Animation

Animation refers to the movement on the screen of the display device created by displaying a
sequence of still images. Animation is the technique of designing, drawing, making layouts and
preparation of photographic series which are integrated into the multimedia and gaming
products. Animation connects the exploitation and management of still images to generate the
illusion of movement. A person who creates animations is called animator. He/she use various
computer technologies to capture the pictures and then to animate these in the desired sequence.

Applications of Computer Animation:

Application Areas of Animation

1. Education and Training: Animation is used in school, colleges and training centers for
education purpose. Flight simulators for aircraft are also animation based.

2. Entertainment: Animation methods are now commonly used in making motion pictures,
music videos and television shows, etc.

3. Computer Aided Design (CAD): One of the best applications of computer animation is
Computer Aided Design and is generally referred to as CAD. One of the earlier applications of
CAD was automobile designing. But now almost all types of designing are done by using CAD
application, and without animation, all these work can't be possible.
4. Advertising: This is one of the significant applications of computer animation. The most
important advantage of an animated advertisement is that it takes very less space and capture
people attention.

5. Presentation: Animated Presentation is the most effective way to represent an idea. It is used
to describe financial, statistical, mathematical, scientific & economic data.

Methods/Techniques:
1. Frame by Frame (Traditional Method):
Earlier, in traditional method, animation was done by hands because of the absence of the
computer-aided drawing facilities. And, these traditional method required a lot of effort for
even making a short video because of the fact that every second of animation requires 24
frames to process.

2. Procedural:
In Procedural method, set of rules are used to animate the objects. Animator defines or
specify the initial rules and procedure to process and later runs simulations.Many of the
times rules or procedure are based on real world.s physical rule which are shown by
mathematical equations.

3. Behavioral:
According to this method/technique, to a certain extent the character or object
specifies/determines it’s own actions which helps / allows the character to improve later,
and in turn, it frees the animator in determining each and every details of the character’s
motion.

4. KeyFraming:
A key frame in computer animation is a frame where we define changes in an animation.
According to key framing, a storyboard requirement is must as the animator/artist draws
the major frames (frames in which major/important changes can be made later) of
animation from it. In key framing, character’s or object’s key position are the must and
need to be defined by the animator, because the missing frames are filled in those key
position via computer automatically.

5. MotionCapture:
This method of animation uses the live action/motion footage of a living human character
which is recorded to the computer via video cameras and markers and later, that action or
motion is used/applied to animate the character which gives the real feel to the viewers as if
the real human character has been animated. Motion Capture is quite famous among the
animators because of the fact that the human action or motion can be captured with relative
ease.

6. Dynamics:
In this method, simulations are used in order to produce a quite different sequence while
 maintaining the physical reality. Physics’s laws are used in simulations to create the motion
of pictures/characters. High level of interactivity can be achieved in this method, via the
use of real-time simulations, where a real person performs the action or motions of a
simulated character.

Animation Functions

1. Morphing: Morphing is an animation function which is used to transform object shape from
one form to another is called Morphing. It is one of the most complicated transformations. This
function is commonly used in movies, cartoons, advertisement, and computer games.

The process of Morphing involves three steps:

1. In the first step, one initial image and other final image are added to morphing application
as shown in fig: Ist & 4th object consider as key frames.
2. The second step involves the selection of key points on both the images for a smooth
transition between two images as shown in 2nd object.

3. In the third step, the key point of the first image transforms to a corresponding key point of the
second image as shown in 3rd object of the figure.

2. Wrapping: Wrapping function is similar to morphing function. It distorts only the initial
images so that it matches with final images and no fade occurs in this function.

3. Tweening: Tweening is the short form of 'inbetweening.' Tweening is the process of

generating intermediate frames between the initial & last final images. This function is popular
in the film industry.
4. Panning: Usually Panning refers to rotation of the camera in horizontal Plane. In computer
graphics, Panning relates to the movement of fixed size window across the window object in a
scene. In which direction the fixed sized window moves, the object appears to move in the
opposite direction as shown in fig:

If the window moves in a backward direction, then the object appear to move in the forward
direction and the window moves in forward direction then the object appear to move in a
backward direction.
5. Zooming: In zooming, the window is fixed an object and change its size, the object also
appear to change in size. When the window is made smaller about a fixed center, the object
comes inside the window appear more enlarged. This feature is known as Zooming In.

When we increase the size of the window about the fixed center, the object comes inside the
window appear small. This feature is known as Zooming Out.

6.Fractals: Fractal Function is used to generate a complex picture by using Iteration. Iteration
means the repetition of a single formula again & again with slightly different value based on the
previous iteration result. These results are displayed on the screen in the form of the display
picture.

Difference between Multimedia and Animation

1. Multimedia :
Multimedia means that computer information can be collect through audio, video, and
animation etc. Multimedia use text, images, graphics are the major sources of the people. In
20th century people use motion pictures, radio, televisions. Multimedia is derived from two
words “Multi”and “Medium”. Multimedia use to deliver information to user in digital form.
Multimedia is a field with computer controlled combination of text, animation, audio, video,
graphics, and other forms of media. It can be store information in digital form. Multimedia
needs large space to store information.

Where do we use multimedia :

 multimedia in business.
 multimedia in schools.
 multimedia at home.
 multimedia at public place.

2. Animation :
Animation the process of designing, drawing, making layouts and preparation of presentation,
through animation we can move pictures in motion, we can make video also. We can capture
movements of pictures though mobiles, camera or any digital media. Animation are created
from a sequence of still images, each image is slightly changes from previous one. Animation
become very famous since 1950s. now days there are 2D animation movies and 3D animation
movies. Through animation we can develop your web sides. Animation means putting life on
non living things.
Types of animation :

 Traditional animation.
 Stop motion animation.
 Motion graphics.
 Computer animation.
 2D animation.
 3D animation.

Difference between Multimedia and Animation :

S.No. MULTIMEDIA ANIMATION
Animation is a type of multimedia that
Multimedia is refers to multiple forms of gives the illusion of moving pictures in
1. media likes text, audio, images, videos. sequence manner.

Multimedia is integration of various

2. forms of media. Animation is a variation of multimedia.

Animation includes film production,

Multimedia includes design, web design, photography, video games, web
3. presentation, etc. application, sound design, etc.

It can be store/record on either analogue

Multimedia devices are electronic media media, such as a flip book, motion
devices are used to store multimedia picture film, video tape, or on digital
4. content. media.

Animation is basically derived from

Multimedia is derived from two words Greek word ‘ani’ means any non-living
5. “multi”and “medium”. object and ‘motion’ means movement.

Animators often work in a specific

6. Multimedia is a artists. medium.

It is defines as multiple sources and Animation is actually a type of

forms of media likes, text, audio, multimedia, that is consisted of a
animation, videos, graphics and any sequence of images /pictures that are
7. other source of media. It is mainly used directly moves one after the other.
 to deliver information, to a group or
platform.

It main purposes is industry use of

presentations, special effects/audio in
entertainment, online training course,
editing in journalism, designing/research
in engineering, social media in
communication, research in medicine, It main purpose is to bring life and
The majority of the human population movement to a still image by directly
use multimedia on a daily basis such as, sequencing multiple images together. It
8. magazines, television, etc. can be hand drawn.

9. Multimedia cannot draw by hand. Animation can be draw by hand.

Raster animation

In computer animation, the term "raster graphics" refers to animation frames made of pixels
rather than scalable components, such as vertices, edges, nodes, paths or vectors. Storing
images as pixels rather than vectors or vertices enables much deeper and more realistic
lighting and color because the computer doesn't have to render each frame in real time as it
does in a 3-D video game. However, because a fast PC can take 10 to 20 minutes to render
one frame, rendering an entire animation usually requires a network of render nodes .

Motion Specification In Computer Animation

There are several ways in which the motions of objects can be specified in an animation system.
We can define motion in very explicit tems, or We can use more abstract or more general
approaches.

 Direct motion specification : -

The most straightforward method for defining a motion sequence is direct

specification of the motion paremeters. Here, We explicitly give the rotation angles
and translation vectors. Then the geometric transformation matrices are applied to
transform co-ordinate positions. Alternatively, We could use an approximating
equation to specify certain kinds of motions. These methods can be used for simple
user programmed animation sequencs.
 Goal-directed systems : -

At the opposite extreme, We can specify the motions that are to take place in general
terms that abstractly describe the actions. these systems are referred to as goal
directed because they determine specific motion parameters given the goals of the
animation. For example, We could specify that we want an object to "walk " or to
"run" to a particular destination. Or We could state that we want an object to "pick up
" some other specified object. The inpute directive are then interpreted in term of
component motions that will accomplish the selected task. Human motion, for
instance, can be defined as a heirarchical structure of sub motion for the toros,
limbs,and so forth.