Task 1 - Write an article on historical and technical developments in
animation
Animation has developed a lot over the years and
many different methods and techniques have been created. This has allowed
animation to be developed a lot easier and look more effective.
How your brain pieces together the animation.
Animation is basically a lot of different pictures
put in order with slight changes in each image. The pictures are then played one
after another at a fast speed. Your brain pieces together the images and fill
the gaps in-between giving an illusion of movement.
Flipbook.
The flipbook is a small book with a lot of pages;
on each page there are images with small differences. When you flip the pages
the pictures look like they begin to move, giving an illusion of movement. This
animation is very simple and easy to do; also it is still used today.
The first flipbook appeared in 1868 when John
Barnes Linnett patented it; this became popular very quick and was shown in an
exhibition where his brother then developed the idea to create a film
projector.
There are some bad points about using this
animation technique is that if you flip the pages to quick then you wont be
able to see the animation to well; also if you flip it to slow then the
animation will look jumpy.
In 1892 the kinetoscope the was made, people
preferred to use this over the flipbook because the kinetoscope is similar in
the way flipbook animation works. However a machine makes it move rather then
you doing it your self, this makes it more reliable to use.
This video has been made using the flipbook technique, and looks really good. This animation would have taken the animator a long time to create because he would have had to draw each frame and each image have got a lot of detail in.
Zoetrope 2D and 3D
2D
The zoetrope is a device that creates and illusion of movement by spinning a cylinder in a circle very fast. Inside of it there are many pictures all around it with a slight change in each image. To view the animation you must look through the vertical slits around it and because it is spinning fast the pictures inside look like they are moving.
The earliest known zoetrope created was in 180 AD in China; however William George Horner created the modern zoetrope in 1833. When William first created it was not very popular until the 1860’s when English and American makers patented it, it started to become more popular.
However the 2D zoetrope is not used as much anymore because there are much more effective and modern techniques you could you to get the same effects or better.
This video demonstrates how the zoetrope works. Some of the downsides to using this animation technique are that the animation will not last very long and repeat until you top it.
3D
The 3D zoetrope works in a similar way to the 2D apart from there is no cylinder around the objects with slits in. The 3D one works by having a flat surface with many objects with slight differences on each one. The surface then spins at a certain speed, then strobe lights flashes. This causes our mind to miss parts of the rotation because of the lights and your mind try to piece together it and therefore it looks like I will animate.
There are many famous companies that use this technique like Pixar, they created this animation below using this technique.
The animation played above is made using 3D zoetrope. The downside to this is that it is difficult to create.
Stop Motion
Stop Motion is an animation technique is where you take a picture of something e.g. a man, then you move it slightly to one side and take another photo and so on. Once the pictures are put together and played, the man will move across the screen. This technique have been use in a lot of films to create the feel that an object is magic by moving on its own. The first time this was used was in 1897, in something called The Humpty Dumpty Circus, where animals come to life. This animation technique can be used for other things like claymation, a famous company that uses this technique is called Aardman, they produced things like Wallace And Gromit and Shawn The Sheep.
Here is an example one of Aardman's animation using stop motion. However using this technique is very time consuming and can take a long time to produce a animation. Aardman took 15 months to produce the film Wallace And Gromit The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit.
Cel Animation
Cel animation is done by drawing onto several different transparent pieces paper called cels. On one of the cels there would be the background, and on another there would be the characters and so on. It is done this way because say you wanted to remove something from the frame you could easily just remove it from that cell rather then effecting every part; also this allows you to be able to see what is on the previous layer with out effecting it. This type of animation is mainly use for movies or cartoons. One of the down sides to using this technique is that is you use to many layer then the colour will start to fade ruining the animation. However cel animation is rarely used now because we have computer programmes which does the same thing e.g. flash.
Winsor McCay invented cel animation in 1915, instead of redrawing the same scene over and over again. How he would animate is he would draw the background on a transparent piece of paper, on the second layer he would draw the character from his animation and go on in layers which made it a lot easier for him to create animation faster and still look great.
An example of one of Winsor's animation was Gertie The Dinosaur.
During the time that this animation was produced it was very popular, this was because there was not much like it around, therefore attracting everyone attention because it was something new.
Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping is a technique where they film something like some one dancing, walking or anything else, then
from the footage they trace over every frame to create a very
realistic animation because they traced over the movement of a real
person; also using this technique will also allow the animation to look very smooth and clear. This technique will take a very long time to produce because you will have to go over every frame to get a smooth and realistic animation.
This animation technique was invented by Max Fleischer who used it in his series 'Out of the Inkwell starting around 1915, with his brother Dave Fliescher dressed in a clown outfit.
This animation technique have been used to produce many films and games, e.g Just Dance and Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
This video was made using rotoscopng, the person who animate it recorded someone skateboarding then went over each frame to create this.
Time-lapse photography
Time lapse photography is where you take picture of something e.g. sunrise to sunset every couple of seconds, minutes and hours. Once the pictures have been taken you can the play them and it will gave you a fast cycle of what every you took photographs of depending on the speed you took the pictures. This technique is used a lot for scientific use for example to show how a plant grows or how something decays.
The first use of time lapse was in 1897 by Georges Melies for a motion picture film; this was then picked up by scientists in 1909 for biological use, time lapse was popular in the early 18th century.
This technique have been use for several thing like to view the growth of a plant or to watch something decay.
This time lapse shows other uses of time lapse, this was about a man who walked through china and grew a beard. This also shows that it is not just used for scientific purposes.
2D and 3D animation.
2D
2D animations are created using 2D bitmap or graphic applications like flash. The animation works by having to draw images on several different frames with slight changes when played one after another it will create an illusion of something. This type of animation is limited to how well you can draw therefore if you cant draw to well then you might struggle doing this type of animation. This type of animation can look very good and it is used in a lot of cartoons, I have also used it in my Saul Bass animation i created.
This animation was made using flash and as you can see it looks very good and runs smooth.
3D
3D animation is can be created over several programmes, using 3D modelling programmes like sculptress then export the model and import it into programmes like blender. When using 3D modeling programmes you have to mold the mesh to create your object, in order to make the model to move you need to add bones to this. This way of animation will take much longer then 2D because it involves a lot more steps just to start to animate it. However the animation overall in my opinion will look a lot better, this is because the animation will look a lot more realistic and smooth.
There are also several techniques that can be applied to give more detail to this type of animation, such as gravity, particle simulations, simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of motion capture.
This animation shows the a variety of different techniques you can use in 3D animation unlike the 2D.
Pixilation
Pixilation is a stop motion animation but using people as the objects rather then cut outs or other drawings. This technique involves the person standing in poses and several pictures being taken of them then moving slightly. Using this technique can allow you to use different effects very easily, e.g. disappearances by making the person not in the photograph when it is taken and other effects like floating.
This animation was done using stop motion, and several different effects like telleportation was used. This animation have become very popular lately in the 20th century, for videos called "vines", this led to a lot of people using this technique.
Cutout animation
This animation is also done using stop motion technique, but this technique involves cutting out different shapes using paper or card. To create an animation using this technique is very fiddly and involves a lot of time; this is because you have to re cut out the shape but with slight changes each time. This can also take up a lot of resources and is 2D. However if you have the time and patience , this animation technique can have potential to look very good.
This is done using cut out animation, as you can see this would have taken a very long time to produce, however this contains a lot of detail and is a very good animation. This technique is not use as much as the other techniques because the other techniques are less time consuming and still look good.
Sand animation
Sand animation involves the person drawing on the sand to create a story, this technique involves the person have good art skills. Using this technique you can make some cool effects by sprinkling the sand over positions. To make this animation technique work you need a light bot underneath the sand this allow certain parts to light up when a path in the sand is created, causing that area to stand out because of the contract between the dark and light.
This animation animation was done by Kseniya Simonova.
Walking animation
Storyboard
In the video above i have made a walk cycle of Yallery Brown; in the animation i have included my own sound effects that I have gathered my self and made a complete walk cycle. I have also created a background so it will suite the scene for where Yallery Brown is walking, I have chosen to use the forest and the stone slab.
Some of my strengths of this animation are:
- The sound effects are in time with the walking
- I have included my own sound effects that i have gathered my self
- The character walks at the right speed, its not too fast.
- The background suites where Yallery is.
Some of my weaknesses are:
- The character needs to include more detail
- The walk cycle is jumpy at parts
- I could increase the length of the animation so you would be able to see more of the cycle.
I could improve on the character detail, this is because it will make the walk cycle look a lot better then it is. Another thing i could improve on id the the walk cycle overall, this is because at parts it jumps, what i could do is add more frames with extra movement to smooth this out. I could also increase the length of the cycle to allow you to be able to see the cycle more.
I have showed my animation to several people and got feedback from them, some of their feedback was:
Strengths:
-'The are style is appealing'
-'The character design is well though through'
Weaknesses:
-'The walking could be more fluid'
-'The length of the animation could be longer'
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