Animation

techniques
 Optical illusions of motion

■ Persistence of vision refers to the optical illusion whereby multiple discrete images blend into a single
image in the human mind and believed to be the explanation for motion perception in cinema and
animated films. Like other illusions of visual perception, it is produced by certain characteristics of the
visual system. Narrowly defined, the theory of persistence of vision is the belief that human
perception of motion (brain centred) is the result of persistence of vision (eye centred). However, this
theory was disaproved by Wertheimer in 1912 yet persists in citations in many classic and modern
film-theory texts. A more plausible theory to explain motion perception are two distinct perceptual
illusions: phi phenomenon and beta movement.
■ The Phi phenomenon refers to an optical illusion in which a sequence of images can trick the brain into
seeing moving images and is caused by a changing static image. The beta movement also refers to a
series of static images on a screen which can trick us into seeing a fluid movement animation,
provided the frame rate is greater than 10-12 individual images a second, and is caused by the
‘apparent’ motion between different lights sources that are switched on and off periodically similarly to
‘chase lighting’.
 Claymation

■ Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop
motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is
"deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
■ Traditional animation, from cel animation to stop motion, is created by recording each frame,
or still picture, on film or digital media and then playing the recorded frames back in
rapid succession before the viewer. These and other moving images, from zoetrope to
films to video games, create the illusion of motion by playing back at over ten to twelve
frames per second. The techniques involved in creating computer-generated imagery are
conversely generally removed from a frame-by-frame process.
■ Each object or character is sculpted from clay or other such similarly pliable material as
plasticine, 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.
Upon playback, the mind of the viewer perceives the series of slightly changing, rapidly
succeeding images as motion. A consistent shooting environment is needed to maintain
the illusion of continuity: objects must be consistently placed and lit, and work must
proceed in a calm environment.
 Stop motion

■ Stop motion, an animation technique, is used to physically manipulate an object so that it

appears to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between
individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of
frames is played as a fast sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often
used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using
plasticine is called clay animation or "clay-mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or
models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and
other things for comedic effect. Stop motion can also use sequential drawing in a similar
manner to traditional animation, such as a flip book. Stop motion using humans is
sometimes referred to as pixilation or pixilate animation.
■ Stop motion animation has a long history in film. It was often used to show objects moving as
if by magic. The first instance of the stop motion technique can be credited to Albert E.
Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph's The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), in which
a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life.
 Computer
generation
■ Frame rates- In drawn animation, moving characters are often shot "on twos", that is to say, one drawing is shown
for every two frames of film (which usually runs at 24 frames per second), meaning there are only 12 drawings
per second. Even though the image update rate is low, the fluidity is satisfactory for most subjects. However,
when a character is required to perform a quick movement, it is usually necessary to revert to animating "on
ones", as "twos" are too slow to convey the motion adequately. A blend of the two techniques keeps the eye
fooled without unnecessary production cost. Animation for most "Saturday morning cartoons" is produced as
cheaply as possible, and is most often shot on "threes", or even "fours", i.e. three or four frames per drawing.
This translates to only 8 or 6 drawings per second, respectively. Modern video formats utilize a variety of frame
rates. Due to the mains frequency of electric grids, analog television broadcast was developed with frame
rates of 50 Hz or 60 Hz, sometimes with video being interlaced so more motion information could be sent on
the same available broadcast bandwidth, and sometimes with video being broadcast at 25 or 30 fps with each
frame doubled. Film, which was almost universally shot at 24 frames per second, could not be displayed at its
native frame rate, which required pulldown conversion, often leading to "judder": to convert 24 frames per
second into 60 frames per second, every odd frame is doubled and every even frame is tripled, which creates
uneven motion.
■ Frames- A frame is uniquely defined by a combination of the image to be displayed and the
time the image is to be displayed. A sequence of frames makes an animation. Each
frame is displayed on the screen until the next frame overwrites it. Since each frame
remains displayed on the screen for a tiny but finite time period, you can think of an
animation as frames displayed at discreet intervals of time in a continued sequence. Any
scene change happens by drawing a whole new frame. Even changing a single pixel
requires drawing the next frame in its entirety. Furthermore, even if the image of the
scene remains constant, identical content must be drawn in subsequent frames as long
as the still scene is needed. In practice, the time needed to refresh the screen must be
negligible compared to the time the frame remains on the screen. If this were not so, the
viewer would notice the individual scene changes, which would be an awful animation
experience. In the case of a movie projector, the refresh time is the time that the shutter
remains closed while the next frame of film is loaded. In case of the computer monitor, it
is the time required for the monitor's electron gun to traverse the entire screen from left to
right and up to down to draw each pixel on the screen.
Key frames- A keyframe in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any
smooth transition. The drawings are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film.
A sequence of keyframes defines which movement the viewer will see, whereas the position of the keyframes on the film,
video, or animation defines the timing of the movement. Because only two or three keyframes over the span of a second
do not create the illusion of movement, the remaining frames are filled with in-betweens.
In software packages that support animation, especially 3D graphics, there are many parameters that can be changed for
any one object. One example of such an object is a light (In 3D graphics, lights function similarly to real-world lights. They
cause illumination, cast shadows, and create specular highlights). Lights have many parameters including light intensity,
beam size, light color, and the texture cast by the light. Supposing that an animator wants the beam size of the light to
change smoothly from one value to another within a predefined period of time, that could be achieved by using keyframes.
At the start of the animation, a beam size value is set. Another value is set for the end of the animation. Thus, the software
program automatically interpolates the two values, creating a smooth transition.
Onion skinning- Onion skinning is a 2D computer graphics term for a technique used in creating animated cartoons and
editing movies to see several frames at once. This way, the animator or editor can make decisions on how to create or
change an image based on the previous image in the sequence. In traditional cartoon animation, the individual frames of a
movie were initially drawn on thin onionskin paper over a light source. The animators (mostly inbetweeners) would put the
previous and next drawings exactly beneath the working drawing, so that they could draw the 'in between' to give a
smooth motion. In computer software, this effect is achieved by making frames translucent and projecting them on top of
each other. This effect can also be used to create motion blurs, as seen in The Matrix when characters dodge bullets.
Tweening- Inbetweening or tweening is a key process in all types of animation, including computer animation. It is the
process of generating intermediate frames between two images, called key frames, to give the appearance that the first
image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings which create the illusion of motion.
Traditional inbetweening involves the use of light tables to draw a set of pencil-on-paper pictures. In the inbetweening
workflow of traditional hand-drawn animation, the senior or key artist would draw the keyframes which define the
movement, then, after testing and approval of the rough animation, would hand over the scene to their assistant. The
assistant does the clean-up and the necessary inbetweens, or, in large studios, only some breakdowns which define the
movement in more detail, before handing down the scene to their assistant, the inbetweener, who does the rest.
 Conclusion

In conclusion, animation can be done using several techniques including Claymation,

stop motion, and computer generating. Usually, animation would be drawn on then
moved to look as if the animation is moving. Nowadays, Claymation along with stop
motion is often used. Claymation is when clay is used to sculpt out characters and
created frames using the sculpters to put together and make an animation. However,
the most often used animation is computer generated.
When completing this task I have found onion skinning the most interesting as this
was a new technique for me to learn about.