Traditional 2D Animation

Flick Book

The Flick Book is a series of images that are made to look like an animation by flicking through them as fast as possible. Flick Books are a very old and primative form of animation that was created in september 1868 by John Barnes Linnett. First, he named it the Kineograph, which means moving picture. This was one of the first forms of animation.

These days, Flick Books are considered a novelty for the use of childrens entertainment, found in things like cereals as a free toy. The Flick Book has its own festival too, which you might be surprised about. It was created in 2004, which ran onto 2005 too.

(This is an eample of what you might expect from a flick book)

Cel Animation

Cel animation is one of the most important things to happen in animation. The thing about cel animation is its like most animation that is created these days. High budget animations use cells to create reems of film that go to creating the film. Cel animation is usually drawn onto a piece of paper, then photographed. The scene is then redrawn but with slight differences that make it look like it is moving. Once the pictures are completed, they are then put together that makes it look like an animation.

Rotoscoping

The technique called Rotoscoping is a animation way of tracing over a live action film scene or reem then using it for animation use. It is then shown through a projection equipment called a rotoscope. The device has become obsolite over the years since computers have now taken over just about everything. The technique was invented by Max Fleischer in 1915. He first did the method with a film series called

Out of the Inkwell. He did this with his brother called Dave.

He is most noted for using this method in cartoons for three Betty Boop cartoons and for Guilliver in the 1939 film Guilliver's Travels.

(This is a hand drawn rotoscope, which you can see is quite detailed. You need to draw every single frame to make it work).

Drawn on Film Animation

Drawn on film, also known as direct animation or animation without a camera, is the technique an artist draws the scenes of a film straight onto the film stock, instead of drawing the animation then taking photographs.

There are two methods to doing this technique. One is with a blank film stock, and the animator can do as they please with the stock, meaning put whatever they want onto it. This means drawing and glueing objects onto the stock to create the animation. The other is through a black film stock, where the film can be streched and eched to create images.

The first films to use this method, were in 1912. There were 9 films that were all abstract, they have now been lost and never found since.

(This is a hand drawn animation that was photographed in every frame to make it move).

Photographic Stills

Photographic stills were the tradisional method for creating films a long time ago. The method was through taking photos of a certain thing then once a series of images were created, they were then put together and created into an animation.

The images are just still images when put together, create the illusion of a moving film/animation, but its really not. This is called persistance of vision, because our view of the moving image is so quick that are eyes can't see it fast enough.

Digital Techniques for 2D Animation

2D Bitmap Graphics

Bitmap graphics, or raster graphics as you might have heard them, is an important graphic type in pictures. Its part of two of the most important graphics, the other being Vector. Bitmap is a graphic that is comprised of pixels in a grid of pictures. The pixels are known as 'Bits' though. The pixels are built up top create an image altogether. The main problem that Bitmap/Raster has is it can't resize any of the images, or the image will lose its quality. This is why bitmap images tend to be big images so that none of its quality will be gone.

This is a Bitmap image to show you what I mean. The top image of the letter A shows the bitmap image very clear and crisp. But the bottom image shows what the image is built up upon. The image is just full of tiny pixels and these build up the entire image.

2D Vector Graphics

Vector graphics are the better of the two major graphics in my opinion. Vector graphics are made up of individual objects in the image, rather than tiny pixels like bitmap. Vector is dependant on making the image as best as it can be. This is why the image for vector always is on the best output to the highest quality. The size files of vector are mostly always small too, which is good for file size. When you alkso magnify into a vector image, its quality is still the same, which is the opposite with a bitmap. A bitmap image will lose all of its quality.

Look at the image, it explains what i mean. The image is zoomed in more than seven times to show the quality of the image when you zoom into it. Its so good that you can't see any pixels in the image which makes it be called pixelated. Pixelated is when the image's quality has gone bad that you can see the blocks of pixels that make up the image.

There is vector animations too that are in 2D rather than just simple images. The EVA (Extended Vector Animation) is a software that was developed in 1996 by Sharp Corporation. The style is different from other animations because it differs from other vector based animations that are around. The software is very popular in Japan. It is compared very much to the Macromedia Flash format except its 13 times smaller.

Application Software

Anime Studio

Anime Studio is a vector based animation software that is used by animators to create clear and crisp images, with the best quality. There is two different types of the program, the orginal was just Anime Studio Debut. This version of the program was rather dated as you couldn't resize the image to any poossible length. The second was called Anime Studio Pro, and this version had much more applications to choose from. The first was very restricted compared to the second.

The program was created by Mike Clifton in 1999 at LostMarble. The program was not just left to edit and create vector 2D images though, the program was capable of much more. Anime Studio is able to work with other types of animation like flash cartoons in 3D and cutout style animations.

(this is a small animation that was created in Anime Studio. As you can tell when the animation zooms in that its all used with Vector images rather than Bitmap, as it doesn't lose any of its quality).

In a sense, you could say that Anime Studio is quite similar to Adobe Photoshop in its ability to create and edit images. But it is also a little more sophisticated than Photoshop too. With the ability to make animation, its also very different from Photoshop.

The website basically shows you what you probably expect from the program. The program is praised with quotes and snippets of what some people have said about the various things aspects of what make it a good piece of software. The program is also used for educational perposes to help children or in fact anyone that wants to learn about how to create detailed animations.

Below is a quote from Mike Scott, who is an animator praising Anime Studio.

"Anime Studio is the most advanced and versatile software tool I've worked with," said Mike Scott, an independent animation director whose work includes the award-winning Goldfish music videos, as well as animated shorts, designs, and cartoons. "I am a big fan of the mass-retaining, squash-and-stretch, and bone-rigging functionality. Version 8 handles animation cycles more simply and with a greater deal of control and efficiency during my design process."

Toon Boom Inc.

Toon Boom Inc. is a studio in Canada that specializes in animation production software. The company creates animations, storyboards and other mulitmedia creations for film, television, games and for the internet. The company is infact, very famous.

You name animation created over the last ten years, and Toon Boom has probably helped create it. The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Curious George, Spongebob Squarepants and a tonne more. The company even got an Emmy in 2005 for engineering.

(This is an animation I found that has been used with Toon Boom)

Toon Boom is the best animation software around for creating 2D or 3D animations. The company may be completely famous for their uses with animation, but they try to think with the good aspects, like education. The company believe on their morals of trying to teach children around the world on how animation works and what it does in our media. The website is very friendly to all audiences and very helpful to look around

This site does show off quite a bit on the front page, showing the various awards the software has achieved since its been made, including Editors Choice Award and even Creative Choice Award in 2011. This shows that the software has been quite helpful over the years for tonnes of people, to make them recieve these awards.