Learn:
The History of Animation
Types & Uses of Computer Animation
The Persistence of Vision
About Specialist Animation Software
Packages
How to Plan Animations
About GIF files and how to make one
How to Animate a 3D Model
To Evaluate the Tools & Techniques used
By Charlie Leopard
, An Introduction to Computer Animation
A Short History of Animation
To understand how animation had developed into complex computer animation, you must first know the
origins and first forms of animation. In general, animation is defined by an image having the illusion of
movement so it seems alive; arguably, cave drawings are the first form of animation as it is believed
humanoids and animals had multiple body parts because they can appear to be animated when viewed
with the light of a flickering flame by changing the visibility of parts of a drawing. The thaumatrope – a
Victorian toy, that are believed to be used by Palaeolithic people in the form of bone discs with drawings
on each side; a thaumatrope is a disc with a different image on each side that when threaded on a string
and spun, the disk gives the illusion of the two images being combined – supporting the persistence of
vision.
Other forms of animation during the 1800s were the phenakistoscope, this technique
is also in the shape of disk with images evenly spaced around the radii, there are slots
cut in the disk on the same radii as the images but at a different distance from the
disk’s center. The disk would be replaced in front of a mirror and spun, as the
phenakistoscope spins, the user looks through the slots at the reflection of the
drawing, seeing the drawings all in a fraction of a second make a single image seem
like it is animated. The zoetrope was a cylindrical object with images printed on a
paper strip placed around the interior circumference of the open cylinder. To view the
A Zoetrope
animation, a user can look the through slits around the sides of the zoetrope to view the
animated images on the opposite side as the cylinder spins, so it does not need a mirror like a
phenakistoscope and can be viewed by several people at the same time. Flipbooks (also known as
kineograph), which are still quite common today, were supposedly introduced in 1868 – drawings can be
drawn in any type of book or in post-it notes, but is best done in an actual flipbook – which is a small book
with springy pages. The pictures need to be drawn/placed near the edge of the pages to be seen, then the
user flips the pages with their thumb – giving the illusion of animation. As the user only needs a book and
due to having numerous pages, many images can be drawn for longer animations than older techniques.
The start of the 1900s is the introduction of animated films, Fantasmagorie is the first hand-drawn
animated cartoon, created in 1908 and went on to other animated films such as Gertie the Dinosaur and
Felix the Cat, which were very successful and Felix went on to having a series and merchandise. Clay
Animation was also an option, using clay models, moving them, and taking a picture every frame – but
both options take a lot of time. The first animation with sound was in 1928, it also Walt Disney’s first
success called Steamboat Willie with Mickey Mouse. Due to success of animated characters, the 1930s was
the start of the golden age of animation and saw the creation of Looney Toons, inspired by Disney, and
iconic characters which continued into the 40s, with the first full movie – Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs released in 1937. Fast forward to modern animation, CGI was invented at the University of Utah via
a scripting language with the first 2D CGI movie being 1973’s Westworld and 3D CGI used in the sequel –
Futureworld (1976). Toy Story was the fully CGI in 1996, where all visuals are computer generated and was
revolutionary in the animation – and has developed into expensive and blockbuster movies like Avatar,
while animated movies are performing better than real-action movies.
Types of Computer Animation
There are three general types of computer animation, the first one is movement – this is what is used in
most animations by using frames (differing images) by displaying them in quick succession and making it
seem like the image is moving. The creator will set an amount of time to display each frame, but must be
