BASIC ANIMATION

CONCEPTS
by: Anwar Jesus O. Esperida
What is animation?
• “To animate” means “to give life to”. Animations are created
from a sequence of still images. The images are displayed rapidly
in succession so that the eye is fooled into perceiving continuous
motion.
• Animation generally deals with hand drawn images in contrast to
motion video which deals with actual photographs of real-world
objects taken through a camera, although both uses the concept
of displaying a sequence of images one after another to depict
motion.
History
• Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to
show movement within those drawings. A series of
drawings are linked together and usually photographed
by a camera.
• The drawings have been slightly changed between
individualized frames so when they are played back in
rapid succession (24 frames per second) there appears to
be seamless movement within the drawings.
History
• In 1824, Peter Roget published a paper called “Persistence of
Vision With Regard to Moving Objects.” This paper describes the
phenomenon that occurs in human vision where an image lingers
even after the light from the source has ceased. This
phenomenon makes animation possible.
• This led to numerous “philosophical” toys during the 19th
century. These include the Zoetrope, and the Flipbook. The first
animated cartoon (in the traditional sense, i.e. on film) was
“Fantasmagorie” by the French director Émile Cohl. Released in
1908.
History
• One of the very first successful animated cartoons was “Gertie the
Dinosaur” by Winsor McCay. It is considered the first example of true
character animation.
• In the 1930s to 1960s, theatrical cartoons were produced in huge numbers,
and usually shown before a feature film in a movie theater. MGM, Disney
and Warner Brothers were the largest studios producing these 5 to 10-
minute “shorts”.
• Competition from television drew audiences away from movie theaters in
the late 1950s, and the theatrical cartoon began its decline.
History
• Today, animated cartoons are produced mostly for
television, however with the advent of personal
computers and the accessibility of the internet and easy
animation software such as Flash, it has now become
possible for the average person to create animations
allowing many novice animators to feature their
cartoons online.
 How animation Works
• In the traditional animation process, animators will begin by
drawing sequences of animation on sheets of paper often using
colored pencils, one picture or “frame” at a time.
•A key animator or lead animator will draw the key drawings
(“key” in the sense of “important”) in a scene, using the character
layouts as a guide.
• The key animator draws enough of the frames to get across the
major points of the action; in a sequence of a character jumping
across a gap, the key animator may draw a frame of the
character as he is about to leap, two or more frames as the
character is flying through the air, and the frame for the
character landing on the other side of the gap.
 How animation Works
• Once the key animation is approved, the lead animator forwards
the scene on to the clean-up department, made up of the clean-
up animators and the inbetweeners. The clean-up animators take
the lead and assistant animators’ drawings and trace them onto a
new sheet of paper, taking care in including all of the details
present on the original model sheets, so that it appears that one
person animated the entire film.
• The inbetweeners will draw in whatever frames are still missing
in between the other animators’ drawings. This procedure is
called tweening.
 Animation and Frame Rates
• Virtually all visual animation media uses frames—a series
of still images shown very rapidly to simulate motion or
change. Anything you see on a computer, television, or
movie screen is based on frames.
• This goes back to the earliest days of cartoon animation,
where the individual pictures were drawn on sheets of
cellophane and became known as cels, and the earliest
motion pictures, where a similar technique was used with
multiple photographs.
 Animation and Frame Rates

• TV video builds 30 entire frames or pictures every

second. Movies are shot at a shutter rate of 24
frames per second, but using projections tricks the
flicker is increased to 48.
• On some projectors each frame is shown 3 times
before the next frame, for a total of 72 flickers per
second which helps eliminate the flicker effect.
Types of Animation

• There are many different types of animation

that are used nowadays. The main types are
clay animation, computer animation, cel-
shaded animation and regular animation.
Clay Animation
• Clay animation is not really a new technique as many people
might think. Clay animation began shortly after plasticine (a clay-
like substance) was invented in 1897, and one of the first films to
use it was made in 1902.
• The invention of Gumby was a big step in the history of clay
animation. Now, clay animation has become more popular and
easier to do.
• Lateron, more clay animation films were made, such as the
Wallace and Gromit series of movies, the advertisements that
were made for the California Raisin Advisory Board and the
Celebrity Deathmatch series.
“Gumby” "Celebrity Deathmatch"
Computer Animation

• Computer animation has also become common. Computer animation began

about 40 years ago when the first computer drawing system was created by
General Motors and IBM.
• It allowed the user to view a 3D model of a car and change the angles and
rotation.
• Movies that used computer animation are: The Abyss, Jurassic Park, Forrest
Gump, and more. Also, computer animation was used differently, as in the
show 'South Park', which used stop motion cutout animation; recently it
uses computer animation.
Computer Animation

• A well-known computer animation company is

Pixar. They are responsible for making Toy Story, A
Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, and
more. Also, video games have used computer
animation as well.
Cel-Shaded Animation

• Cel-shaded animation is makes computer graphics appear to be hand-

drawn. This type of animation is most commonly turning up in console video
games.
• Most of the time the cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model. The
difference occurs when a cel-shaded object is drawn on-screen.
• The rendering engine only selects a few shades of each color for the object,
making it look flat.
Regular Animation
• Animation began with Winsor McCay. He did his animations all
by himself, and it took him a long time (about a year for a five
minute cartoon).
• But for some, it was ridiculous that they would have to wait so
much for so little. Then the modern animation studio came to be.
• Years later, more people would invent more cartoon characters.
Otto Messmer invented the character 'Felix the Cat’.
• Later on, the Walt Disney Studio created 'Steamboat Willie',
which introduced the character Mickey Mouse.
• Other companies started to make their own cartoons; some of
which we can still watch today.
 Real time animation

• an animation is real time if a computer is

computing and displaying the animation at the
same speed as it is designed to be seen Typically
only simple animations can be displayed in real
time.
 Keyframe animation

• a technique for producing animations whereby

important positions, sizes and orientations of
objects at particular points in time are identified
and everything else in-between is filled in by
interpolation.
 Character animation

• animation focused on the display of

expressions, emotions and behaviors
normally associated with intelligent life
forms.
 Motion path animation

• a technique where objects or cameras move

along a path.
 Hierarchical animation

• animation of hierarchical objects.

 Shape animation

• there are various forms but the most well

known is morphing where one shape changes
into another shape.
 Procedural animation

• animations typically require considerable

data in their production. Procedural
animation aims to compute animation data
rather than have an animator specify it.
 Simulation

• may be characterised as scientific animation.

Typically simulations will be using data computed
from the laws of physics.
 Camera animation

•typified by architectural walkthroughs. In

its pure form the only thing which moves
is the camera.
 Animation Techniques

• Animation is the process by which we see still

pictures MOVE.
• Each picture is shot on film one at a time and is
shown at the rate of 24 pictures per second
making the pictures appear to move.
 Why do we see these images as moving?

• The reason our eyes are tricked into seeing

movement can be explained by the ‘Persistence of
Vision’ theory.
 The persistence of vision theory:

• Our brain holds onto an image for a fraction of a second

after the image has passed. If the eye sees a series of still
images very quickly one picture after another, then the
images will appear to move because our eyes cannot
cope with fastmoving images - our eyes have been
tricked into thinking they have seen movement.
 The Moving Hand Theory:
• You can do this by waving your hand in front of your eyes
very fast. You will seem to see several hands at once.
• Try doing this in front of a television screen when it is
switched on. You will see even more images of your hand
because the television is actually flickering.
• By waving your hand in front of it you make your eyes very
confused about what they are actually seeing.
 Basic techniques used in animation

• 1. Drawn Animation.
• 2. Cutout Animation.
• 3. Model Animation.
• 4. Computer Animation.
 Drawn Animation:

• This covers any form where another replaces one

drawing in a sequence. Each drawing is slightly different
from the one before. It works the way a flipbook does.
• These animated films are made up of thousands of
drawings which are shown on screen very quickly one
after the other.
 Cutout Animation:

• This covers any form of animation where cutout shapes

are moved around or replaced by other cutouts.
• Flat objects like buttons, matchsticks and string can also
be used in this form of animation.
• Cutouts can also be laid on top of drawings.
 Model Animation:

• This involves the filming of puppets or any form of three-

dimensional models. The materials used could include
plasticize, clay or wire - in fact anything that can be bent
or formed into another shape.
• The puppets are positioned and filmed before being
moved ever so slightly and filmed again.
• These shots are put together as a piece of film and will
give the impression of the models moving.
 Computer Animation:

• Animation has historically been produced in two ways.

The first is by artists creating a succession of cartoon
frames, which are then combined into a film.
• A second method is by using physical models, e.g. King
Kong, which are positioned, the image recorded, then
the model is moved, the next image is recorded, and this
process is continued.
 Computer Animation:
• Using a rendering machine to produce successive frames wherein
some aspect of the image is varied can produce computer
animation.
• For a simple animation this might be just moving the camera or
the relative motion of rigid bodies in the scene. This is analogous
to the second technique described above, i.e., using physical
models.
• More sophisticated computer animation can move the camera
and/or the objects in more interesting ways, e.g. along computed
curved paths, and can even use the laws of Physics to determine
the behavior of objects.
 Computer Animation:
• Animation is used in Visualization to show the time dependent
behavior of complex systems. A major part of animation is
motion control. Early systems did not have the computational
power to allow for animation preview and interactive control.
• Also, many early animators were computer scientists rather than
artists. Thus, scripting systems were developed. These systems
were used as a computer high level language where the animator
wrote a script (program) to control the animation.
• Whereas a high level programming language allows for the
definition of complex data types, the scripting languages allowed
for the definition of “actors”, objects with their own animation
rules.
 Computer Animation:
• Later systems have allowed for different types of motion control.
One way to classify animation techniques is by the level of
abstraction in the motion control techniques.
• A low-level system requires the animator to precisely specify
each detail of motion, whereas a high-level system would allow
them to use more general or abstract methods.
• For example, to move a simple rigid object such as a cube
requires six degrees of freedom (numbers) per frame. A more
complex object will have more degrees of freedom, for example a
bird might have over twenty degrees of freedom.
• Now think about animating an entire flock of birds.