2D Animation techniques

By Dan Harris

Classic Hand Drawn

E.g The lion king.

Crated by Disney in 1994,

The Lion King earned $422,783,777 in North America and an $564,700,000 in other territories for a worldwide total of $987,483,777.

Cut outs E.g Monty Python

Started in 1969 and was aired by the BBC.

Types of animationFlashPhotoshopAfter effectsGif12 PrinciplesCel animationLimitedLive action hybridSFX

Animation softwareAdobe Flash animation – Animation

ProgrammeAdobe After Effects – Great Editor

programmePhotoshop – Artistic programmeAutodesk AnimatorDrawPlusGIFsDrawing Tablets – Good drawing tablets

The 12 principles of animationSquash and stretchAnticipationStagingPose to PoseOverlappingSlow in Slow outArcSecondary Acton TimingExaggerationSolid drawingAppeal

Squash and Stretch, Anticipation Squash and stretch adds weight to the

animation.

Anticipation builds up towards an action.

Staging and Pose to poseStaging is when the animator wants the view

to look in a specific place.

Pose to pose means putting the main actions in the animation then adding the actions in between.

Overlapping and slow in slow outOverlapping adds physics to an animation.

Slow in slow out adds timing to an animation.

Arc & Secondary action Adding arcs in to an animation give it a

smooth movement.

Secondary action adds realistic life to the

Live Action HybridActors play along side animations during the

movie.

A prime example of this working perfectly is the hit movie ‘Who Framed Rodger Rabbit’.

Limited Animation Designed by Disney.The animator uses layers so parts of the

animation can stay the same reducing the time to crate the animation.

Image intensityRaster Vector imagesPicture element Image resolutionLossy and lossless compressionFile typesImage capture – scanners & digital camera, rostrum Drawing tablets Bit depthImage dimension

Picture element & image resolution A picture element is the smallest possible

quantitative part of an image, whether it is one that is printed or a digital image on a monitor or television screen.

Image resolution is how detailed the image is going to be. For example the more pixels there are on screen the more detailed the image will be.

Image intensity, Raster & vector images Image intensity means an image gradient

Vector graphics can be enlarged to any size and not loose the definition of the image.

Lossy and Lossless compression & file typesLossy compression means that when an

image is compressing in to smaller file size some if the data is lost in compression making the image less defined.

Lossless compression is the opposite to Lossy compression meaning when an image is compressed the data is stored perfectly and no data is lost in the process.

File sizeRages from a bit to a Yottabyte. Every image

has a file size and some forms of files are bigger than others but provide a better service such as having a higher file size for an image would give a better quality as it will hold more colours.

Drawing tablets Drawing tablets help people draw on the

computer either from a tablet or the screen version but the screen version cost a lot more.

Sometime on screen display tablets are better than drawing tablets themselves.

Bit depthAlso know as colour depth

The higher the bit colour, the smoother the image.