeared to be moving on the film, "Fantasmagorie," which was released in 1908. Other animated films soon followed like "Gertie the Dinosaur" and "Felix the Cat," both released around 1920.
The Process of Cel Animation
- First, a storyboard is created showing a quick sketch of the general idea and direction of the cartoon or animated feature. Next, the dialog is recorded before the actual animators create the final inked cartoons on pieces of clear celluloid acetate, or cels. After inking, animators paint in the color on the opposite side of the cel and finally combine all the cels to be photographed, using a special film motion picture camera.
Cel animation allows animators to repeat certain frames, eliminating the need to draw each individual frame over and over in a sequence of animation. Backgrounds and fixed objects may be included in every background cel while other cels are removed and replaced over and over to simulate movement by animated characters.
For example, if there are two characters in a scene and only one character is moving in this scene, an animator would draw character A on a clear piece of film called a cel. Then, using another second cel, the animator will draw character B. As character A is jumping up and down in a sequence of moves, a new cel is created for each movement. These cels are then combined and shot on a special film camera in a logical sequence that makes character A look like he's jumping up and down, while character B remains unmoving. The animator can just leave the first cel attached to the base plate which contains the unmoving character B while placing and removing the cel containing character A's movement sequence. When each subsequent cel containing character A's movements is placed on the plate, a special camera takes a quick shot of both characters that appear together. These quick shots are combined later to simulate movement, or animation.
Walt Disney Changes Animation with Mickey Mouse
- Max Fleischer had next invented a device known as the rotoscope, which allowed animators to trace over live action film frame by frame onto an animation cel. Max and Dave Fleischer created the first sound cartoon, "Song Car Tunes" in 1924, three years before the first talking motion picture. Walt and Roy Disney perfected the rotoscope technique and opened their Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923. They created the first cartoon with a synchronized soundtrack titled "Steam Boat Willy," which also introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in 1928.
The Disney studio also created the first color full-color animated cartoon titled, "Flowers and Trees" in 1932. However, it would be the Disney studio's first full-length animated feature movie that would be remembered by most people as the most recognized cartoon in animation history: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." The animated cartoon movie earned $8 million for Disney and was the beginning of the Disney empire.
Warner Brothers Cartoons Introduces Bugs Bunny
- By 1940, Warner Brothers Studios had put its own stake into the animation and cartoon business with the release of "A Wild Hare," which starred the wisecracking rabbit, Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny was created by Chuck Jones along with Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.
The Looney Tunes franchise became an almost instant hit and still remains a favorite of most cartoon--loving aficionados to this day. Jones is acknowledged as the inspiration for a number of modern animated cartoons. Other than Walt Disney, no other single person had a greater influence on modern animators, animated features and cartoons.
Cartoon Cel Animation Today
- From the popular animated television cartoon series to full-length animated motion pictures, the concepts of cel animation are still used along with some very sophisticated computer technology. Cartoon and animated movies are still drawn by hand, but on a digital tablet instead of a traditional animation cel. The last cartoon to utilize hand-drawn animation cels was "Ed, Edd, n Eddy" for the Cartoon Network
Early Animation Techniques
- Even though animation was conceived as early as 1824 by Peter Roget, the very first actual methods of animation were made possible by a device called a zoetrope. The zoetrope was a spinning cylinder with open slits that would allow viewing of certain still images in a certain sequence. Someone viewing a zoetrope at a particular angle could see images that appeared to be moving.
After Edison and the invention of motion pictures in 1889, film director Emile Cohl combined more than 700 still drawings, which were then each meticulously photographed individually. When Cohl combined all of the shots together, the drawings appeared to be moving on the film, "Fantasmagorie," which was released in 1908. Other animated films soon followed like "Gertie the Dinosaur" and "Felix the Cat," both released around 1920.
The Process of Cel Animation
- First, a storyboard is created showing a quick sketch of the general idea and direction of the cartoon or animated feature. Next, the dialog is recorded before the actual animators create the final inked cartoons on pieces of clear celluloid acetate, or cels. After inking, animators paint in the color on the opposite side of the cel and finally combine all the cels to be photographed, using a special film motion picture camera.
Cel animation allows animators to repeat certain frames, eliminating the need to draw each individual frame over and over in a sequence of animation. Backgrounds and fixed objects may be included in every background cel while other cels are removed and replaced over and over to simulate movement by animated characters.
For example, if there are two characters in a scene and only one character is moving in this scene, an animator would draw character A on a clear piece of film called a cel. Then, using another second cel, the animator will draw character B. As character A is jumping up and down in a sequence of moves, a new cel is created for each movement. These cels are then combined and shot on a special film camera in a logical sequence that makes character A look like he's jumping up and down, while character B remains unmoving.
The animator can just leave the first cel attached to the base plate which contains the unmoving character B while placing and removing the cel containing character A's movement sequence. When each subsequent cel containing character A's movements is placed on the plate, a special camera takes a quick shot of both characters that appear together. These quick shots are combined later to simulate movement, or animation.
Walt Disney Changes Animation with Mickey Mouse
- Max Fleischer had next invented a device known as the rotoscope, which allowed animators to trace over live action film frame by frame onto an animation cel. Max and Dave Fleischer created the first sound cartoon, "Song Car Tunes" in 1924, three years before the first talking motion picture. Walt and Roy Disney perfected the rotoscope technique and opened their Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923. They created the first cartoon with a synchronized soundtrack titled "Steam Boat Willy," which also introduced Mickey Mouse to the world in 1928.
The Disney studio also created the first color full-color animated cartoon titled, "Flowers and Trees" in 1932. However, it would be the Disney studio's first full-length animated feature movie that would be remembered by most people as the most recognized cartoon in animation history: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." The animated cartoon movie earned $8 million for Disney and was the beginning of the Disney empire.
Warner Brothers Cartoons Introduces Bugs Bunny
- By 1940, Warner Brothers Studios had put its own stake into the animation and cartoon business with the release of "A Wild Hare," which starred the wisecracking rabbit, Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny was created by Chuck Jones along with Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.
The Looney Tunes franchise became an almost instant hit and still remains a favorite of most cartoon--loving aficionados to this day. Jones is acknowledged as the inspiration for a number of modern animated cartoons. Other than Walt Disney, no other single person had a greater influence on modern animators, animated features and cartoons.
Cartoon Cel Animation Today
- From the popular animated television cartoon series to full-length animated motion pictures, the concepts of cel animation are still used along with some very sophisticated computer technology. Cartoon and animated movies are still drawn by hand, but on a digital tablet instead of a traditional animation cel. The last cartoon to utilize hand-drawn animation cels was "Ed, Edd, n Eddy" for the Cartoon Network
A flip book or flick book is a book with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next, so that when the pages are turned rapidly, the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion or some other change. Flip books are often illustrated books for children, but may also be geared towards adults and employ a series of photographs rather than drawings. Flip books are not always separate books, but may appear as an added feature in ordinary books or magazines, often in the page corners. Software packages and websites are also available that convert digital video files into custom-made flip books.
Flip books are essentially a primitive form of they rely on persistence of vision to create the illusion that continuous motion is being seen rather than a series of discontinuous images being exchanged in succession. Rather than "reading" left to right, a viewer simply stares at the same location of the pictures in the flip book as the pages turn. The book must also be flipped with enough speed for the illusion to work, so the standard way to "read" a flip book is to hold the book with one hand and flip through its pages with the thumb of the other hand. The German word for flip book—Daumenkino, literally "thumb cinema"—reflects this process
The History of Animation
Animation started in 1906, when James Stuart Blackton ran a series of drawings continuously to create a short animated film. From then on, the idea of Animation grew and many people tried it out. Some failed, but most succeeded and the art of Animation was improved upon through the years.
Creation of Cels
Drawing out the animation frame by frame is a very tedious job. It wasn't until the 1910s that the use of celluloid was implemented. This reduced the tedious work of redrawing the background again and again, as well as allowing the animator to concentrate on the main actions in the scene.
The Types of Animtion
Since then, many other types of animation was also created. One such animation is the Clay animation, where small changes to the clay puppets were done frame by frame until a relatively smooth motion is produced when the pictures are run continuously.
Another type of animation breakthrough before the birth of Disney is the puppetry animation. Puppets were used in the scenes, where the movements of limbs are shifted frame after frame to reproduce the fluid motion of real life.
Both these animations are also known as stop-motion animation. It means that still like frames are created one by one, just like one is using the camera, then when the frames run together as a film, a smooth going animation is produced. Some argued that this is not much different from making a film.
Stlyes of Animtion
Then, along come great changes to the animation industries. Companies such as the Disney Productions, the Warner Brothers, and the Aarmand Animations created waves in the history of animation. They changed the way people viewed animation in general. They made us love and adore, even appreciate the art of animation.Of course, there is also the birth of computer animation in the 1980s. It advantages cannot be denied. It did not only give a whole new dimension to the world of animation, but also the world of filmmaking. Animation is implemented in film making to reduce the risks of stunts as well as generate believable fantasy scenes that were previously seriously handicapped.All these techniques improved as the way to create CGI(Computer Generated Images) has also improved.
There are many significant breakthroughs for animation in the past century since animation was introduced to the world
Animation today
The types of animation has been evolving faster and faster through the years, expecially since it's success has caught the worlds attention.
Computers and animation
In the past, all animated features were hand drawn frame by frame. And since there are usually 26 frames per second for animation, a short 5 minutes film will need more than 7,000 frames to be drawn. It is a most surely a very tedious process.
Then, hand drawn pictures was what most people would think of as the regular animation. Now, the most recent productions were done totally on computers. They have a 3D look and which does not involve the use of clay or puppets, and they also have much better quality.
Computer animation is faster, easier, and it appeals to the audience. Computer animation has many advantages, because computers can generate the betweening and less important frames all by itself. The animators do not have to redraw the pictures many, many times, instead, they can just create the major scenes, which isn't too hard, and let the computer do the rest.
However, time is not just bringing us new ways of making animation, but also improving old ones. The creation of 2D(two dimensional) animation is getting easier too. Now, they just have to draw the figure on the cell and don't worry about painting it, the just take the picture and then, with one mouse click, the animators fill in all of the colors. This saves lots of time as well as allow for better adjustments. Also, they can edit the frames on the computer to make them so much better so much easier, as well as make the movements flow smoothly. They can do things like fix errors, see what it looks like and adjust it, which also means that they can have more control over the outcome.
Style of Animation
Besides that, different animators, through the years, had developed different styles of animation. We can look at the animations from Disney, from Warner Brothers, from DreamWorks and from Aardman Animations for example, each of them have their own unique characteristics that appeals to the audience tremendously and had won wonderful critics from film viewers.
Animation is a very abstract world. We can make it do whatever we can. Through the years, we found that the theme for animation has changed. Animation nowadays are not only targeted to the children, but also to the adults.
Animations had become increasingly complicated. Instread the straightforward way they present their stories to the audience, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the stories now has twists and turns as well as a more complicated plot, such as in Final Fantasy.
In this light, animation has followed the path that films in general had taken, more complex plot, more features, more matured, and more eye dazzling. Now, animations also targets at a larger range of audience, where before it was only targeted to children.
As you probably noticed, animation today isn't the same as it was 50 years ago. It has really has come a long way and it will go further yet
Dates back to the invention of plasticine in 1897. The earliest surviving use of the technique is the sculptors night mare a spoof on the 1908 presidential election. Clay animation (claymation) is one of the many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated scene either character or background is made deformable. It is made of a malleable substances usually plasticine or clay so it can be easily manipulated. Like puppet animation, claymation is becoming under threat from technology and computer graphics, it is now easier and faster to achieve the same effects of claymation through using computer animation software. Claymation is more similar to object animation as it is dealing with solid objects which do not move on their own, this gives more control to the movement of the animation and makes it look more fluent than the other types. 
presented sequence of still images generated with the use of a computer. This Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) can exist of 2D or 3D moving pictures but nowadays in general Computer animation refers to the 3D animation variant. The latter is created on the basis of three-dimensional geometry data instead of for example the more traditional flat digital drawings.
Computer animations are used for special effects in films or like in the recent Walt Disney animations, the complete movie is computer animated.
