Animation Basics

Beginning of the new term and we have been assigned a new project of animation. Animation has many different definitions;

• Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement.

• The making of animated cartoons.

• Quality of being active or spirited or alive and vigorous.

• The condition of living or the state of being alive; "while there's life there's hope"; "life depends on many chemical and physical processes.

• Animation is a simulation of movement by displaying sequential images in (timed) succession.

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods.

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in Paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

A 5,000 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.

A Chinese zoetrope-type device had been invented in 180 AD. The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, and the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 19th century.

These devices produced the appearance of movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the "creator" of film animation, as there were several people working on projects which could be considered animation at about the same time.

Traditional animation

Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003).

Stop-motion animation

Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the type of media used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation.Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiri Trnka and the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present).

Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer.

2D animation

2D animatopn figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphs. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of Tweening, Morphing, Onion Skinning and Interpolated Rotoscoping.

Examples: Fosters Homes for Imaginary Friends, Danny Phantom, Waltz with Bizar, The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy

• Analog computer animation

• Flash animation
• Powerpoint animation

3D animation

3D animation are digitally modelled and manipulated by an animator. In order to manipulate a mesh, it is given a digital skeletal structure that can be used to control the mesh. This process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (ex. gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of Motion capture to name but a few, these techniques fall under the category of 3d dynamics. Many 3 D animations are very believable and are commonly used as Visual effects for recent movies.

Film = 24 frames per second.

PAL (Phrase Alternative Line – UK standard) = 25 frames per second.

NTSC (National Television System Committee – US Standard) = 29.97 frames per second.

25f = 1 second

250f = 10 seconds

1500f = 1 minute

Ones (24 images per second)

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Twos (12 images per second)

01 01 02 02 03 03 04 04 05 05 06 06 07 07 08 08 09 09 10 10 11 11 12 12

Threes (8 images per second)

01 01 01 02 02 02 03 03 03 04 04 04 05 05 05 06 06 06 07 07 07 08 08 08

Fours (6 images per second)

01 01 01 01 02 02 02 02 03 03 03 03 04 04 04 04 05 05 05 05 06 06 06 06

However when you use less images the quality of the animation and frames per second are poor compared to using more images.

Persistence of vision

Persistence of vision is the phenomenon of the eye when an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty-fifth of a second.

The myth of persistence of vision is the mistake that the human perception of motion (brain centered) is the result of persistence of vision (eye centered). This myth was debunked in 1912 by Wertheimer but persists in many citations in many classic and modern film-theory texts. A more plausible theory to explain motion perception (at least on a descriptive level) is two distinct perceptual illusions: phi phenomenon and beta movement.

Phi Phenomenon

The phi phenomenon is an optical illusion defined by Max Wertheimer in which the persistence of vision formed a part of the base of the theory of the cinema, applied by Hugo Münsterberg in 1916. This optical illusion is based in the principle that the human eye is capable of perceiving movement from pieces of information, for example, a succession of images. In other words, from a slideshow of a group of frozen images at a certain speed of images per second, we are going to observe constant movement.

The phi phenomenon is an optical illusion of our brain that allows us to perceive constant movement instead of a sequence of images. In other words, we are inventing information that does not exist (between image and image) to perceive the movement. The phi phenomenon, that might be considered the maker of the correct working of the cinema, is only a limitation of the human eye, which is based on the persistence of vision.

Beta Movement

Beta movement is an optical illusion in which our brain perceives continuous movement from a succession of adjacent light pulses. We interpret that there is movement when in fact what it happens is an exchange of luminous messages.

A good beta movement example could be considered any kind of LED indicator that shows some information. In the following example, it seems that the three points are moving but the truth is that a group of lights turn on and turn off.