Hello viewers, in this blog I will be going over the 5 main types of animation.
1. Traditional animation: This is sometimes referred to as cell animation is one of the older forms of animation. In it the animator draws every frame to create the animation sequence just like how they used to do it in the old days at Disney. Sequential drawings going quickly one after another create the illusion of movement. Traditional animation consists of hand drawings called frames. It is usually animated on 12 frames per second, with occasional faster actions animated at 24 frames per second.
2. 2-D animation:
The next type of animation is 2-D animation. It is also known as vector-based animation. This style has become increasingly popular in the last decade due to the accessibility of the technology. This can be easily done in Flash animation through 2-D animation softwares, as it is cheap and easy to use. The reason why this is kept in a different category than traditional animation is that animators can create rigs for the characters and move the body parts individually instead of drawing the character over and over again. Aftereffects allows one to create complex rigs for the animation or use the puppet tool to drag and move body parts around. These flexibilities give beginners more options when doing animation, especially if drawing isn’t their strong suit, unlike traditional animation where drawing skills are mandatory.
3. Computer animation (3-D animation):
This is the most common form of animation today and works in a completely different way than traditional animation. The technical skillset required is very different in this. While in the past you had to be an amazing draftsman to be an animator with computer animation that is not the case. 3-D animation is more similar to playing with puppets, rather than drawing. The animator moves the character in a 3-D program like Blender, with special controls that are connected to each body part, such as hand, elbow, lips, etc., and then sets a ‘keyframe’ when all body parts are in the right position. They then proceed to move forward in time and move the controls again to create another ‘keyframe’. The computer then calculates the journey that the body parts is going through between each of those keyframes. A 3-D animator will spend most of their time looking at curves that represent the movement of different body parts over time. Another big difference with 3-D animation is that unlike traditional animation, the character’s body parts are always present and should be taken into consideration. It is usually animated with 24 frames per second.
4. Motion Graphics:
Next on the list is motion graphics. While still considered a form of animation motion graphics is rather different than the other types of animation on the list, mostly because unlike the other types, it is not character or story driven. It is the art of creatively moving graphic elements or text, usually for commercial or promotional purposes. Animated videos, explainer videos, app commercials, television promos or even film opening titles.
5. Stop Motion: Last type is stop motion. Stop motion is a special form of animation that combines live action film making principles with traditional character animation. Stop motion is done by taking a photo of an object and then moving it just a little bit and taking another photo. The process is then repeated and when photos are played back one after another, they give the illusion of movement. This is similar to traditional animation but uses real life material instead of drawings. There are many different styles of stop motion like Claymation, using actual puppets and cut-outs. The biggest example I can think of for stop motion is the Lego movie. Wherein they used stop motion animation on Lego characters to make the entire movie.
Hope you had a great time reading this article and see you in the next article of Pixels In Motion!
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