“Animation Through the Ages”

Camelia McCallion

Main tasks

• What is computer animation?• Hand drawn (cel)• Flick books• Animated cartoon• Animation process• Graphic information file format (gif)• Dynamic hypertext mark-up language (dhtml)• Extensible hypertext mark-up language (xhtml)• Java applets

• Optical illusion of motion (persistence of vision)• Claymation• Stop motion• Computer generation (frame rate, frames, key frames, onion skinning, tweening.

What is Computer Animation?

Computer animation is the art of creating moving images through the computer.

Computer animation images are created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still very popular because

they are used for low bandwidth and faster real-time rendering needs.

Hand drawn (cel) animation

• Hand drawn animation is where a person draws out the animation onto a transparent sheet. When the animation is completed it will appear in a TV show or in a film just like Woody from Toy Story.

• Its short for celluloid.• It is where the animation is drawn by hand on a transparent sheet• It is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand• Some forms of animation usually begin life as a storyboard

Flick books

• It is where a series of pictures are drawn onto pages of the book. • When the pages are turned quickly the pictures look like they are

moving.• When the pages are flipped rapidly, the images seem to move.• Flip books are one of the most basic forms of animation.• When flick books are turned rapidly it makes the eye think that the

pictures will create the illusion of actual motion.

Animated cartoon

• They can be used in films and TV shows.• They are created by photographing a series of cartoon drawings to

give the illusion of movement when moved quickly.• Cartoons can use many different types of animation, they usually

fall under the traditional animation category.• An example of an animated cartoon would be The Looney Tunes

which is a series of theatrical cartoon series.

Animation process

• A storyboard is made. This is where the animators and directors come together to discuss the film.

• Once the ideas are done, the dialogue is recorded, this is done before animation so then they know what the characters will say.

• They then move onto drawing rough sketches of the characters without colour.

• When the film has been drawn onto paper, the drawings go to the inking department where they come together.

• They then move onto backgrounds and outlining the characters.• Once the drawings are filmed, the dialogue is added and the film is

edited at this step.• Finally the animated film is released.

Graphical Information File Format (Gif)

• An animated GIF is a popular type of digital image.• Animated GIFs are images in the file format that appear to move or

change.• An animated GIF must use an 8-bit palette and the size of that

results in having 256 colours available for the image.• An animated GIF works in the same way as traditional cartoon

animation.• The frames are displayed in order, this can give the appearance of

motion in the same way an animated cartoon does.

Java Applets

• It is an applet delivered to the users in the form of Java byte code.• They can run in a Web Browser using a Java Virtual Machine.• Java applets run at very fast speeds.• Java applets are usually used to add small, interactive

enhancements to a web.

Optical illusion of motion (persistence of vision)

• Optical illusion is where someone sees something that does not exist or is something else than what it appears to be.

Stop motion

• Stop motion is also known as stop frame.• Stop motion is where an animated object is made to appear to

move on its own. • They are mostly made out of clay or Lego.• It is where you move the figure is moved bit by bit, in very small

movements each time.• When completed the series of frames are played as a continuous

sequence, it is then seen as if the object was moving by itself.• An example is the movie Coraline.