the animation story
My personal enjoyment with animation has inspired me to write this essay, pertaining to animation. Since I was a child I have been fascinated with cartoons; from when they started out to be black and white, and until now with full colour and computer effects. To better perceive what my personal feelings about animation are, I must first discuss in full detail, a general overview of how animators bring traditional animation alive with motion. Animation seems like a smooth movement of drawn sequences of artwork, pasted together to form a single sequence of animation. This is the basis of animation, but animation is far simpler than it may seem. "The true meaning of animation is that it is a series of drawings strung together to create the illusion of smooth fluent movement."1 But the process of creating this so-called illusion, is a pain staking process during which artists must spend tremendous hours of agony to produce only seconds of animated film. Before an animator goes ab!out creating an animation he or she must have the knowledge of several rules of animation, which animators around the world follow. The first rule of animation is that an animator must hold the understanding of the techniques used to produce si
are cheaper and take lesstime to produce."4 There are two major ways to go about producing a computer-generatedanimation. The first and most used process is called "Stop-FrameCinematography", where an artist draws each cell of the animation or cuts outpictures, then puts all the frames of still animation in an special scannerwhich scans all the separate cells into the computer. Then the computer animatorarranges all the frames in the order, that it will be viewed in. Then the artistcolours and edits each frame of animation with a computer paint program. Afterthe animation on computer is completed the soundtrack and background voices aredigitized into the computer, and mixed synchronously together. The final processof creation is where the foreground animation is merged with the background, andthe mixed sounds are synchronized with animation. After the animation iscompleted it is printed to film by a computer film printer, and is ready forviewing. The second process, which wit! n that must be stored and manipulated."5 "Thisenormous kind of digital computer information requires the kind of power andstorage capabilities that only industrial size supercomputers can provide."6These sorts of computers, cost a significant amount of money, making it nearly impossible for the general public to get at this technology. Ever since the "first animated cartoons were produced in 1910,"7involving such animals as "Felix the Cat" and "Mickey Mouse", and on to feature-full length classics "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", "Fantasia", and manymore, the history of animation has been characterized by the almost constantintroduction of ever more complex forms of animation. "Beginning in the 1960's,films showing abstract colour designs in motion were programmed by means ofcomputers that calculate intricate movements with amazing precision."8 Todaycomputer animation has achieved the ability to create moving images andbackgrounds of great complexity. This advanced innovatio! l. To create a traditional animation requires a team of cooperative artists and editors. n in animation, hasprompted the multimedia world to manipulate this technology to adapt to theirneeds. Such as using computerized animation widely in their televisioncommercials, titles, and in producing more convincing music videos for theconsumers. Computer animation has just become popular in our society, it has noteven began to show its full capabilities. For in the near future we will begraced with the presences of it in every technological medium; such as inmultimedia advertisement, video entertainment, and in the education system. Wemust either accept this technology and learn to use it, or be left in the dark,falling behind in the technological world. Even though many companies are using computerized animations to promotetheir product or film, old-style cell animation continues to be the soletechnique which quality animators, such as Disney Productions use, but withcomputer-generated objects still often mixed with the traditional animation,adding a new outlook to the a! Reference1.Compton's Encyclopedia, 1991 edition, Vol.3, "Cartoons." 2.Randy McCallum, Cinemation (British Columbia: Motion Works Inc.
Some common words found in the essay are:
, Texture Mapping, Abyss Terminator, Tests Line, Dwarfs Fantasia, Print Creating, T2 JurassicPark, Disney Productions, Silicon Graphicsare, Wire Framing, traditional animation, animation computer, encyclopedia 1992, computer-generated animations, encyclopedia 1991, mickey mouse, british columbia motion, 1992 edition, computer computer, process creating, animation team, motion inc 1992, single sequence animation, columbia motion inc, encyclopedia 1992 edition,
Approximate Word count = 2140
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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