Animation Report

Brief History of Animation: (How it started)

The first known type of projected animation was the Magic Lantern in 1650. This allowed an image to be projected onto an adjacent flat surface. This was used to try and convince people that they were witnessing the supernatural by using frightening images. In 1824 the first type of stop motion animation was the Thaumatrope a popular toy in the Victorian times. This was simply a disk spun on thread that merged two images on either side to make a single new picture. Advancing from this was the Phenakistoscope constructed in 1831 by the Belgian Scientist Dr Joeseph Antoine Plateau and Austrian Dr Simon Ritter. It consists of a disk with a series of drawn on images evenly spread out around the edge. When spun you would only be able to see one section of the spinner so as it spun it would form a moving image. In 1834 a more improved device was suggested and from the 1860’s the Zeotrope was marketed. The zoetrope had several advantages over the basic phenakistoscope. It didn't require the use of a mirror to view the illusion, and because of its cylindrical shape it could be viewed by several people at once. Then there was the Flipbook in 1868 and by the 1900’s the projection of animation progressed more than anything. The first animation film was produced in 1906 and the animation advanced from then on, with the technological advances we were able to create computer animated cartoons. This became very popular as it was less time consuming than the traditional animation techniques.

Computer Animation:

The roots of computer animation began with computer graphics pioneers in the early 1960s working at major U.S. research institutes, often with government funding. Their earliest films were scientific simulations with titles like "Flow of a Viscous Fluid" and "Propagation of Shock Waves in a Solid Form

 The animator can use a specific software to draw, model and animate objects and characters in vast digital landscapes. The animator can also draws the objects and characters by hand. Then he positions his creations in key frames, which form an outline of the most important movements. Then the software uses mathematical algorithms to fill in the "in-between" frames. This process is called tweening. Key framing and tweening are traditional animation techniques that can be done by hand, but are accomplished much faster with a computer.

The mathematical algorithms are used so objects can be programmed to or break physical laws like gravity, mass and force or create multiple images of the same object like herds or flocks. For example: With computer-generated animation, instead of animating each hair on a monster's head, the monster's fur is designed to wave gently in the wind and lie flat when wet.

The increasing sophistication and realism of 3-D animation is down to an exponential growth in computer processing power. Today, a standard desktop computer runs 5,000 times faster than those used by computer graphics pioneers in the 1960s. And the cost of the basic technology for creating computer animation has gone from $500,000 to less than $2,000.

Computer Animations has progresses so much it is now able to use live action capturing a real performer acting out a scene wearing the right clothing and markers. As of 2007 games and films such as Avatar generally use this type of computer animated method. As the keyframe animation can produce motions that would be impossible to act out. Here is an example of this technique from Pirates of the Carabean: Dead Mans Chest when actor Bill Nighy provided performance for his character Davy Jones although he wasn't seen in the film.

Clay Animation:

An altenate to computer generated Animation is the more time consuming clay animation. This method means each object or character is sculpted from clay or plasticine which is usually around a wire skeleton called an armature, and then arranged on the set, where it is photographed once before being slightly moved by hand to prepare it for the next shot, and so on until the animator has achieved the desired amount of film. Animations such as Wallace and Gromit have dozens of models of the main characters modelled ready for when they break or need changing for different scenes.

Clay animation requires a consistent shooting environment to maintain the illusion of continuity. The objects must be consistently placed and lit, and work must proceed in a calm environment. The high requirements and time consumption make this a very expensive form of animation however immensely popular as Pingu and Wallace and Gromit are very famous and well known.

Another technique of clay animation is clay melting this is where any kind of heat source can be applied on, near or below the clay to cause it to melt while an animation camera on a time-lapse setting slowly films the process. An early shot clay-animation "Closed Mondays" uses this technique at the end of the computer sequence when it mutates.

 

Cel Animation:

Cel Animation is a traditional method that was was originally created on sheets of transparent cellulose acetate for drawing cartoon frames as the sheets could be laid over other cels or a painted background and then photographed. Cel animation is highly complicated and time consuming so as technology advanced it was phased out by computer generated graphics. Disney Studios stopped using cel animation in 1990's as computer animation replaced the cel animation element in the animation process.

The very first method of Cel animation was the zoetrope. This was a spinning cylinder with open slits that would allow viewing from several people at once. After Edisons discovery and the invention of motion pictures in 1889, film director Emile Cohl combined more than 700 still drawings, which were then each photographed individually. When he combined all of the shots together, the drawings appeared to be moving on the film, "Fantasmagorie," which was released in 1908. Other animated films soon followed like "Gertie the Dinosaur" in 1914  and "Felix the Cat,". As Computer Animation took over Cell Animation there wasn't alot of Cel Animations made after this.Here is the Cel Animation Gerie the Dinosour.

 

Bibliography:

http://www.joshuamosley.com/UPenn/courses/Ani/AnimationHistory.html

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/computer-animation1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_animation#Computer_animation_development_equipment