2D Digital animation for Computer games

2D Digital animation for Computer games

Animation is the projection of several images that changes quickly over a certain amount of time to convey the illusion of motion. There are many types of 2D and 3D animation, from the traditional to digital, and many pioneers who invented these types. The traditional ways range from paper animation, cut-out animation, rotoscoping, the use of a zoetrope, a phenakitoscope, a praxionoscope and a kinetoscope. Through these traditional methods many stars have risen to become well known developers within the animation complex. Such developers include Walt Disney, Hannah Barbera, Warner Bros, Norman McLaren and Len Lye.

Whereas the Digital side of animation, use application software such as Flash, After effects, Toon Boom Studio, to make their animations come to life. The types of digital graphics used in these animations does vary across a variety of digital graphics including raster Imaging through to vector imaging.

One of the first animations is paper animation, a typical use of paper animation is the flip-book. Flip-book animation consists of many pictures placed in chronological order which are meant to be flipped over to give an illusion of movement and create an animated succession.

The phenakitoscope, is an early device used for animation, invented by Joseph Plateau in 1832. Joseph Plateau was born in 1801 and was the first person to authenticate the idolism of a moving image. The phenakitoscope, uses disks with drawn images on, which are in accession with each other. The device’s disks would have slits within the wheel and was generally mounted facing a mirror, so that, when the viewer’s peer through the slits they would see the fast sequence of these images and create the illusion of motion.

William Horner had invented what he called the daedalum, which possibly from the Greek myth Daedalus. The daedalum is a type of zoetrope, which had first been created in AD180 in China by Ting Huan. It however failed to become popular until the 1860 when it was patented by American and English makers. An American inventor then named the daedalem the zoetrope. The zoetrope is a device that creates the illusion of motion from a fast succession of static pictures.

What followed on from the zoetrope, in 1877, was the praxinoscope, like the zoetrope is a device that creates an illusion of motion from a rapid succession of static pictures. It uses a strip of pictures placed around a cylinder which spins. However unlike the zoetrope, the praxinoscope uses an inner circle of mirrors that were placed to reflect the pictures to make them appear more of less stationary in position as the wheel span around. The view would then see the succession of images producing an illusion of motion. It was invented by Emile Reynaud who was responsible for the first animated cartoon films which were projected.

The Kinetoscope was invented by Thomas Edison in 1888, it was an early motion picture display device. It was designed for films to be watched individually through the window of a cabinet placed within the kinetoscope. It was the invention that gave the basic approach to the invention of future film projectors.

Edward Muybridge was the inventor of the zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dates the flexible perforated film strip which was used in cinematography. The zoopraxiscope projected images from a rotating glass disk in fast succession that gave the impression of motion. The stop-motion images were first painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second disk, made in 1892–94, used outline drawings painted onto the discs photographically, then was coloured by hand. Some of these animated images are very intricate, featuring many combinations of sequences of animal and human movement.

In the late 1800s, the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, were the first film makers to come about. They developed a new “dry Plate” that was called the Etiquette Bleue, this was used to demonstrate the use of Edison’s Kinetoscope.

Another process is called Cel-animation, this form of animation is a process that was thought up by Winsor McCay in 1915. The process was made to save money and time. Instead of drawing each frame one by one, McCay came up with the idea to draw the animation in parts on celluloid acetate then place the layers on top of each other, an example of this is the background is drawn on the first layer, the body of the character on the next, the head on the next and the expression on the next.  This would save time drawing each part out again and again.

Rotoscoping is an animation process that was originally accomplished in the early 1900s, by projecting a live action movie frame onto a frosted glass easel, from which an illustrator would trace and redraw the image. The rotoscoping process can be used to make actual cartoons or to make cartoon like movies in which the actors within the movies are recognisable and all the scenery looks realistic, but the entire movie gives off a cartoon like quality.

There has also been many famous developers over the years, the most famous of these being Walt Disney, who is the founder of world famous Walt Disney Company, Warner Brothers, four brothers who founded the Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. who brought fame to the Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry, and Hanna-Barbera productions, who brought fame to Scooby-doo and the Flintstones.

The Walt Disney Company was founded in 1932 By Walt Disney and Roland Disney. They were founded as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studios, and were the leading animation industry in America at the time, before it moved onto television, film and travel. The Walt Disney Company, are famous for bringing about such ideas of Mickey Mouse and making animations of famous Grimm Brothers novels and Hans Christian Andersens novels, such as Snow White and The Little Mermaid.

The Warner Bros. Company was founded in 1918 by the brothers Jack, Harry, Albert and Sam Warner. There first major animation was the Looney Tunes, which is still shown on TV to this day. They are mainly an industry that deals in motion pictures and Television programs.

The Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc. was a leading American animation company that dominated animation in the second half of the 20th century. They were founded in 1957 by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera and George Sidney. They brought “Scooby-doo where are you?”, “The Flintstones” and “Top-cat” to fame.

Two other respective animators were Lin Lye, and Norman McLaren, who came up with several animations films between them. Len made around 25 shorts, and McLaren being awarded for several Oscars are amongst some of their achievements.

There are two main digital techniques for 2D animation, these are 2D bitmap graphics and 2D vector graphics. 2D bitmap and vector graphic animation are virtually both the same, however vector images do not pixelate when they are edited or scaled. 2D animations are made using computer software that use 2D bitmap graphics or 2D vector graphics, such examples of this software that is used are, Flash and PowerPoint.

Adobe After Effects is a motion graphics and composting software. It’s used in the post-production process of making films and television production.

Toon Boom Studio is a storyboard and 2D animation software. It develops the storyboards and animation for film, television, games, web animation, and mobile devices. Famous companies such as Disney and Warnerbros use Toon Boom Studio, and motion pictures such as The Lion King 2 and The Simpsons Movie and has also developed well known Television programs such as American Dad, Family Guy and the Simpsons.