Persistence of vision (M1)

Persistence of vision is a visual illusion which is the basis for not just animation, but all forms of moving pictures. It was discovered by Roman poet Lucreius. Sight is made possible when the eyes see an image and in turn sends the information to be processed by the brain. This process can only happen so many times a second, so if you where to flip through sequential images of a man walking at a certain speed the brain can process only so much information at one time, this gives the illusion that the images are moving.

This also applies to all form of moving images, where in film the motion is in fact thousands of images being shown one after the other, where in animation it’s the same principle but with drawn or rendered images. The minimum speed that images need to be shown in order to create the illusion is at 24 frames per second (frames being pictures). But apparently there are people who are able to process images faster than 24 frames.

The theory has been controversial due to a lack of evidence to prove this theory and was apparently debunked back in 1912. However it is still taught in schools and used by animators, probably because no one really cares. The correct theory is beta movement but no one uses that one so forget about it anyway.

Tools for animation (P4)

Frames - The basic principle of animation is based around the use of frames. Movement is achieved by showing a sequence of pictures at such a speed that it appears as if the image is moving, frames simply refers to each picture that makes up the animation. There are two types of frames, key frames and in-betweens. Key frames are the key points in the movement the animator is trying to achieve, instead of drawing the frames in a sequential order animators first draw the extreme movements that take place two or three times over the course of a second. The in-betweens are the frames that fill the gaps of the key frames allowing the animation to flow smoothly and flawlessly from pose to pose. This is a very useful method as it gives the animator a good reference when they are trying to figure out how to make to movement flow naturally while keeping accurate and consistent.





Layers - These are different planes in which your drawings can be placed without having to worry about compromising other objects on the stage. This makes drawing and placing things such as backgrounds and other scenery objects much easier as it allows for easy editing and experimentation. Plus it is much easier than the alternative of having to draw the background again and again for every frame.










Tweening - Certain animation software packages allow several options that automatically place in-betweens between the key frames of your choosing, this comes in the form of two options them being motion tween and shape tweening. Motion tweening if you have an object located at two different positions on the stage on two different frames, the motion tween makes it so that between those two frames it will add frames where the object will move from one position to the other. Shape tweens are very similar to morphing in that if you had two different shapes like say a triangle and a square, placing a shape tween between the two frames will see the triangle morph into a square. While it may seem easier it is actually very limited compared to drawing your own in-betweens, although it does have its uses, like animating simple movements like clouds drifting in the background.

Animation software comparison (D1)

Adobe flash

Adobe flash is a vector image program used for animation. Flash started off being used as a tool for creating animation and games on the internet, it proved to be effective enough that soon animation studios would use the program to animate shows for television. Flash was also a popular tool for creating websites, and allowed people to add all sorts of fancy features. But this soon died out, as people with slower PC’s would only be hampered by all the information it had to process, that and people decided on fancy but unintuitive navigation systems which were just annoying. These things cobbled together makes flash an ultimately troublesome web design tool for anyone who is trying to run a serious business, because all they did for their potential customers is waste their time.

Of course since Adobe software is made to be sold to big companies, obtaining flash is a problem for those with a limited budget.

Maya

Maya is a 3D modelling program published by Autodesk. It has gone through multiple iterations in order to stream line the modelling process. The process of modeling in Maya involves stating from a basic shape, from there the user molds and adds on to the shape to create industry standard models. Animating your 3D models is very similar to animating with adobe flash, but instead of drawing each frame you are instead posing your model frame by frame.  Unfortunately it is just as expensive as adobe flash, the software also requires a lot of practice to properly use.

Blender

Blender like Maya is a 3D modeling program published by developed by the blender foundation. It is a free open source program that gives the user the tools they need to create and animate their own 3D models.

Uses for animation (P2)

Entertainment - The oldest and most well known use for animation, in fact I could say that this purpose even branches out to its other uses, but we'll get to that later. Animation as entertainment is mostly seen in child programming. This is because its a cheap and easy way of creating bright and colourful shows for younger children. However this does not mean that animation has no place for older audiences as animation allows for a lot of freedom for what can be done as opposed to film, where something is either impossible to do or just looks fake when put next to real life actors.



Education - Animation is a very useful tool for educating children, because when done right educational animation can hold a child or just about anyone's attention. This is because it lets you show them the information in an interesting way that's more likely to stick with them than simple words on a screen.





Advertisements - The best kind (or sometimes the worst kind) of adverts are the ones that stick with you, animation opens the way for advertisers to experiment with new ideas that would be otherwise impossible. It doesn't even have to be some big extravagant production, for instance people remember those Bupa adverts just fine and those were just a bunch of shapes. 

Comparing animation formats (M2)

Dynamic HTML: A term that refers to scripting language used for creating interactive websites, this includes HTML, CSS Java. It relies on using programming language to customise the page to create an interactive webpage. It runs faster than its counterparts as it does not need to load the full webpage in order for it to run properly, it also does not require any plug-ins to function as it is usable within browsers giving it good functionality and utility.
However it is fairly complex to integrate and edit, as it requires a fair amount of complex coding in order to properly function. It also rejects other browsers if it has been designed with a single one in mind.

Flash: The video format used by Adobe, it calculates images in vector format and then rendered as a raster image. This gives it a higher quality look when compared to regular raster images, since the quality of the pixels is dependent on the monitor. It allows for a great amount of customisation for interactivity than its fellow formats. It can give a website a professional look or add an amount of fun to a website, it is also compatible with multiple browsers.
But flash takes a lot longer to load than its counterparts, requiring your computer to download the flash files before you are able to view the site. This is off putting to a lot of people and could cause them to leave before viewing all your hard work. As such it is better not to use an excessive amount of flash for important business sites, otherwise you'll end up boring potential customers, the exact opposite of the sites intention. It requires you to download the flash player, although it is free.

Shockwave: A multimedia platform owned by Adobe prior to Flash, that is used to add interactivity to web pages  It was designed to create web based movies and animations, it has also found a use in developing browser based games. It allows for more versatile and elaborate interactivity on your web pages and is able to use a wider range of file types such as Flash, but this does not work the other way around. However it is considered more expensive than Flash, it also requires a lot of technical know how in order to fully utilise its capabilities.

QuickTime: Multimedia framework initially developed for Windows XP and Mac OS, it is capable of handling digital video, images and interactivity. The format is completely free to use and does not require it to be downloaded. Speaking of things that don't need to be downloaded , QuickTime allows you to watch a video before its finished downloading, a great convenience for the viewer. However since QuickTime is a streaming format, the quality of its performance is based on your broadband connection, meaning anyone with a poor connection to the Internet will have problems with their loading speeds.

Real-player: A cross platform media player for recorded media. It allows its user to use any video player they see fit and is fast and easier to install than Quicktime. But it also displays a lot of annoying advertisements in the form of pop-ups, that and the fact that other people have to download the application to use it make it not that popular.

Types of Animation (P1)

footage old an old Victorian rotoscope.

Movement

What the animation depicts when in motion. Animation, (or any filmed motion) is at its core just a set of pictures being shown one after the other, at such a pace that it creates the illusion of movement.

A making effect used by pixar to make 3D images on 2D characters.

Masking

 A film making technique that evolves cutting out pieces of film or objects from an image that don’t need to be seen by the audience. It is also used in animation, for instance the first season of South Park, where the animation had each body part and facial feature separate. Leaving them to change or take away bits and pieces to animate the characters.

An example of morphing

Morphing

Morphing is an effect that turns one image into another seamlessly. It was first used in the motion picture film The Golden child in 1986. It is a computer effect that was mostly used for transformation sequences.