Animation refers to the creation of a sequence of imagesdrawn, painted,

or produced by other artistic methodsthat change over time to portray the illusion
of motion. Before the invention of film, humans depicted motion in static art as far
back as the Paleolithic period. In the 1st century, several devices successfully
depicted motion in animated images.
Early approaches to motion in art

An Egyptian burial
chamber mural,
showing wrestlers in action.

approximately

4000

years

old,

The magic lantern (c. 1650)

The magic lantern is an early predecessor of the modern day projector. It
consisted of a translucent oil painting, a simple lens and a candle or oil lamp. In a
darkened room, the image would appear projected onto an adjacent flat surface. It
was often used to project demonic, frightening images in a phantasmagoria that
convinced people they were witnessing the supernatural. Some slides for the
lanterns contained moving parts, which makes the magic lantern the earliest known
example of projected animation.

Thaumatrope (1824)
A thaumatrope is a simple toy that was popular in the 19th century. It is a
small disk with different pictures on each side, such as a bird and a cage, and is
attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the
fingers, the pictures appear to combine into a single image.

Phenakistoscope (1831)

A phenakistoscope disc by Eadweard Muybridge

The phenakistoscope was an early animation device. It was invented in 1831,
simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer.
It consists of a disk with a series of images, drawn on radii evenly spaced around
the center of the disk. Slots are cut out of the disk on the same radii as the
drawings, but at a different distance from the center. The device would be placed in
front of a mirror and spun. As the phenakistoscope spins, a viewer looks through the
slots at the reflection of the drawings, are momentarily visible when a slot passes
by the viewer's eye. This created the illusion of animation.
Flip book (1868)

John Barnes Linnett patented the first flip book in

1868 as the kineograph. A flip book is a small book with
relatively springy pages, each having one in a series of
animation images located near its unbound edge. The user
bends all of the pages back, normally with the thumb, then
by a gradual motion of the hand allows them to spring free
one at a time.

Praxinoscope (1877)
The first known animated projection on a screen was created in France
by Charles-mile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created
the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Thtre Optique in December 1888. On 28
October 1892, he projected the first animation in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the
Muse Grvin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film
perforations being used. His films were not photographed, but drawn directly onto
the transparent strip. In 1900, more than 500,000 people attended these
screenings.

Traditional animation
also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation was the process used for
most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally
animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the
illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The
animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets
called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side
opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-byone against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.
The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the
21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned
into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used
to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final

animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including

traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of
traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has
remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers
have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive
use of computer technologies.

Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally

animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement,
having a smooth animation. Fully animated films can be made in a variety of
styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by
the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more
'cartoon' styles of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney
animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works
such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982),The Iron Giant (US, 1999),
and Nocturna (Spain, 2007).
Limited animation involves the use of less detailed or more stylized
drawings and methods of movement usually a choppy or "skippy" movement
animation. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions
of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic
expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine(UK,
1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however,
has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as
television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation
studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons).
Rotoscoping 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, as in The
Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as
in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other
examples are: Fire and Ice (US, 1983), Heavy Metal (1981), and Aku no
Hana (2013).
Live-action/animation is a technique combining hand-drawn characters
into live action shots. One of the earlier uses was in Koko the Clown when
Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples include Who
Framed Roger Rabbit (US, 1988), Space Jam (US, 1996) and Osmosis
Jones (US, 2001).

Stop motion animation

used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects
and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of
movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually
named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely
available to create this type of animation; however, traditional stop motion
animation is usually less expensive and time-consuming to produce than current
computer animation.

Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting

in a constructed environment, in contrast to real-world interaction in model
animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them
still and steady as well as to constrain their motion to particular joints. Examples
include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US,
1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Ji Trnka and
the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005present).
Clay animation, or Plasticine animation (often called claymation, which,
however, is a trademarked name), uses figures made of clay or a similar
malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have
an armature or wire frame inside, similar to the related puppet animation

(below), that can be manipulated to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures
may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films ofBruce Bickford, where clay
creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated
works include The Gumby Show (US, 19571967) Morph shorts (UK, 1977
2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan vankmajer's Dimensions
of Dialogue(Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films
include Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and The
Adventures of Mark Twain.
Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving
two-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth. Examples
include Terry Gilliam's animated sequences from Monty Python's Flying
Circus (UK, 19691974); Fantastic Planet (France/Czechoslovakia, 1973) ; Tale of
Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the TV series (and sometimes in
episodes) of South Park (US, 1997) and the music video Live for the moment,
from Verona Riots band (produced by Alberto Serrano and Nvola Uy, Spain
2014).
Model animation refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with
and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects, and split
screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live
actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in
films such Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and the work of Willis O'Brien on
films such as King Kong (1933 film).
Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stopmotion animation, as opposed to specially created items.
Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This
allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and
reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other
such effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom
Thumb and Angry Kid shorts.

Computer animation
Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying
factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. 2D animation
techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build
virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can
create images that seem real to the viewer.

2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using

2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes
automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such
as interpolated morphing, onion
skinning and interpolated rotoscoping.
2D
animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash
animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the
form of an animated GIFfile of which part is animated.

3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. The

animator usually starts by creating a 3D polygon mesh to manipulate. A mesh
typically includes many vertices that are connected by edges and faces, to give the
visual appearance of form to a 3D object or 3D environment. Sometimes, the mesh
is given an internal digital skeletal structure called an armature that can be used to
control the mesh by weighting the vertices. This process is called rigging and can be
used in conjunction with keyframes to create movement.

A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created

by Macromedia Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the.
SWF file format. The term Flash animation not only refers to the file format but to a
certain kind of movement and visual style. With dozens of Flash animated television
series, countless more Flash animated television commercials, and award-winning
online shorts in circulation, Flash animation is currently enjoying a renaissance.
In the late 1990s, when for most Internet users, bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s,
many Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when
creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts
and interactive experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and
high-end animation.
Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video,
though most Flash films are created using only vector-based drawings which often
result in a somewhat clean graphic appearance. Some hallmarks of poorly produced
Flash animation are jerky natural movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures),
auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync without interpolation, and abrupt
changes from front to profile view.
Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which
case they are often referred to as Internet cartoons,online cartoons,
or webtoons. Web Flash animations may be interactive and are often created in
a series. A Flash animation is distinguished from a Webcomic, which is a comic
strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon. Flash animation is
now taught in schools throughout the UK and can be taken as an A-level.

FLASH ANIMATION
Developed by Macromedia, Flash (along with Macromedia's other programs)
was acquired by software company Adobe in April 2005, the newest version being is
Flash CC.
The first prominent use of the Flash animation format was by Ren &
Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi. On October 15, 1997, he launched The Goddamn
George Liquor Program, the first cartoon series produced specifically for the
Internet. The series starred George Liquor (a fictional character rumored to have
ended Kricfalusi's employment on Ren & Stimpy) and his dim-witted nephew Jimmy
The Hapless Idiot Boy. Later, Kricfalusi produced more animated projects with Flash
including several online shorts for Icebox.com, television commercials, and a music
video. Soon after that, web cartoons began appearing on the Internet with more
regularity.
On February 26, 1999, in a major milestone for Flash animation, the popular web
series WhirlGirl became the first regularly scheduled Flash animated web series
when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime in an unprecedented
telecast and simultaneous release on the Showtime website. Created by David B.
Williams and produced by Visionary Media, the studio he founded, WhirlGirl follows
the adventures of a young super-heroine fighting for freedom in a future ruled by an
all-powerful "mediatech empire". The series originally launched in the spring of
1997 as a web comic with limited animation and sound. [4] After gaining online
syndication partners including Lycos.com and WebTV, the series first adopted Flash
animation in July 1998. Following her Showtime debut, the titular heroine appeared
in over 50 Flash webisodes on the Showtime website and starred in a million-dollar
multimedia Showtime marketing campaign.
About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a
Blender" to become one of the very first true "viral hits" on the Internet, gaining
more than 90 million views since its release in 1999.
The Von Ghouls went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group
with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday
morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Flash

animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including Newgrounds,
Icebox, MondoMedia, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee
of Marvel Comics launched an animated comics site.
The Internet also saw the proliferation of many adult-only Flash cartoon sites.
Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media,
including Queer Duck, Gary the Rat, Happy Tree Friends, and the politically
minded JibJab shorts. Occasionally, the trend has been reversed: after being
canceled from both ABC and Fox, Atom Films and Flinch Studio created net-only
episodes of The Critic in 20002001. In another instance, Flash almost made the
transition to the big screen. In 2001, production began on what would have been
the first Flash-animated feature film, the ill-fated Lil' Pimp, which also began life as
an Internet series. As potentially controversial as its subject matter was, it had a
relatively large budget, a number of well-known actors (including William Shatner,
Bernie Mac, and Lil' Kim), a full crew, and a running time of nearly 80 minutes.
Although Sony Pictures decided not to release the film, it was eventually released
on DVD by Lion's Gate.
In 2000, another major milestone occurred in the world of animation when
the first broadcast-quality Flash animation aired on television. Dice Raw's music
video "Thin Line between Raw and Jiggy" appeared on the big screen at Resfest
2000, on television via BET, and the Web on sites such as Sputnik7.com,
Shockwave.com, Heavy.com and was also included with the CD. Its creation became
one of media historys first convergent entertainment productions. Todd Wahnish,
who would later go on to create Marvel Entertainment's "All Winners Squad",
pioneered the early conversion of traditional hand-drawn techniques into vectorbased animation seen in the video. The video triggered a flood of Flash-based
television animation.
Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music
videos to promote their artists' releases online, including Madonna, Beastie
Boys and Tenacious D; however, none became the hit that allowed for the expansion
of Flash animated music videos. Adam Sandler and Tim Burton, among others,
released original Internet-only animated works, but were not able to devise
successful financial models and the trend dissipated, largely as a result of a lack of
viable micro-payment systems.
Several popular online series are currently produced in Flash, such as
the Emmy
Award-winning Off-Mikes,
produced
by ESPN and Animax
Entertainment; Gotham Girls, produced byWarner Brothers; Crime Time, produced
by Future Thought Productions and Homestar Runner produced by Mike and Matt
Chapman.
Alejo & Valentina, an Argentine flash cartoon series launched in 2002, began
to be broadcast by MTV in 2005.
The theatrical release of the 1986 animated film The Great Mouse
Detective has the CGI gears inside Big Ben with hand-drawn animated characters.
Many today animated television seriesare produced using Macromedia Flash,
inspired by both the comparatively low cost of production and the unique style that
can be achieved with the software, including Metalocalypse, Being Ian, Foster's
Home For Imaginary Friends, Kappa Mikey, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Happy Tree
Friends, Odd Job Jack, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, the BBC Three show Monkey Dust,
the Channel Four show Modern Toss, Yin Yang Yo, Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show, Jake
and the Never Land Pirates, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic on The
Hub (however, this show uses a heavily modified version of Flash 8), Cinemax's Eli's
Dirty Jokes, Queer Duck from Showtime, The Mr. Men Show and Mixels from Cartoon
Network and Shorties Watching Shorties on Comedy Central.
Other TV shows, such as Home Movies and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, which
are both broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, have
switched to Flash from other animation technology.
Many animation film festivals have responded to the popularity of Flash
animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or
"Internet cartoons". Additionally, several exclusively web-based Flash competitions
have been established. It is speculated that only the category "made for Internet"
will survive, as competitions at animation film festivals are typically arranged in

categories defined by film length and distribution channel, rather than by animation
techniques or tools used to create it.
In creation of animation using Flash can be easier and less expensive than
traditional animation techniques, the amount of time, money, and skill required to
produce a project using the software depends on the chosen content and
style. Internet distribution is considerably easier and less expensive than television
broadcasting, and websites such as Newgrounds provide free hosting. Many Flash
animations are created by individual or amateur artists. Many Flash animations first
distributed on the web became popular enough to be broadcast on television,
particularly on such networks as MTV and G4.