Portal:Animation
Introduction
The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these six frames.
Animation is a method in which pictures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most animations are made with computer-generated imagery (CGI). Computer animation can be very detailed 3D animation, while 2D computer animation can be used for stylistic reasons, low bandwidth or faster real-time renderings. Other common animation methods apply a stop motion technique to two and three-dimensional objects like paper cutouts, puppets or clay figures.
Commonly the effect of animation is achieved by a rapid succession of sequential images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon and beta movement, but the exact causes are still uncertain. Analog mechanical animation media that rely on the rapid display of sequential images include the phénakisticope, zoetrope, flip book, praxinoscope and film. Television and video are popular electronic animation media that originally were analog and now operate digitally. For display on the computer, techniques like animated GIF and Flash animation were developed.
Selected general articles
The history of Iranian animation, which began in its modern form in the mid 20th century in Iran, can also be traced back to the Bronze Age. Read more...
A normal shader (left) and a NPR shader using cel-shading (right)
Non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) is an area of computer graphics that focuses on enabling a wide variety of expressive styles for digital art. In contrast to traditional computer graphics, which has focused on photorealism, NPR is inspired by artistic styles such as painting, drawing, technical illustration, and animated cartoons. NPR has appeared in movies and video games in the form of "toon shading", as well as in scientific visualization, architectural illustration and experimental animation. An example of a modern use of this method is that of cel-shaded animation. Read more...- Go motion is a variation of stop motion animation which incorporates motion blur into each frame involving motion. It was co-developed by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett. Stop motion animation can create a disorienting, and distinctive staccato effect, because the animated object is perfectly sharp in every frame, since each frame of the animation was actually shot when the object was perfectly still. Real moving objects in similar scenes of the same movie will have motion blur, because they moved while the shutter of the camera was open. Filmmakers use a variety of techniques to simulate motion blur, such as moving the model slightly during the exposure of each film frame or using a glass plate smeared with petroleum jelly in front of the camera lens to blur the moving areas. Read more...
- A motion comic (or animated comic) is a form of animation combining elements of print comic books and animation. Individual panels are expanded into a full shot while sound effects, voice acting, and animation are added to the original artwork. Text boxes and sound effect bubbles are typically removed to feature more of the original artwork being animated. Motion comics are often released as short serials covering a story arc of a long running series or animating a single release of a graphic novel. Single release issues of a story arc are converted into ten- to twenty-minute-long episodes depending on content. Read more...
- Drawn-on-film animation, also known as direct animation or animation without camera, is an animation technique where footage is produced by creating the images directly on film stock, as opposed to any other form of animation where the images or objects are photographed frame by frame with an animation camera. Read more...
- The history of anime can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, with the earliest verifiable films dating from 1917.
The first generation of animators in the late 1910s included Ōten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kōuchi and Seitaro Kitayama, commonly referred to as the "fathers" of anime. Propaganda films, such as Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943) and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (1945), the latter being the first anime feature film, were made during World War II. During the 1970s, anime developed further, with the inspiration of Disney animators, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing distinct genres such as mecha and its super robot subgenre. Typical shows from this period include Astro Boy, Lupin III and Mazinger Z. During this period several filmmakers became famous, especially Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii. Read more... - Pixilation (from pixilated) is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor becomes a kind of living stop motion puppet. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a movie, such as in The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb by the Bolex Brothers.
Early examples of this technique are El hotel eléctrico from 1908 and Émile Cohl's 1911 movie Jobard ne peut pas voir les femmes travailler (Jobard cannot see the women working). Read more... - The history of French animation is one of the longest in the world, as France has created some of the earliest animated films dating back to the late 19th century, and invented many of the foundational technologies of early animation.
The first pictured movie was from Frenchman Émile Reynaud, who created the praxinoscope, an advanced successor to the zoetrope that could project animated films up to 16 frames long, and films of about 500~600 pictures, projected on its own Théâtre Optique at Musée Grévin in Paris, France, on 28 October 1892. Read more... - The Thai animation (Thai: แอนิเมชันไทย) industry began after World War II when artist Sanae Klaikluen was asked by the Thai government to make a short animated cartoon that instructed Thai citizens to wear hats and farmers to wear boots. Read more...
- Rubber hose animation was the first animation style that became standardized in the American animation industry. The defining feature of the style is "rubber hose limbs"—arms, and sometimes legs, that are typically simple, flowing curves, without articulation (no hinged wrists or elbows). Read more...
- Adult animation, adult cartoon or mature animation, is any type of animated motion work that is mainly targeted towards adults and older adolescents, as opposed to children or all-ages audiences. Works in this genre may be considered adult for any number of reasons, such as complex themes, sexual or suggestive content, graphic violence, profane language or dark humor. Works in this genre may explore philosophical, political, or social issues. Some productions are noted for sophisticated and/or experimental storytelling and animation techniques.
In the United States, before the enforcement of the Hays Code, some cartoon shorts contained humor that was aimed at adult audience members rather than children. Following the introduction of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system, independent animation producers attempted to establish an alternative to mainstream animation. Initially, few animation studios in the United States attempted to produce animation for adult audiences, but later examples of animation produced for adults would gain mainstream attention and success. Read more... - This is a list of films with live action and animation, films that combine live action and animated elements, typically interacting. Read more...
- Outsourcing of animation has become widespread. Many entertainment giants such as The Walt Disney Company and IMAX are beginning to outsource an increasing amount of their animation production to Asian countries, particularly India, while other companies are outsourcing animation from India for commercials and computer games. A factor making India an outsourcing destination for animation films is its vast base of English speaking workforce. Animation, which requires understanding of the English language in order to lip-sync the animated media to the audio dialogue, benefits from this particular talent that the Indian workforce possesses. A number of animation companies in the country are also creating skilled manpower for the animation market through various training programs.
Overall though, the main reason why foreign entertainment firms are flocking to India is the cost advantage the country offers. As an example, American animators can cost about $125 an hour; in India, they cost $25 an hour. The total cost for making a full-length animated film in America is estimated to be $100 million to $175 million. In India, it can be made for $15 million to $25 million. Studios in India are also able to provide a large supply of low-cost, high-quality software engineers, even going so far as to establish studios outfitted with state-of-the-art hardware and software to carry out production overseas. Read more...
Strata-cut animation, also spelled stratcut or straticut, is a form of clay animation, itself one of many forms of stop motion animation.
Strata-cut animation is most commonly a form of clay animation in which a long bread-like "loaf" of clay, internally packed tight and loaded with varying imagery, is sliced into thin sheets, with the animation camera taking a frame of the end of the loaf for each cut, eventually revealing the movement of the internal images within. Wax may be used instead of clay for the loaf, but this can be more difficult to use because it is less malleable. Read more...
A horse animated by rotoscoping from Eadweard Muybridge's 19th-century photos. The animation consists of 8 drawings, which are "looped", i.e. repeated over and over.
An animated cartoon is a film for the cinema, television or computer screen, which is made using sequential drawings, as opposed to animation in general, which include films made using clay, puppets, 3D modeling and other means. Animated cartoons are still created for entertainment, commercial, educational and personal purposes. Read more...- The history of Chinese animation began in the 20th century in the Republic of China when the people became fascinated with the idea of animation. A lengthy history interlocks between the art, politics and the ever-changing economy. Chinese animation has long been under the shadow of Disney and Japanese animations, but it once played a very important role in world animation. Read more...
- Educational animations are animations produced for the specific purpose of fostering learning.
The popularity of using animations to help learners understand and remember information has greatly increased since the advent of powerful graphics-oriented computers. This technology allows animations to be produced much more easily and cheaply than in former years. Previously, traditional animation required specialised labour-intensive techniques that were both time-consuming and expensive. In contrast, software is now available that makes it possible for individual educators to author their own animations without the need for specialist expertise. Teachers are no longer limited to relying on static graphics but can readily convert them into educational animations. Read more... - Independent animation is animated short cartoons and feature films produced outside the professional Hollywood animation industry. A good portion of the work is viewed in animation festivals and private screen rooms along with schools that produce animation through instruction. The significance of independent animation is as important as studio fare. Read more...
- The first Romanian film animation was Păcală în Lună by Aurel Petrescu (5 April 1920).
Ion Popescu-Gopo is the founder of the modern Romanian cartoon school. Read more...
In animation, a model sheet, also known as a character board, character sheet, character study or simply a study, is a document used to help standardize the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character. Model sheets are required when large numbers of artists are involved in the production of an animated film to help maintain continuity in characters from scene to scene, as one animator may only do one shot out of the several hundred that are required to complete an animated feature film. A character not drawn according to the production's standardized model is referred to as off-model. Read more...
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field.
Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons, but who are not animators, include layout artists (who design the backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically in that for most of the history of animation, they did not need most of the crew positions seen on a physical set. Read more...
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is produced by recording each frame, or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to films to video games, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve frames per second. The techniques involved in creating computer-generated imagery are conversely generally removed from a frame-by-frame process. Read more...- Barrier-grid animation, also known as a kinegram, and "picket fence" animation, which was originated in the late 1890s and then re-popularized by Rufus Butler Seder's trademarked "Scanimation(r)" books in the early 2000s, is an animation effect created by moving a striped transparent overlay across an interlaced image. The barrier-grid technique and its history overlap with parallax stereography (also known as "Relièphographie") for 3D autostereograms. The technique has also been used for color-changing pictures, but to a much lesser extent.
The development of barrier-grid technologies can also be regarded as a step towards lenticular printing, although the technique has remained after the invention of lenticular technologies as a relatively cheap and simple way to produce animated images in print. Read more... - Inbetweening or tweening is a key process in all types of animation, including computer animation. It is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images, called key frames, to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings which create the illusion of motion. Read more...
- The Indian animation industry encompasses traditional 2D animation, 3D animation and visual effects for feature films.
In 1956, Disney Studios animator Clair Weeks, who had worked on Bambi, was invited to Films Division of India in Mumbai to establish and train the country's first animation studio as part of the American technical co-operation mission. He trained a core group of Indian animators, whose first production was a film called The Banyan Deer (1957). Veteran animator Ram Mohan started his career at Films Division's Cartoon Unit.
Another landmark animated film from Films Division is Ek Anek Aur Ekta, a short traditionally animated educational film released in 1974. The film is presented as a fable meant to teach children the value of unity, and was frequently broadcast on India's state-run television station, Doordarshan. The first Indian animated television series was Ghayab Aaya, which aired in 1986 and was directed by Suddhasattwa Basu. The first Indian 3D and VFX were done for the television series Captain Vyom by animation. Read more... 
In this example from the open source project Sintel, four facial expressions have been defined as deformations of the face geometry. The mouth is then animated by morphing between these deformations. Dozens of similar controllers are used to animate the rest of the face.
Morph target animation, per-vertex animation, shape interpolation, shape keys, or blend shapes is a method of 3D computer animation used together with techniques such as skeletal animation. In a morph target animation, a "deformed" version of a mesh is stored as a series of vertex positions. In each key frame of an animation, the vertices are then interpolated between these stored positions. Read more...
A pixel artist is a graphic designer who specializes in computer art and can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation. Similar to chromoluminarism used in the pointillism style of painting, in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors, a pixel artist works with pixels, the smallest piece of information in an image. The technique relies on the perceptive ability of the eye and mind of the viewer to mix the color spots into a fuller range of tones. Pixel art is often utilitarian and anonymous. Pixel design can refer to both the process (designing) by which the communication is created and the products (designs) which are generated.
Common uses of pixel design include print and broadcast media, web design and games. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of design especially when utilizing pre-existing materials or using diverse elements. Pixel artists can also be a specialist in computer animation such as Computer Animation Production System users in post production of animated films and rendering (computer graphics) images like raster graphics. Read more...- Action League Now! (also known as Action League Now!: The Series when spun-off into its own television series) is an American stop motion animated children's television series that was originally part of All That and then KaBlam! on Nickelodeon, and was later spun off into its own show that premiered on Nickelodeon on November 25, 2001, and ending its run on February 10, 2002. It was made using "chuckimation", a combination of stop-frame animation and live-action shots where things are simply thrown ("chucked") or dropped into frame or wiggled around to simulate talking. The series follows the adventures of a superhero league, composed of various action figures, toys, and dolls. The show was created by Robert Mittenthal, Will McRobb, and Albie Hecht.
Most episodes took place in a house of an unseen resident. Many of the characters were voiced by radio personalities from Pittsburgh. Read more... - Chinese animation (simplified Chinese: 中国动画; traditional Chinese: 中國動畫; pinyin: Zhōngguó dònghuà) or Donghua, in a narrow sense, refers to animation made in China. Read more...
- Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated characters to life. The role of a Character Animator is analogous to that of a film or stage actor, and character animators are often said to be "actors with a pencil" (or a mouse). Character animators breathe life in their characters, creating the illusion of thought, emotion and personality. Character animation is often distinguished from creature animation, which involves bringing photo-realistic animals and creatures to life. Read more...
- This is a list of films that showcase stop motion animation, and is divided into three sections: Animated features, Live action features, and Animated shorts. For films made using puppetry (in other words, using puppets but not animation), please see. Note: This list includes films that are not exclusively stop motion. Read more...
- Barrier-grid animation, also known as a kinegram, and "picket fence" animation, which was originated in the late 1890s and then re-popularized by Rufus Butler Seder's trademarked "Scanimation(r)" books in the early 2000s, is an animation effect created by moving a striped transparent overlay across an interlaced image. The barrier-grid technique and its history overlap with parallax stereography (also known as "Relièphographie") for 3D autostereograms. The technique has also been used for color-changing pictures, but to a much lesser extent.
The development of barrier-grid technologies can also be regarded as a step towards lenticular printing, although the technique has remained after the invention of lenticular technologies as a relatively cheap and simple way to produce animated images in print. Read more... - Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production, but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
The exact definition of what is and is not digital puppetry is subject to debate among puppeteers and computer graphics designers, but it is generally agreed that digital puppetry differs from conventional computer animation in that it involves performing characters in real time, rather than animating them frame by frame. Read more... - The history of Canadian animation involves a considerable element of the realities of a country neighbouring the United States and both competitiveness and co-operation cross-border. Read more...
- Animation in Malaysia (known as Animasi in Malay) has origins in the puppetry style of wayang kulit, wherein the characters are controlled by the puppeteer, or Tok Dalang. Chinese shadow play inspired German filmmaker Lotte Reiniger to create the animated The Adventures of Prince Achmed in 1926 that was based on one of the stories in the 1001 Nights stories. Many of the world's animators have credited Prince Achmed`s recognisable style for generating their initial interest in animation as well as in their works. Read more...
- The following lists of animation studios presents current and former organizations similar to artists studios but principally dedicated to the production and distribution of animated films. Such studios may be actual production facilities or corporate entities. The countries with the most listed, active studios, are Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom and South Korea, but studios are found across all continents. Read more...
- The history of Hungarian animation begins in 1914 and carries through to the modern day. Starting with short promotional cartoons prior to the two World Wars, Hungarian animation underwent a sporadic and halting development during the turbulent war years which were characterized in large part by the emigration of much of the field's top talent. This exodus slowed dramatically during the 1950s when the Hungarian Communist Party took power and the Iron Curtain took shape.
With Communism came nationalization of the Hungarian animation studio—a fact that was to prove a mixed blessing for the nascent industry. While political pressures would strongly dictate the kinds of topics that animation could cover in the early years, state funding meant that even the relatively small postwar nation would be able to prove itself on the international stage. Indeed, subsequent to the 1956 revolution, the softening effects of Goulash Communism helped enable artists to begin to express themselves such that by the late 1970s, Pannónia Film Stúdió would rank among the top 5 major cartoon studios alongside Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Soyuzmultfilm, and Toei. Read more...
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Selected images
World of Color hydrotechnics at Disney California Adventure creates illusion of motion using 1200 fountains with high-definition projections on mist screens.
This animation moves at 10 frames per second.
A projecting praxinoscope, 1882, here shown superimposing an animated figure on a separately projected background scene
A phenakistoscope disc by Eadweard Muybridge (1893)
An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping from Eadweard Muybridge's 19th-century photos
The oldest known animated film created by using what became known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation—the 1908 Fantasmagorie by Émile Cohl
Italian-Argentine cartoonist Quirino Cristiani showing the cut and articulated figure of his satirical character El Peludo (based on President Yrigoyen) patented in 1916 for the realization of his movies, including the world's first animated feature film El Apóstol.
A 2D animation of two circles joined by a chain
The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these six frames.
A clay animation scene from a Finnish television commercial
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