Animation

Where did animation start from? The original Steamboat Willie animation from Disney Each single frame was painted onto a cell – like a sheet of overhead paper (plastic film). Light was then shone through it and the images were flicked through quickly. No sound over though! There was a piano played!

Types of Animation Flip Books Stop Motion Key Frame / Flash Animation 3D Animation

Flip Books Involves drawing a series of images on separate sheets with slight adjustments. Flicking through the images provides a moving image: the persistence of vision.

Stop Motion Involves using models and scenes and making slight adjustments and taking a snapshot / photo of each frame. This takes a long time, but creates some outstanding results. Examples include Wallace and Gromit, Morph and the Corpse Bride. The persistence of vision emerges when all the images are played back in rapid succession. Example Stop Motion Video

Key Frame (Flash) Animation Example Video (Alt) Example Video Alt Similar to flip book animation but much more powerful. Can create very professional and interactive animations. Used all over the web for animation. Based on frames and key frames. The persistence of vision emerges when the images are played back in rapid succession.

3D Animation A growing market exploring 3 dimensions of moving images. Increasingly popular in films: Avatar is one of the biggest selling movies of all time. Now available in 3D TV and 3D Digital Services. Requires very specialist software and hardware.

Planning an animation Before you create you must PLAN! To plan an animation you can use: – Storyboards to decide on the sequence of events as you move through the animation – Mood boards, these are a collection of colours, ideas, pictures to depict an overall feel for the animation

Exploring animation techniques

Frame Rates and Looping Each picture is a frame or a page of a flip book. Frame rates governs how fast the frames or pages flick through. The faster – the quicker the animation. You can create lots of different effects with frame rates. FAST: Action, speed shots. SLOW: Slow motion – impact. Looping can be effective in: - Repeating an animation. - Giving the effect of continuous running or moving forever – you would never know that it is only 3-5 frames.

Vector Animation vs. Bitmap Animation Vector Animation: Mathematics is used to draw each frame in position. Made up of shapes instead of pixels. Produced in software such as Flash Bitmap Animation: Based on pixels. Smoother than vector but takes up a lot more memory. Exactly like flip books – each frame is stored separately.

Claymation & Pixilation Techniques Claymation - a stop motion animation technique. -Uses clay models in an animation. -Models are slightly changed or moved, and a picture taken. -Played in rapid succession to produce a movie. Pixilation Animation– stop motion animation with live actors or objects instead of clay models. Again, positioning each object, taking a picture and moving it slightly to create frames which are played together to create a movie.

Rotoscoping Taking real footage and tracing over it to produce an animation effect. Apple iPod Adverts are famous for using Rotoscoping. alt

Tweening and Onion Skinning Tweening is where you create the start and end frame. The computer then completes everything in the middle to get from start to end. altalt Onion Skinning is where you can see the previous and current frames to help you draw the next frame.

Grouping, Cloning and Backdrops Simple terms used when creating or working with animations: Grouping: Making a lot of objects grouped as one – making them easier to move. Cloning: Making copies of an object (e.g. Cloning a tree). Backdrops: The background or scene which your animation has.

File Types: Evaluation TypeGood PointsBad Points GIFBitmap animation Good quality Compressed (small file size) Simple animations. Cannot do photo animations Only supports 256 colours. Not good for advanced animation. PNGReplaces GIF: More quality Smaller file sizes Old browsers do not support PNG Bigger file sizes if more colours used. SWFCan be interactive Vector animation Can play online Flash Player Needed Large files

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Uses in commercial environments Film Industry/games design: exciting and interesting scenes, impossible to shoot in real life Web Animations: interesting, eye catching examples include animated Gifs, banners, logos Beware- animations can make pages slow to load, some browsers are not compatible

Uses in learning environments Websites use animations to explain concepts Google Earth Webcams