- Admin
- March 26, 2021
- Animation
Animation is the technique where a sequence of frames are arranged so as to make a moving video. Animation techniques are mainly used in making movies, story-telling, games and various other multimedia purposes.
These frames are mainly made through hand sketches, drawings or various animation related software. Animation has become a widely known concept in today’s world. Comic books, anime movies or series, latest augmented reality games, showing various technical and architectural designs mainly use this technique of animation.
Kids watching various cartoons on television have all materialized from this concept of animation. The power of animation has been widely appreciated in the modern world as it shows the minutes of details and emotions of various emotions.
Eminent directors such Hayao Miyazaki has achieved worldwide fame in the world of animated movies. He is also the co-founder of the famous Studio of Ghibli. Animation has also become the source of employment for many budding artists and graphic designers.
History of Animation Techniques
Before cinematography came into existence, animation was still there in the form shadow play or moving of certain images mainly through hand gestures. It can be said that the stroboscopic method in animation laid the future foundation for cinematography and visual screenplay.
Traditional animation was mainly about hand drawn sketches painted on cells and it was the most commonly known technique. Our very own superhero comic characters such as Batman, Superman, Iron Man are all made from these traditional techniques created by the famous Stan Lee.
In previous years, technology was not that advanced, having lower frame rates leading to unpolished and coarse animations which weren’t very lifelike. And with the progress of the millennium, computerized animation techniques such as 2-D or 3-D animation have come into the limelight along with CGI which are used in today’s world of cinema. It gave more detailed shading and also a visual pleasure for today’s audiences.
Traditional Animation – A Brief Discussion
Traditional animation often termed as classical animation or cel animation is a different sort of animation technique which generally includes hand drawn frames. This type of animation was predominantly used before the arrival of computer animation.
What are the Procedures of Traditional Animation?
- Concept: This type of animation is generally followed after an idea of a story is conceived. The principal subject or the main source material is then converted to an animation film script from which the story will proceed further. The animation scripts are like that of comic book panels where the images are subjected by the animation team to plan the flow of the story. This is called the animatic step of the entire animation.
- Animation: The director or the main supervisor who is in lead of the entire thing approves the animatic portion which is pursued by the animation. Animators design their character layouts on paper where they draw with their own hands. Every character and every detail which once approved by the leader are generally done by colouring pencils with the help of an animation tool which is called as the peg bar.
- Pencil test: Once all the drawings and layouts are done on paper and the entire plot is complete in that manner, the drawings are photographed with an animation camera. They are basically done on a black and white film. In the modern world most of the high tech animation houses use a simple video camera for this task. Several computer software are also available in the market. The drawings can be scanned and fed to the software. The software will do the animation on its own. It is the most widely used pencil test procedure nowadays.
Traditional Animation Techniques
Cel animation or classical animation or traditional animation can be done in a variety of techniques. The discussion is as follows:
- Cels: Cels is a technique which reduces labour of the animator. In this type of animation, the frames of some other scenes are used and repeated in another scene as well.
- Limited animation: This type of animation generally not only repeats the frames, but also only the extra parts are recreated to save both expense and labour. The results are not very cartoonish. But most of thr old television animations were done using this process.
- Animation loops: This type of animation is widely used. It is used to complete any motion sequence in an idea. Any event that occurs in a repetitive cycle is done by using animation loops thus reducing both time, labour and expense.
3D Animation – Details about Modern-day Animation
The process of creating three dimensional moving images within a digital environment is the way we can define 3D Animation. Talking about its technique, it is actually based on the technique of manipulating the surrounding objects. These manipulations of the three dimensional objects are done within some 3D software in order to export sequences of the images providing them the illusion of animation or movement. Unlike traditional animation techniques, 3D animation adds height, width and depth to the animated objects so that it can provide a realistic and life to life experience which gives a beautiful visual treat to the audiences.
Types of 3D Animation
The practise of 3D Animation techniques is quite common, especially among the youths. So, knowing the types of 3D animation and its application is very important if you want to work on this field. The basic and primary types of animations in 3D are discussed below.
- 3D Video and Film: It is also known as digital 3D or CGI, whose full form is Computer Generated Imagery. The main objective of this type of 3D animation is to develop the contents of the digital environment in a very detailed and realistic manner using special visual effects via computer software. This is the best choice in movie making in case of giving special visual effects to the film. The mentionable computer software that are used in CGI are namely Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender, Houdini, ZBrush etc.
- Interactive 3D: As the name suggests, this type of 3D animation involves a pure digital environment with the help of computer applications to create a platform where the viewer or user get the chance of interaction with the certain objects or subjects associated with the digital environment. So, in a brief way to explain this, the users get the access to control or get hold of the objects of the digital environment and drive them accordingly through the mouse and keyboard associated with the computer system set up. This type of 3D animation is used in the creation of certain gaming platforms.
- Virtual Reality: This is the complex form of the 3D animation types. Its objective is to create a digital environment in an immersive way via 3D computer software. Virtual Reality (VR) 3D animation helps the users or audiences to interact with the physical space.
3D Animation Techniques
A 3D Animation system has involved several techniques over the years. Some of the notable and major techniques are discussed below in a very brief manner:
- Inverse Kinematics: This technique imitates the skeleton joints motion and develops an illusion of natural body movement. Through this technique, the animators make their created characters move easily which lead towards the creation of advanced animations with minimum effort.
- Fluid Simulation: This technique consists of the animation related to fluid movement, i.e. water, bubbles, lava and others. It is often used in providing visual effects to the movies, games, advertisements and other entertainment platforms.
- 3D Skeletal Animation: This type of animation is made by laying the surface of a structure in digital form which is called skin or mesh along with the foundation underneath which can be termed as the skeleton or the rig. This type of animation is vastly used in creating human-like structural animations and other structural animations of certain objects.
Animation is a fascinating world in itself. From a young age, you may have dreamed of creating your own movies, TV series, characters, storylines and so much more. With MAAC’s various animation courses, your dreams can finally meet reality. Join MAAC Girish Park and acquire skills that will make you the best in the field.