Animation Techniques: 2D, 3D and Stop Motion

• Traditional animation involves animators drawing by hand for each frame.
• 2D animation feeds drawings into plastic cells, hand-painting them on a painted background.

Digital 2D Animation

• Creates animations in 2D space using digital technologies.
• Requires drawing frames instead of digital models.
• Animating hundreds of drawings is known as digital 2D animation.

Digital 3D Animation

• Digital 3D animation creates realistic characters.
• Digital 3D animation is faster to create and commonly used in the movie industry.
• 3D animation models are highly realistic compared to 2D and traditional approaches.

Stop-Motion Animation

• Uses physical static objects moved around to create fluid movement in post-production.
• It has been around since the evolution of puppets, with "Fun in a bakery shop" (1902) as an example.

Mechanical Animation

• Uses machines to animate mechanisms instead of robotics.
• Allows explanation of machine functionality effectively helping an animator understand how a machine works

Audio-Animatronics and Autonomatronics

• Audio-Animatronics is a trademark by Walt Disney Imagineering, fitted in its Disney theme parks.
• Otto is a robot that can easily sense a person, even tell if they are happy.
• Autonomatronics is different from Audio-Animatronics technology.
• Audio-Animatronics animates robotic figures using pre-recorded audio and movements in a sequence.
• Autonomatronics uses cameras/sensors to analyze surroundings and respond.

Chuckimation

• Chuckimation is a combination of stop frame animation and live shots.
• Characters are dropped into a frame, similar to puppet shows.

Puppetry Animation

• Puppetry animation uses lifelike puppets instead of objects.
• The film 'The Humpty Dumpty Circus' (1908) by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith is credited as 1st stop-motion animation with puppets.
• Puppet animation is commonly used in children's cartoons, with King Kong (1933) being an example.

Clay Animation / Claymation

• Pieces of clay are molded to create characters to tell a story.
• Oil-based and water-based clays are options.
• Clay is molded into free forms or uses a wire armature.

Zoetrope Animation

• It is the animation toy invented in 1834 by William George Horner.
• Still images are drawn on a drum, creating the illusion of movement when turned.

Cut-Out Animation

• It is probably the oldest form of stop motion animation.
• Lotte Reiniger created "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1926), using detailed paper silhouettes.

Sand Animation

• A lit glass table is used; animators move sand.
• They constantly erase creations to create another scene.

Typography Animation

• Typography animation is commonly used during the titles of movies.
• Software such as Fontlab can create new kinds of font face.

Paint-On-Glass Animation

• Sometime turpentine is used in the paints, which makes it easier for the animator to work on the paintings.
• Slow-drying paints are used on glass, allowing manipulation and photography simultaneously.

Drawn-On-Film Animation

• Involves scratching/etching directly on exposed film or using light variations to create shadows.

Experimental Animation

• Combines illogical paintings to create an animated scene.
• Randomly introduced paintings create a different frame in the animation process.

Erasure Animation

• Erasure animation uses 2D animation for motion graphics.
• Photography and animation has to be done at every change to create a fluid motion.

Pinscreen Animation

• Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker invented this technique using a screen pricked with headless pins.

Flip Book Animation

• Artists draw a series of images with little variation in a small flip book.
• When the book is flicked rapidly, images create a fluid motion.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF ANIMATION

• Twelve basic principles of animation were introduced by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.
• These principles are an important part of any professional animator's toolkit.

Squash and Stretch

• Squash and Stretch is applying a change to its shape as it moves make an object fee fluid.
• A bouncing ball: the ball will start as a sphere, is stretched as it arcs toward the earth, gets squished flat when it makes contact, and stretches out again as it bounces back upwards and towards its original sphere shape.

Anticipation

• A character takes a moment to get ready to follow through with an action.

Staging

• Staging is the presentation of an idea so that it is completely clear.
• Using good lighting, music, background objects, and other atmospheric cues is important.

Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose

• Straight ahead is drawing from one frame to the next, without an exact end pose.
• Pose to pose has the animator first choosing their planned keyframes, and then filling in all in-between frames afterwards.

Follow Through and Overlapping Action

• Follows a character's momentum, physics, and position.
• Shirt and hair will have different overlapping movements than her body

Slow In and Slow Out

• This means that things take a bit of time to speed up and slow down.
• In animation objects should take some time to accelerate and decelerate unless there is a robot.

Arcs

• Actions of non-machine objects follow an arc or slightly circular path.
• Using arcs makes the object feel more natural.

Secondary Action

• Supports a main action by adding more dimension to an animation.

Timing

• How the speed of the animation's action influences its feeling.
• If takes less time to draw less frames.

Exaggeration

• Means to take reality and make it bigger, bolder, and brighter.

Solid Drawing

• Means respecting 3D space in animation, particularly object's volume, weight, and balance.

Appeal

• The art of creating interesting and engaging characters.
• Use a variety of shapes in building your character and playing with proportions.