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The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames.

This animation moves at 10 frames per second.

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision. This could be anything from a flip book to a motion picture film.

Contents 1 Early animation 2 Animation techniques 2.1 Traditional animation 2.2 Stop motion 2.3 Computer animation 2.4 Less common techniques 2.5 Combining techniques 2.6 Other techniques and approaches 3 See also 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit] Early animation

Further information: History of animation

There is no single person that can be considered the "creator" of the art of animation, as there were several people doing several projects which could be considered various types of animation all around the same time. The following is a brief on those who are often acknowledged as significant to the development of animation. Note that this list is by no means a comprehensive list of contributors to early animation.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special effect films, such as A Trip to the Moon. He used many techniques – one of which was to stop the camera rolling, change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This is a very similar idea to that of stop motion animation. Méliès accidentally happened upon the technique when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When the camera was fixed, a horse happened to be passing by just as Méliès continued to film. The result was that the bus appeared to change into a horse.

Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl, 1908

Émile Cohl began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look.

Winsor McCay created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper, requiring backgrounds to be redrawn, as well characters to be animated. His films such as Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) were of an impressive scale, although The Sinking of the Lusitania used cels.

In 1919 Otto Messmer created the character of Felix the cat for Pat Sullivan's animation studios. The importance of Felix lies in the character's strong personality, created largely through gesture and actions.

[edit] Animation techniques

Animation techniques are incredibly varied and difficult to categorize. Techniques are often related or combined. The following is a brief on common types of animation. Again, this list is by no means comprehensive.

[edit] Traditional animation

An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping from Edweard Muybridge's 19th century photos.

Main article: Traditional animation

Also called cel animation, the frames of a traditionally animated movie are hand-drawn. The drawings are traced or copied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are then placed over a painted background and photographed one by one on a rostrum camera. Nowadays, the use of cels (and cameras) is mostly obsolete, since the drawings are scanned into computers, and digitally transferred directly to 35 mm film. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animator's work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Because of the digital influence over modern cel animation, it is also known as tradigital animation.
Examples: The Lion King, Spirited Away, Les Triplettes de Belleville

Full animation

The most common style in animation, known for its realistic and often very detailed art.

Examples: All Disney feature length animated films, The Secret of NIMH, The Iron Giant

Limited animation

A cheaper process of making animated cartoons that does not follow a "realistic" approach.

Examples: The Flintstones, Yellow Submarine

Rubber hose

The characters are usually cartoony, and the animators have a lot of artistic freedom as rubber hose animations don't have to follow the laws of physics and anatomy in the same degree as the other main styles in animation.

Examples: Early Mickey Mouse cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, Popeye