History of Animation by Tej Kohli

Tej Kohli

History of animation

Animation has come a long way from papers to the computer screens and now the big screen. But do you even now how animation started? Tej Kohli blog takes on a delighful journey of the animation...

Animated films have entertained people from all around the world for over years now. A shark leaping out of the water to attack, a humanoid swinging through the trees centuries in to the future, or a bird flying so close you can almost hear the flapping of its wings – these are a few examples of animation work seen by zillions across the globe in animation movies. What started as groups of hand-drawn pictures of cartoons about a century ago has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry that entertains and challenges us the way no artform has ever done.

Early History Of Animation
The inception of the animation dates back to 1824 when Peter Roget wrote a scientific paper on how the brain sees individual images as a continuous series of motion. This was followed by the invention of the first camera, the kinetoscope by Thomas Edison that could project 13 seconds of a film. Within a decade, photographer and owner of the Vitagraph Studios, J. Stuart Blackton made the first ever animation film with the help of a blackboard. Known as 'Humorous phases of funny faces', he drew a comic face them filmed it, stopped the camera while he erased a face and made a new face and then filmed it again. This outcome of changing faces or stop-motion became the first animated film technique.

The Silent Era
In 1910, the French caricaturist and animator Emile Cohl used paper cutouts to demonstrate an early example of animated films. His technique revolved around repositioning the figure instead of drawing it again, which was time saving. By the year 1914, Winsor McCay, also known as the father of American animation, created a cartoon named Gertie the Dinosaur, which needed thousands of individual drawings. In the same year, Earl Hurd, when working at John Bay studios, developed the technique of drawing on transparent cels and then photographed each one. This cel animation technique became the foundation of animated film making for years.

Disney's animated Cels
In 1923m Walt Disney, a commercial artist, shifted from Kansas City toLA to work as a director. Disney wanted realism in his characters and trained his animators to study anatomy to add more life to the characters. He advanced the Hurd's Cel animation technique. Images were hand drawn on transparent cels in layers, one on top of another. Background cel was kept at the bottom of the pile as each layer was filmed then removed. The process was time consuming and took weeks to generate a single sequence. It was in 1928, when Disney made its first talking animated film, “steamboat Willie”, an instant success that introduced Mickey Mouse. By 1937, Disney produced the first full length colored animated film “Snow white and the seven dwarfs”, earning an academy award, the first of 37 Oscars for Disney.

Early Computer Animation
By the year 1980, what had taken weeks to do manually was replaced by the first computer animated production system – CAPS, and by the year 1985, Disney studio adopted this computer generated process entirely. With a wider color palette and blended and shaded tones, this computer software added a more realistic appeal to the animation. Developed by Disney and Pixar artists and engineers, this program allowed camera movements such as pan, tilt and zooms as a part of entire filming process. Disney took over Pixar in 2006, replacing CAPS with newer 2D and 3D animation techniques.

CGI animation and 3D
The introduction of CGI, computer generated imagery, changed film making for good. With movies like the 'Terminator 2' and 'Jurrassic Park' in the 1990, animation marked a new epoch in the film making industry. In 1995, Walt Disney Productions and Pixar animation studios jointly produced “Toy Story', the first film to be completely animated using CGI technology. Motion capture is a technique where any movement is recorded and transferred digitally. This technique is used by the US military to create battlefield scenarios in its training. This method was first used in 2004 movie “The Polar Express” . In 2009, film “Avatar” reinvented 3D technology as the first ever movie to use performance capture imagery to produce life-like 3D characters and an entire world.

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Learning 2D Animation the Easy Way!

Tej Kohli explains how to learn 2D animation.
Things You'll Need:
* Tracing paper
* Digital camera or scanner
* Pencil
* Eraser
* Computer

2D animation is a time-consuming and painstaking process. A classic form of animation, 2D animation is also capable of producing some truly mind blowing outcomes. Learning and developing your won 2D animation is a simple concept to begin, yet it can take years to excel in this art completely. Each frame must be drawn in hand,and while this may look like too much work, it will add a truly unique flavor to your animation work. Upon learning the basics of the 2D animation, you can start drafting more complex animations.

2D animation reflects the movement of the object or the character. So, to begin with, draw a character in a starting pose, which will serve as as base for your next frames. A simple example of 2D animation would be to create a character who is waving. Draw the head, body, arms and legs of the character. Position the waving arm above the head with the palm open. Be sure to keep a slight bend in the elbow to make the pose look natural.

Now put a tracing paper above the drawing and copy the picture except the waving arm and the eyebrows. Then redraw the waving arm so that it is extending out diagonally. Make sure the elbow remains completely straight. Redraw the eyebrows tilting inwards slightly towards each other. This will add some slight movement in the drawing, so it doesn't appear that the arm's the only section being animated.

Next, trace over the picture again except the waving arm and the eyebrows. This time, redraw the waving arm so that it's now pointing straight up. Make sure to take a slight bend in the elbow, but not as much as you gave in Step 1. Draw the eyebrows tilting almost diagonally down. This will reflect a slight effort in the character's face from waving.

Redo steps 1 to 3 until you think that the character has waved for long enough. Take individual digital photos of all your drawings, and import the pictures in your computer. Through a computer program like iMovie or Movie Magic, you may string a series of pictures together in sequence to create an animation effect.

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Tej Kohli - Difference in 2D and 3D animation

In the previous post, Tej Kohli outlined the basic difference between 2D and 3D animation, particularly in terms of definition, limitations and how they compliment each other. Today, we will dig this topic a little deeper.

Differences in 2D and 3D animation

2D and 3D animation differs from each other in a variety of aspects. 2D animation is an art form that gained immense popularity after zoetrope and flipbooks were introduced, and was later processed by the likes of Walt Disney. However, the advancement in computer technology added another dimension to 2D animation and led to the rise of 3D animation. Today 3D animation is commonly used for creating special effects in movies. Although both are the two different branches of animation, both may differ significantly in terms of their capabilities and creation process.

Creation Process

All 3D animation is computer generated and is created using software like 3D Studio Max or Light Wave 3D. Though 2D animation can also be generated of a computer using programs like Adobe Flash, it can also be rendered in hand on a paper-pad using pencil or pen. In 2D animation, artists draw individual images on each page, which when flipped creates an effect of movement.

Movement

In 2D animation, objects can only move horizontally axis along X axis for creating forward or backward motion, and a vertically along Y axis for stimulating an up and down movement. 3D animation allow objects to move closer of farther away from the viewer, moving along the third Z axis. To make an object appear closer in 3D animation, the object must be drawn large so as to create such an effect.

Objects

All objects in 2D animation look flat, just like in a photograph or painting. For example, if we look at the facade of a building in a 2D animation, that's the only part of the building that is visible on paper. 3D animation, however, shows objects in sculpture form. You can view the front, back, top, bottom of the building.

Camera

3D animation software have a virtual camera, which is a part of the animation process. This virtual camera is similar to a real camera with features like focal length. What's more, this camera moves in the same fashion as an actual movie camera, and include features like zoom, pan and dolly. 2D animation does not require such an advanced technology.

Lighting

3D animation programs also have virtual light that can imitate light bulbs, spotlights, or even sunlight. Besides, they are also use multiple light sources or colored lights to add several special effects. If you make an object pass in front of these lights, they can also cast real shadows on other objects in your composition. In 2D animation, you have to draw shadows by hand.

Realism

Through the use of realistic textures and 3D objects, 3D Animation help animators create scenes that are virtually identical to real life. But in 2D animation, even the highest quality animation has a cartoon-like, hand drawn look.

Rotoscoping and Motion Capture

To ease some pressure off the animation process, 3D animation may use a process called motion capture. Motion capture is a process that involve an actor wearing s special suit with lots of points on it. Now, as the actor moves, the camera uses these points as reference for animating a 3D character. A few points may also be used on actor's face to record facial expressions and lip-movement for dialogues. In 2D animation, there is no such thing as motion capture, however, it uses a similar process known as rotoscoping, which involves tracing over live footage of actors frame by frame to help generate the animation.

Special Effects

In 2D animation special effects like smoke, fir, moving water and explosions must be arduously drawn for each frame. In 3D animation you can use plugins or exclusive filters to create such effects, which automatically generates the effects after you indicate certain parameters.

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2D Animation Versus 3D Animation - Tej Kohli

In present times when many well known Hollywood directors are choosing animation over live action, the future of this evolving art form looks promising and is here to stay. While the world of 3D animation is continually evolving, there are areas where 2D animation is still being done. The aim of the article is not to establish which one is better than the other, but to demonstrate what each type of animation adds to a project.

2D animation
To create a 2D animation, the artist make use of bitmap images that consists of colored blocks. These colored blocks, when placed side by side, creates an image or graphic.

3D animation
3D animation use computer generated lines, solids and surfaces to construct a 3-dimensional look. The finished product is a picture with visibly noticeable depth and spacial understanding, which is less prominent in a 2D image.

Limitations of 2D
In 2D animation, only one angle or side of a picture is visible at a time, rendering the image a flat appearance.

Limitations of 3D
The expertise needed to create 3D animation is much more difficult to learn as compared to those needed in 2D animation. Furthermore, the cost of producing a 3D image is more than 2D.

The Conclusion
Today, animators are using both 3D and 2D techniques to create several animation projects. Both 3D and 2D animations have been artistically merged together to become the benchmark that many animated projects will follow.

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