Graphic and animation
hey guys in this article I’m going
to go over the five different types
of animation, if you’re interested
in becoming an animator
to pursue a career in animation
based on the type of animation
you’re interested in but if you’re just an animation fan
that’s okay this article is going to be a lot of fun for you either way so stick around
now let’s get to it we’ll start
With traditional animation and Graphic animation
you might call it 2d animation
but actually, place 2d in a different
category and you’ll see why later in the article
traditional animation sometimes referred to as
cell animation is one of the older forms of animation
in it the animator draws every frame to create the
animation sequence just like they used to do in the
old days at Disney if you’ve ever had one of those flip
books when you were a kid you’ll know what I mean
sequential drawings screen quickly one after another
create the illusion of movement in traditional animation
consists of hand drawings called frames in the past
the drawing occurred on a big light table which
is basically a drafting table with a big light panel
in the middle of it on which the animator drew
The sequence the light enabled
the animator to see his previous drawings through
the paper to get a better look of his animation
this is called onion skinning nowadays even
traditional animation is being done mostly
on computers by using a tablet like the Wacom
Cintiq 2d or traditional animation is usually
animated on twelve frames per second
with occasional faster actions animated on
24 frames per second Japanese animation however
is known to be animated on a lower frame rate
in most cases next on the list is 2d animation
when I talk about 2d animation
I’m referring to vector based animation to Graphic and animation
like the ones done in flash
this style has become very
popular in the last decade
with the increasing amount
of people doing it due to
the accessibility of the technology
flash is cheap and easy to use such our
other vector based animation program
the reason I place 2d animation in a different
category is that in addition to the option
of animating for by frame an animator has
an option of creating rigs for the characters
and then moving the body parts individually
instead of drawing the character over
and over again After Effects allows you
To create complex rigs for animation
or use the puppet tool to drag
and move body parts around these flexibilities
give beginners more option when
approaching animation especially
if drawing isn’t their strong suit unlike
traditional animation where drawing
skills are mandatory the third type is 3d animation
also known as computer animation or honestly just
animation at this point since this is the most
common form of animation today just like
Traditional animation used
to just be called animation
thirty years ago 3d animation
however works in a completely different way
than traditional animation they both require
an understanding of the same principles of movement
and composition but the technical skill set is very different
for each task like I’ve mentioned before while in the past you
had to be an amazing draftsman to be an animator with computer
animation that is not the case 3d animation is more similar to playing with puppets rather than drawing the
Animator moves the character in a 3d
program with special controls that are connected
to each body part such as hands elbows lips etc.
and then sets a keyframe when all the body parts
are in the right position they proceed to move forward
in time and move all these controls again to create another keyframe
the computer then calculates the journey the body parts is going through
between each of those keyframes a 3d animator will spend most of their
time looking at curves that represent the movement of different body
parts over time another big difference with 3d animation is that unlike traditional
Animation the character’s body parts
you can read Motion Graphics What is this, Understanding Motion Graphics lets go
are always present and should be taken to consideration
let me explain when animating in 2d the character has
to be drawn for every frame when the character is viewed from
the side half of its body isn’t shown and thus isn’t drawn it technically
does not exist it’s drawn on a flat page and there isn’t really more to
the character other than what the animator draws with 3d though
the character’s body parts always exist in the shot even when one
hand is invisible it’s still there add some work for the animator
since we need to be aware of the entire character
At all times with Graphic and animation
the last major difference with 3d animation is the framerate
like I said before traditional animators usually work on twos which means
they draw a new drawing every two frames and thus having one drawing
less for two frames with 3d animation however the motion is always
