Introduction to Animation History

1.2.4 Contributions of others

The 1930s saw the proliferation of animation studios among them Fleischer, Iwerks, Van Beuren, Universal Pictures, etc. The technological advances were mostly complete by this period. The difference between with the various studios have to do more with artistic aspects of animation. Many of the notable animators in these studios were graduates of Disney's or Bray's studio.

 

1.2.5 Other media for animation

The rich heritage of hand-drawn animation makes it natural to consider it the precursor to computer animation. However, computer animation has a close relationship to other animation techniques as well. A good comparison can be made between computer animation and some of the stop-motion techniques such as clay and puppet animation. In the three-dimensional computer animation, one of the first steps is the modeling process. The models are manipulated to create the scene that are rendered to produce the images of the animation. Similarly, clay and puppet stop-motion animation use three-dimensional figures that are animated in separate, well-defined stages. Once the three-dimensional figures are created, they are used to lay out a three-dimensional environment. A camera is positioned to view the environment and record an image. One or more figures are manipulated  and the camera may be repositioned. The camera records another image of the scene and this process is repeated to produce the animated sequence. King Kong fame is generally considered the dean of this type of stop-motionanimation. Many recent impressive examples of three-dimensional stop-motion animation are Alice in Wonderland, Corpse Bride and Wallace and Gromit series.

Because of computer animation's close association with video technology, it has also been associated with video art, which depens on the analog manipulation of the video signal in producing effects such as colorization and warpoing. Because creating video art is a two-dimensional process, the relationship is viewed in the context of computer animation post-production techniques. This connection has faded because popularity of recording computer animation by digital means has eliminated most analog processing.

 

1.3 Animation production 

Production process merits some discussion in order to establish the context in which an animator works. It is useful to have familiarity with how a piece of animation is broken into parts and how a finished piece is produced.  Much of this is taken from conventional animation and is directly applicable to any type of animation.

A piece of animation is discussed using a four-level hierarchy. The entire project is referred to as the production. Typically productions are broken into major parts referred to as sequences. It is a major episode and is identified by an associated staging area. A production usually consists of one to a dozen sequences. A sequence is broken down into one or more shots. Each shot is the recording of the action from a single point of view. A shot is broken down into the individual frames of film.

Animation is a trial-and-error process that involves feed back from one stp to previous steps and demands several iterations through multiple steps at various times. The production of animation typically follows a standard pattern. First, a preliminary story is decided on, including a script. A storyboard is developed that lays out the action scenes by sketching representative frames. The frames are accompanied by text that sketches out the action taking place. This is used to present, review, and critique the action.

A model sheet consists of a number of drawings for each figure and is used to ensure that each figure's appearance is consistent as it. The exposure sheet records information for each frame such as sound track cues. The route sheet records the statistics and responsibility for each scene.

An animatic, or story reel, may be produced where the story board frames are recorded and creates rough review of the timing. Scratch track or rough sound track is built at the same time the story board is being developed and is included in the animatic. Key frames are identified and produced by master animators to aid in confirmation of timing, character development, and image quality. Associate and assistant animators are responsible for producing the frames between the keys; this is called in-betweening. Test shots, short sequences rendered in full color. Are used to test the rendering and motions. A pencil test may be shot which is a full-motion rendering of an extended sequence using low-quality images such as pencil sketches. The pencil tests may require reworking of the key frames. Inking refers to the process of transferring the penciled frames to cels. Opaquing, also called painting is the application of color to these cels.

 

1.3.1 Principles of animation

To study various techniques and algorithms used in computer animation, it is useful to understand their relation ship to the animation principles used in hand-drawn animation. In an article by Lasseter, the principles of animation are related to techniques used in computer animation. The principles are squash and stretch, timing, secondary action, etc. Lasseter is a trained animator who worked at Disney before going to Pixar. He was responsible for computer animations including Tin Toy, that was first computer animation to win an Academy Award. He discussed each principle in terms of how it might be implemented using computer animation techniques. Because several principles relate to multiple qualities, some principles appear under more than one heading.