Basic Types of Animation

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, The Simpsons - are favorite cartoons of kids as well as adults. All these cartoon characters are the creation of the wonderful art of animation that captivates our eyes and makes our childhood days full of fun. How are these cartoons displayed on television or Internet? Let's find out...

Basic animation is an easy and single keyframe animation. Animation is a presentation of various displays and movements, which adds liveliness to your site or film. The Internet users are usually fond of browsing a website that is well animated with good graphics. A web designer cannot ideate his website without the application of basic animation, due to its virtual advantages in the Internet market. In simple words, basic animation is the the illusion of different movements, linked together in a proper way so that visitors/audiences get the effect of seeing a well coordinated set of actions.

Generally, this beautiful animation art is created using the Java language. For example. If you want to show a bouncing ball, you need to draw various positions of the ball in different drawings or 'frames' as they are called. In the first drawing, you can show the ball resting on the ground, in the second frame, the ball slightly above the ground, the third one will show the ball 2 - 3 feet above the ground, in the fourth one the ball will come down a bit and so on till finally the ball is on the ground. These drawings are composed together with the help of computer scanning, use of software, matching sound effects, time management and shooting with a camera. In the final result you will find an animation similar to the live action of a boy bouncing the ball up and down on the ground.

3 Basic Types of Animation
The basic types of animation are the primary keynote for animation effect. The 3 basic types of animation are cel, stop and computer animation.

Cel Animation
Cel animation refers to the traditional way of animation in a set of hand drawings. In this process of animation, various pictures are created which are slightly different but progressive in nature, to depict certain actions. Trace these drawings on a transparent sheet. This transparent sheet is known as cel and is a medium for drawing frames. Now draw outlines for the images and color them on the back of the cel. The cel is an effective technique that helps to save time by combining characters and backgrounds. You can also put the previous drawings over other backgrounds or cels whenever required. Here, you need not draw the same picture again as it has the facility of saving previous animations that can be used when required. Coloring a background may be a more difficult task than a single drawing, as it covers the whole picture. Background requires shading and lighting and will be viewed for a longer duration. Then use your camera to photograph these drawings. Today, cel animations are made more attractive by using the drawings together with music, matching sound effects and association of timing for each effect. E.g. To display a cartoon show, 10-12 frames are played in rapid succession per second to give a representation of movement in a cel animation.

Stop Animation
Stop animation or stop motion animation is a technique to make objects move on their own. Here, a few images are drawn with some different positions and photographed separately. Puppetry is the one of the most used frame-to-frame animation types. Some famous movies that are animated via stop animation effects are King Kong, The Dinosaur and the Missing Link, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and and The Lost World.

Computer Animation
Computer Animation is the latest technique of animation that includes 2D and 3D animation. These animations not only enhance the hand-drawn characters but also make them appear real as compared to the above mentioned animations.

2D Animation: It is used through Powerpoint and Flash animations. Though its features are similar to cel animation, 2D animation has become popular due to simple application of scanned drawings into the computer like in a cartoon film.

3D Animation: It is used in film making where we require unusual objects or characters that are not easy to display. Use of 3D animation can create a crowd of people in a disaster like earthquake, flood or war. There are different shapes, support of mathematical codes, display of actions and colors which are mind-blowing as if copied from an actual picture.

The above mentioned 3 basic types of animation have brought a new era of amazing technology in the field of Internet (website design and graphics), film industry and media. In addition, animation is the one of the popular Internet marketing strategies that make visitors stay on your site for a longer time.