How does Computer Animation Work

Computer animation fills you with a sense of wonder and awe, whether it is watching a mammoth roam about in Ice Age or a penguin dance in Happy Feet. Let's find out the main steps involved in computer animation. Each image in an animated film is called a frame. A storyboard that is derived from the script and illustrates the plot of the film is created to help the animator. The dialogue of the voice artists is also recorded to guide the animator.

The lead animator then creates the keyframes at specific points of time. For example, the lead animator creates the key images of a car on the left side of the screen at the 1 second mark, and the same car on the right side of the screen at the 5 second mark. This process is called keyframing. In traditional animation, junior animators fill the gaps by creating the frames in between the 1 second mark and 5 second mark. This process is called tweening. In computer animation, there are no junior animators to do the tweening. Instead, the computer does the tweening.

How does Animation Work

Traditional animation can be seen in Japanese anime and superhero cartoons. In traditional animation, animators drew on cels, which were sheets of transparent celluloid. The cels were then placed on top of a painted background. In computer animation, instead of cels, there are layers. Computer animation is used to develop video games. Computer puppetry can also be used to move CGI (computer-generated imagery) characters. Computer animation was also used to create realistic dinosaurs, which were combined with live action in Jurassic Park.

Computer animation can be 2D or 3D. 2D animation was used for the special effects in the film E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. One kind of 2D animation is sprite animation, which is a sequence of images that change. Sprite animation is very fast, but the quality is not that great. Morphing, in which one object changes shape until it becomes another, was used in the Michael Jackson video Black or White. Computer animation also allows the removal of objects from a scene. For example, a part of a bridge was removed in the film Speed. Objects such as mountains and clouds can also be created by fractal equations. Fractal animation can be used to render earthquakes and moving clouds.

3D animation is used to create virtual worlds in games, such as Second Life. An articulated model can be used to represent the joints in a human body. A particle system can be used to show the collision of points with each other, and can be used to model water spray. Deformable objects are used to model hair and water. When an object moves too fast, it causes the problem of aliasing, which is solved by motion blurring. Generating the motion of an object should be realistic. Interpolation is when a computer calculates what is happening between two keyframes. Linear interpolation is not as lifelike as splines. Often, what a computer thinks is happening between two keyframes, is not what you want at all.

Inverse kinematics and forward kinematics are opposites of each other. In kinematics, the position of an object affects the position of an object below it in the tree hierarchy. In inverse kinematics, the position of an object affects the position of an object above it in the tree hierarchy. Passive simulation is used to determine the movement of bodies that cannot move voluntarily, such as clothes and the leaves of a tree. Active simulation is used to determine the movement of bodies that can move voluntarily, such as animals and robots. Motion capture uses special sensors called trackers, to create a representation of a live performance.

If computer animation is believable, then watching living beings move, walk and run can give you an amazing feeling, whether you're ten years old or thirty years old. Now that you understand how computer animation works, you will be able to more appreciate the latest Pixar or DreamWorks releases.