Basics of Animation

AnimationAnimation is an art of presenting a series of pictures or photos in a sequence rapidly in order to create an illusion of a motion. It is shown in either 2D, 3D or through a motion capture. Usually the animation was a series of images hand drawn by an artist movement by movement and are presented in a flipbook format or photographed each image and presenting them through a video program which is very painstaking method. Today with the advent of highly technical animation like motion capture which can be seen in the success of movie Avtar, the animation cannot be distinguished from the real world.Principles of animationOften considered as the bible of animation, the principles of animation are written by Ollie Johnston, and Frank Thomas in “The illusion of life: Disney animation”. The twelve principles are:
Squash and stretch
Anticipation
Staging
Straight ahead action and pose to pose
Follow through and overlapping action
Slow in and slow out
Arcs
Secondary action
Timing
Exaggeration
Solid drawing
Appeal.
Till today after 30 years, still the principles are followed by the industry and consider as the basis of any animation.In educationAnimation is the best way to attract children. It creates interest in them and with the animated characteristics telling the stories and rhymes with music, it can be easily understood and learnt by children. Apart from children, it can be used in the higher education to design the complex models like the architectural animation, and for medical studies. It is mostly used in medicine to design the complex parts of the human body which otherwise is not possible to use and explain the students. It is also useful in teaching the surgical procedures which are always not possible to practically show.Animation softwareThe industry has gone a long way with the advent of computer. Today with 2D and 3D computer animation it is often tough to find the difference between the real and animation. The computer animation often referred to as CGI, uses various software to design the graphics. Some of the commonly used software are:
Toon boom studio
Animationish
Flip boom
Flash
After effects
Pencil
Synfig
CreaToon
sWiSH
ULead GIF animator
3D studio max
Maya
Lightwave
Blender
Swift 3D
Animation techniquesThe method of animation has seen many transformations since its entry in 18th century. Right from the traditional animation, the technology has developed rapidly and gave wings to the creativity. Today we have many techniques that create great movies, which are stop motion, computer animation, drawn on film, paint-on-glass, erasure, pinscreen, sand animation, flip book, character animation, chuckimation, multi-sketching, special effects, animatronics, stop motion. The stop motion is very creative in which live images are captured on a camera in a way that on broadcasting, the animation creates a moving images animation.