1. Animation

2. 2D Animation - Past Disney, Warner Bros, still relevant now.
3D Modeling Software – Maya, 3D studio Max, Houdini, Smoke, Z Brush, Nuke. Using software to create 3D characters and landscapes.
Stereoscopic 3D – Current trend in putting emphasis on 3d, post conversions. Avatar being the first example of being shot entirely in 3D. Sky 3D, 3DTV technology, Nintendo 3DS.
Motion Capture – Andy Serkis as Gollum/King Kong. Avatar full digital actors. Being used in other media such as face motion technology in Rockstars La Noire.
Stop Motion – Aardman (Wallace and Gromit, Creaure Comforts) LAIKA (Coraline)
3D/CGI Animation – Pixar (Toy Story, Finding Nemo) Dreamworks (Shrek), Industrial Light and Magic, Double Negative.
Concept artists, modeling, rigging, compositors, animators, lighting, painters, camera trackers.

3. 2D Animation Traditional but still relevant.
The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. Most Disney films of the 20th century were created this way.
More modern 2d films use digital applications. Figures are manipulated/edited on computer using bitmap or vector graphics but still use techniques similar to traditional 2d animations such as onion skinning, interpolated morphing and rotoscoping.

4. 3D Modeling Software
Allow the ability to create full 3d models and landscapes in 3d space by manipulating 3d mesh or wireframes. Once rendered, these 3d elements can then be used within videogames, animated and real life motion pictures.
There are a wide variety of 3d software out there, some of them can be found as freeware with their own online communities like Blender and Anim8or.
The commercial packages are perhaps more well known, the likes of Maya, Cinema 4d and Houdini are utilised within the film, TV and videogame industries.

5. Stereoscopic 3d
The optical illusion that enhances the sense of depth within a 2d image. This is achieved by presenting two offset images separately for both the left and right eye.
Although the film industry is currently saturated with 3d post production conversions, some would argue that 3d can be utilised to enhance fully animated films. It is also being implemented in other media, 3d TV, Sky 3D and Nintendo 3DS for example.
Avatar was the first full length movie to feature a 3d cg world. Pixar have implemented 3d within Toy Story 3 and Disney are using 3d to successfully revamp old classics like the recently re released The Lion King.

6. Stop Motion
Stop Motion animation is where individual shots are taken frame by frame at a rate of up to 24 frames per second, with the animator making adjustments along the way. It is the most accessible form of animation.
Aardman Animations are known for using this technique from the early days of Morph to the Oscar winning shorts of Wallace and Gromit. A feature length film of the duo was released in 2005 titled Curse of The Were Rabbit, it took in total 5 years to make with 18 months of shooting.
This behind the scenes video of Coraline indicates the sense of scale undertaken by large stop motion projects.

7. Motion Capture
Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within (2001) was the first feature length digital film to include fully motion captured actors.
Andy Serkis’ Gollum from The Lord of the Rings was the first photorealistic motion captured character for a film.
The character 'Clu' in Tron requires Bridges to be a lot younger. In order to do this, Kosinski used the technology of facial capture. This was a 3d scan of bridges which led to a mold of his face being built into mask with 52 holes acting as a template for thefacial marker dots tracked by four lipstick cameras attached to a carbon-fiber helmet. Digital domain used photos of Jeff in his early 30s in order to bring back his older body. With the 52 markers drawn on his face and the Helmet mounted camera on, his facial movements fed into the computer and were used to control the expressions and movements of the digital head. The digital younger bridges was controlled but the real bridges.
TRON is the first 3D
Movie to intergrate a fully digital
head and body to create the younger
version of Jeff Bridges
Jeff Bridges (TRON)
“It’s a dream come true,
to be able to play yourself,
at any age”

8. 3d / CGI Animation
3d animation is the process of digitally modeling and manipulating a 3d object by an animator. In order to manipulate a 3d mesh, it is given a digital skeletal structure that can be used to control the mesh. This process is called rigging.
Well-made 3D animations can be difficult to distinguish from live action and are commonly used as visual effects for recent movies.
Pixar’s Toy Story (1995) was the first feature length film to be created and rendered entirely using 3D graphics.