Animation

An animation is a series of rapidly successive images that together give the illusion of moving images. The individual images that make up the animation are called frames. Making animations is also called animating. A person who makes animations is an animator.

Flipbook animations

An old form of animation is the folioscope, a flip book in which each page contains a slightly different image. By flipping quickly through the pages, the leaves form a fluid motion. This flipping is done by taking the pages between thumb and forefinger and releasing them one at a time, causing them to flip in quick succession.

Several variations exist on the principle of the folioscope. The phenakistiscope, in which individual images are displayed on a rotating disk, was invented in 1831 and is considered the oldest serious form of animation.

Cartoons and stop-motion

With the advent of film in the late nineteenth century, new forms of animation art also emerged, the most popular being the animated film. The frames of a cartoon are drawings recorded one at a time with a special camera. Most cartoons consist of 18 or 24 frames per second, which is less than the 25, 50 or 60 frames per second of film and television pictures. Very famous names in the cartoon industry are Walt Disney and Warner Brothers.

Another form of animation is stop-motion. Here the individual images do not consist of drawn pictures, but of "real pictures." Between each recorded slide, the positions or postures of the recorded objects are changed slightly. A well-known form of stop-motion animation is clay animation, also known as claymotion. In this, the figures (and sometimes the backgrounds) are made of clay or an artificial modeling paste. Like making traditional cartoons, stop-motion is a time-consuming method of animation.

Digital animation

The advent of computers opened up a whole new playing field for animators. Computer animation makes designing, recording and changing images much easier and faster. When a motion is specified, the animation software itself is able to calculate the frames required for it.

The advent of digital animation not only made creating animations easier. It also opened up entirely new possibilities. The animator could devote more of his time to the details of characters, objects and backgrounds.

The biggest revolution from cartooning is the advent of 3D animation. By digitally designing, lighting and moving virtual three-dimensional objects, a very high degree of realism can be achieved than with 2D animation. Well-known studios that produce animated films based on computer animation are DreamWorks and Pixar.

Television and computers

The introduction of television has given a big boost to the animation industry. Many cartoon franchises owe their existence to the arrival of moving pictures in the living room. Computer animation has also made plenty of appearances on television.

A special category of animation is that of computer games. Thanks in part to animation, players of computer games are taken into an interactive virtual world. Like the animation industry, the world of games has also undergone tremendous development. From relatively simple games such as Spacewars, Pong and Pacman to realistic strategy games and 3D worlds.

On the computer, animation also has a more functional role. For example, in interaction with user interfaces, but also in the form of presentations and videos and moving effects in Web sites and banners on the Internet. A popular file format for simple computer animations is GIF.