Animation for Beginners
Animation is an art. No, wait. Animation is
a fun art. We can also say that animation is a technique
whereby you give life to characters or objects, but the truth is,
animation is much more than that... it’s miracle! When we
talk about animation, we should start by looking at our eyes.
Nothing miraculous there? Of course, there is... and the ability
to generate a sense of animation is part of our ability to see or
more specifically how we see. Seeing is science!
Imagine you have a mountain of photographs,
now imagine that you begin to see them, one by one, as fast as
possible. Every time you focus on a photo, your eyes capture the
information and send it to your brain. Your brain in turn,
converts it into the signal that you see. I see a house, I see a
boat, I see my uncle!, and so on. You might think that seeing
just means opening your eyes, but each time you
“look” at anything it takes a great exchange of
information between your eyes and your brain, to turn that into
the image that you receive. This process is not easy to perceive
because it takes such an extremely small space of time, fractions
of a second.
Now, let’s see what happens when you
take the mountain of photographs and you begin to quickly view
them one by one. For each image that you place before your eyes,
your brain begins to make an interpretation of it, however, since
you keep replacing each image with a new one, if you do this at
the right speed, your brain is unable to interpret the whole
picture before it has to start to interpret the next image. When
the flow of photos is large enough and passes at high speed, your
brain begins to mix the information from an image with the
previous and the next, creating the sensation of movement.
That’s when the magic happens and we can talk about
animation.
It is estimated that the human eye is
capable of distinguishing only around 24 images in a second if
you try to view them one after another. If the number of images
is equal or greater than 24, then the eye begins to see that the
elements begin to acquire motion. Wait a minute. Does this mean
that a film is nothing but a huge pile of pictures that pass
before my eyes at breakneck speed? The short answer is yes!
However, we must bear in mind that a movie is something a little
more complex, as it is audio-visual content, which means that it
also includes sound and a lot of technical details that
we’ll leave pending for later.
In the world of animation, each image from
which an animation is composed known as a “frame”, so
the speed at which a film is projected is measured in frames per
second (FPS) . The more frames you have in a second of animation,
the better the illusion of movement will be and the fewer you
have, the more the sense of flow will erode.
Currently, we have a wide variety of
animation techniques with which we can create content like we see
in film and video. Here are some techniques:
- 2D Animation: This is a technique based on planes
for the creation of frames that will be part of the animation.
Hey! wait a moment, what is a plane? When you think of a plane,
think of it as an uniform surface, similar to a sheet of paper,
a soccer field, the floor of your house or even think of a
wall. I know it sounds strange, but a plane is nothing more
than a flat surface. Now, in slightly more complicated terms, a
plane is a workspace where you have two dimensions to pan, if
you wish, you can think of these two dimensions as up-down and
left-right. These two dimensions are those from which we get
the term 2D (two dimensions) that people use when talking about
2D animation. Incidentally, historically it is one of the first
techniques of animation. If you look at the edges of a sheet of
paper and focus on the bottom and at the left edge, you’ll
notice that they are like two straight lines that meet in the
lower left corner. These two straight lines are those that
determine the level on which you draw and are technically known
as axes (in mathematics, often calling them X axis and Y axis).
In short, when you think of 2D animation, think of a flat
surface made from the paths created by an artist either on
paper or whether from a computer program for 2D animation. Two
good examples of this technique are most TV series you can see
on Cartoon
Network as well as all the classics of
the Walt Disney Company ®. Let’s look at another
example:
-
Fig #1. Animated Short
"Cibertito’s Crash". Technique: 2D Animation
- 3D Animation: This technique is a bit like the one
above, except that they no longer talk about two dimensions,
but three. A simple way of thinking is to think in 3D top-down,
left-right and front and rear. Therefore, we speak of three
axes, in mathematics, often called the X axis, Y
axis and Z axis). Unlike 2D art, animation in three
dimensions can only be done through specialized computer
programs which are responsible for calculating everything you
need to generate each frame that makes up an animation. Under
this technique, the creator is not responsible for illustrating
figures, but rather to model geometric objects and then
articulated structures so that they can move through each frame
of the scene under construction. 3D animation is much more
complex than 2D because the software focused on the subject
must perform the calculations for each point in space, which is
part of each image. These estimates include: colour, lighting
and texture, among others. All this translates into hundreds of
thousands of mathematical calculations (sometimes millions!) so
muuuuuuuch work! Fortunately, the computer does it and not the
animator. The best examples of 3D animation you can find in
movies are "Toy Story",
"Finding
Nemo" and in shorts such as "Big Buck
Bunny", who we see in the following scene:
-
Fig #2. Animated Short "Big
Buck Bunny". Technique: 3D Animation
- Stop Motion: This technique is based on playing with
photographs. If you have a digital camera, it is all you need
to get started. The procedure is very simple, basically it
involves taking a series of pictures, one after the other, of a
scene while between each picture making small changes to the
objects in the scene. Complex? No, not at all... consider a
simple example! Take a ball or any object you want and place it
on a table. Place your camera in a fixed position pointing in
the direction of the table and make sure it can not move
easily, this point is key for a successful animation effect.
Note that all the pictures we take, will be captured from the
same position and from the same angle. Now, take a first shot
of the ball in its original position, then move it in one
direction, but only a little and take another photo. Move it a
little further in the same direction you started with and take
a picture again. Repeat this procedure several times until the
last picture is that of the ball on the edge of the table.
Okay, now look at the screen of your camera and begin to review
all the photos from first to last stepping to the next photo at
the same rate. You’ll notice how they seem to show the ball
moving towards the edge by itself. This is Stop Motion! Two
very good examples of the technique of stop motion you can find
in the movies "Corpse Bride"
and "The
Nightmare Before Christmas". Now let’s review an
image from another simple example:
-
Fig #3. Animated Short "El
Gran Escape". Technique: Stop Motion
Okay, now that we have a little more clarity
on the concept of animation, we’ll see what Tupiis!
Well, our definition is pretty basic, it is free software for the
design and creation of 2D animation. A project developed by
animators for animators, and now in this new stage, once again in
active development.
Want to learn how to use it? What are we waiting for? Let’s start!