Animation Research

Animation:
The rapid display of a sequence of images to create an illusion of movement.
Animation can be made with either hand rendered art, computer generated imagery, or three-dimensional objects, eg, puppets or clay figures, or a combination of techniques.


Traditional Animation:

Full Animation:
Refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement.
Limited Animation:
Involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression.
Rotoscoping Animation:
Is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings.
Live-action/Animation:
Is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots.


Stop Motion:

Puppet Animation:
Involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real world interaction in model animation.
Puppetoon:
Created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppet-animated films which typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet.
Clay Animation:
Just like Puppet Animation but with clay figures.


Computer Animation:

2D Animation:
This is created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics.
3D Animation:
Is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The animator starts by creating an external 3D mesh to manipulate. A mesh is a geometric configuration that gives the visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment.