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. • Later on, 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.