Different Types Of Animation And Techniques

Thaurmatrope

One type of animation technique is a thaurmatrope. A thormatrope was a popular Victorian toy in the 19th century. It was a disk or card with a picture on each side and is attached to two pieces of strings. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of the vision. An example of common thaumatrope pictures include a bare tree on one side of the disk, and its leaves on the other.

Below is a bird cage example:

Flipbook/Flickbook

A flip book or a flick book is like a thaurmatrope but with a series of pictures that vary gradually from one page to the next. Anyone can use a flip book as long as you draw the picture correctly and flip it at a fast speed so that when the pages are turned rapidly the pictures appear to animate by simulating motion.

Drawn Animation/Traditional Animation

Drawn animation is where animators draw each frame of the film. This is a similar method to the flip book as each frame is drawn slightly differently from the previous one. For a drawn animation you can use marker pens and a very sketchy drawing technique, so that the pictures are constantly moving.

An example of a drawn animation.

Zoetrope (Wheel of life)

A Zoetrope, invented by William Horner in 1834, is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. The Zoetrope is considered the forerunner of a cinema film. A Zoetrope was originally called the daedalum which means (wheel of the devil).

Stop Motion/Claymation

Claymation is a type of stop-motion animation where a scene is set up, a picture is taken on a camera and then the scene is moved. Another picture is taken and so on. In claymation the models can be puppets,clay or another material that is malleable. Claymation gives it a 3D effect that is often lacking in other techniques. A good example of claymation is Wallace and Gromit,Pingu or morph. I’d say the target audience for clay animations are for children because they can’t use a lot of violence in them as it would be hard to do that with clay. Also, most of the clay animations are funny.

Stop-motion / Cutout

Cutout stop-motion is when you use flat character, proper and backgrounds cut from different materials such as paper, card, stiff fabric or even photographs. The Cut-out method is rarely used in modern animation, however, animators such as Mat Stone and Trey Parker have had worldwide success with their creation ‘Southpark’.

Cel Animation

A cel, short for celluloid, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted on for traditional, hand-drawn animation. To make a cel animation you draw images onto the cels then they are overlaid to create a composite image. One cel would contain the background and the others would contain the moving parts. This method can be seen in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, the old Mickey mouse and The Flintstones.

Rotoscoping Animation

Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame (one frame at a time), to produce realistic action. This technique was originally used by filming scenes in live actions and then projecting the film onto glass panels so an animator could trace the action in every frame. Many of Disney’s early titles such as Snow White and Cinderella were all created by using Rotoscoping.

CGI Animation

CGI stands for computer generated imagery (can also be known as computer animation) this technique is used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. Using CGI animation creates three dimensional images. When the designers make CGI animation they create a series of computer generated graphics then once they have made the series of graphics they bring it to life using details such as texture, lighting, and color. The benefits of CGI is that it can create high quality images that would not be possible by using traditional techniques. One of the first movies to use CGI Animation was ‘West world’ in 1973 by Michael Crichton’s.

Animation Stop Motion Practice

Today I have learnt how to make a GIF animation on Photoshop.

Firstly , we made a story board to plan our animation to get an idea in our head of what is going to happen in it.

Then we had to take multiple pictures for the animation to run smoothly once we have finished it on Photoshop.

I then learnt how to place the images into Photoshop and make it into an animation.

This is my animation.

I thought it was quite easy to make the whole animation but if I was too make it again I would take more pictures of mini movements to make it look more smoothly and to make it clear that the Lego man is running away from the skeleton in the block.

However, it was quite hard to take pictures for each scene because you had to do it perfectly to make it look like the figures are moving. Apart from that i enjoyed making this animation because it was really fun.

Camera Angles

We have been talking about the different camera angles we can use in film production and the effect that it gives to the viewers.

Here are the following angles we have been talking about and a small description about them:

Close Up

A close up is a photography or movie shot taken of a subject or object at closer range intended to show greater detail to the viewer.  It is designed to focus attention on the actor’s expressions whether they are sad or happy etc.  Also, it is used to show intricate activities with their hands.

A few examples of the different close up angles:

• Medium Close Up: Halfway between a mid-shot and a close-up. Usually covers the subject’s head and shoulders.

• Close Up: A certain feature, such as someone’s head, takes up the whole frame.

• Extreme Close Up: The shot is so tight that only a detail of the subject, such as someone’s eyes, can be seen.

• Lean-In: When the juxtaposition of shots in a sequence, usually in a scene of dialogue, starts with medium or long shots, for example, and ends with close-ups.

• Lean-Out: The opposite of a lean-in, moving from close-ups out to longer shots.

• Lean: When a lean-in is followed by a lean-out.

Extreme Close-Up

An extreme close up angle is used in film to allow the viewer to enter the character’s intimate space. The extreme close up reveals certain characteristics and emotions that would otherwise go unnoticed from far away. This is also used to create a dramatic effect.

Medium Close-Up

The medium closeup is halfway between a mid-shot and a close up. This shot shows the face more clearly, without getting uncomfortably close. Medium shots are also good for small group shots such as a conversation between characters. This shot is often used for filming a group of people, more than three or four.

Extreme long shot

The extreme long shot shows the audience the location and the time of the movie (Time of day). When the audience knows the location, they can predict how the actions could take place and this can give curiosity to the audience. Also knowing the atmosphere could directly show the genre of the movie. For example, if the scene is taken at night and it is showing scary houses, then you know it is a scary movie.

Long Shot

A long shot (can be referred as a ‘wide shot’ or ‘Full shot’) typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. A long shot also means that the object or human takes up almost the full frame.  The long shot can also be used to show a group of people huddled closely together which can sometimes suggest that they are in fear of something that is in front or behind them.

A Birds-Eye view

A bird’s-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the audience were a bird. Familiar objects viewed from this angle might seem unrecognizable at first for example an umbrella in a crowd. For example, in a Birds-Eye view we can see if the scene is set in the back garden of a house. This higher view also allows the audience too see the distance which the subject has been raised from the ground. A bird’s eye view can be shown from 3 different angles a low angle, a high angle and an eye level angle.

Skill Building

Story board & Photoshop

Today we have learnt how to draw a scene from our favorite film onto a story board. Then we learnt how to draw our story board on Photoshop. We practiced first by placing pictures into and empty storyboard of clay animations. Also we talked about how a simple stick man can be turned into an animation.

Using Construct 2

Then we learned how to use construct 2 by drawing Pacman and a few ghosts as enemies importing different behaviors too it. For Pacman we made it go different directions so we can move it with the arrow keys and then for the ghost we made the speed different so when we actually played it, it would be impossible for Pacman to escape to make the animation game more fun.

Idea Generation

We have talked about the different methods of innovations.

The 5 different methods are Derivative, Symbiotic idea, Artistic innovation, Targeted innovation and Serendipitous.

Artistic innovation is having a visual view of what your planning on doing for example a visual diagram.

Symbiotic is brainstorming ideas together.

Targeted innovation is where you have a certain age or gender that your making the game for.

Serendipitous is when you constantly add things to your plan.

We talked about how we can use these methods too create our non-digital games for my non digital game I used the method of Derivative ideas which means that you can use something that already exists but change it too something different or add things to a specific non-digital games.

I have used cluedo but changed it too a mine craft version.

Playground games

We also talked about how when we were children we were more adventurous with our imagination for example we would climb up trees use sticks as swords etc. Where as children nowadays have more availability too Ipads, Iphones and xbox’s etc.

We used the idea of playground games too create our non digital-board game.

Digital Art

We were using digital online art called paint.net to create our cup. For my cup I created a dog.

Photoshop

Today we learnt how to use Photoshop. We chose 3 images which was a background and two characters/Celebrities. Then we learnt how to import them into Photoshop and erase the background so it is just the stand alone picture itself.