Types of animation techniques and styles

Animation is a technique that is used to create illusions of shape change and movements by making rapid display of image frames having minimal difference between each other. It would be difficult for us to find something that does not make use of it in our daily lives; from the movies that we watch to the advertisements, music, programs and commercials; everything makes use of graphics in different degrees. The most fundamental technique that makes all animations is the stop motion technique. From this very basis there are different animation styles and types.

Let us try to know them more.

Traditional or Classical 2D animation

It involves the process of creating simulation by hand-drawing each and every frame. If you are a person who loves the feel of using pencils and having different colors on papers, there is nothing that can arguably beat the awesome feeling traditional graphics can bring. It is the process of numerous hand-drawn frames which will then be fed into plastic cells and hand-painted. This will further be used to create desired sequences by placing against desired background images as required. You may seek assistance of illustration design services providers as well in case if you lack that drawing skills.

Digital 2D Animation

By making use of various technological advances, creating graphics on the 2D Plane is referred to as digital 2D animation. In this type, the creator does not have to create any digital models but only needs to get the frames as required. Making use of digital technologies to create numerous frames to use them to create a feel of movement is known by the name digital 2D animation. By utilizing various technologies such as Adobe Flash, the developers offering 2d services can limit the number of frames or drawings used to make the entire process more economical and faster. This also makes smaller edits and enhancements easier and instant providing the developers with better opportunities to create exceptionally great animatronics.

Digital 3D animation

For anyone who wants to render the unreal characters in 2D into more realistic and lifelike, it is Digital 3D animation services from experts that can get the work done for you. Character simulation in Digital 3D is a much faster and easier enabling the developers to make better graphics for the audience. This is one of the major reasons why it is so popularly used in the every burgeoning movie animations. Being outstandingly accurate and lifelike, it puts most of the 2D creations to shame. The main importance of 3d animation is in fact the level of realism it brings to forth.

Stop-motion Animation

You would have watched several lifeless objects like stones, balls and hats talk and interact; what do you think makes it all possible and extremely convincing? It is the stop-motion technology that gives new dimensions and possibilities to animation to make lifeless object become characters that interact and behave. In this type of technology, a wide variety of lifeless simulations are moved around by making use of frame-by-frame and during the post-production stage, it is shown in continuous fluid movements to create an illusion of natural movement. Stop-motion can be traced back to times as old as the days when puppets were a famous means used for storytelling.

Mechanical Animation

Instead of using robotics to understand certain machines work, their graphics are created to understand how they work and perform. In this type of graphics the animators does not have to create originals machines to get to know them more, they can rely on creating mechanical animations to meet their requirements quite perfectly. With the help of this type of highly sought-after technique, developers are provided with better opportunities to learn about the machines in question.

Audio-Animatronics and Autonomatronics

Making exceptional use of their own technology called Walt Disney imagineering, Disney has transformed their theme parks to a near perfect technological marvel. They developed a robot, called Otto, that can converse with the people present in a room and talk to them to tell them if they are happy or not. Autonomatronics technology is quite different from the Audio-Animatronics technology, which is programmed to play any type of show over and over again. However, the Autonomatronics technology is dependent on quite a few complementary equipment such as sensors and cameras to extensively help the robot make choices such as what to do and what to respond in a particular situation.

Chuckimation:

Created by the "Action League Now!" creators, the technology is a confluence of various live shots and stop-frame animation where the characters of the show are dropped right into the actions or scene being developed. Many outsourcing companies, India based, are available who have mastered this technique.

Puppetry Animation

This technology makes use of several real puppets that are created to act in this type of graphics being created. There may be numerous heads for these characters created so as to express a wide range of emotions and expressions they are required to exhibit. All of them are made realistically to give a diverse feel to the entire animation.

Clay animation or Claymation 

One of the forms of stop-motion, in Claymation, clay is used to create characters that form a part of a narration that the developer would like to tell. There are different clay bases to create animations; water and oil based clays. There are times when the clay is loosely used or used upon a wire-like structure called armature to give it the feel and look the developer wants. This technology can only make use of very short and limited movements of the forms being created.

Zoetrope Animation 

One of the many animation toys that were invented in the early 19th century when people made efforts to make animations with toys, Zoetrope makes use of still images that are stuck on a drum. The drum is then turned in circular motion to create an illusion of movement of the images that are stuck or drawn on the drum.

Cut-out animation 

This is one of those types of animation techniques that have gained a new foot with the invention on computer-based, more accurate and effectively queued paper cutting. This technology makes use of the silhouettes of cut papers moved against the lens of a camera to achieve the narrative that the creator wants to create.

 Sand Animation 

This is a technique that asks the creator be involved with each and every frame that he/she wants to make. Sand and a lit-glass table are used as the major props for this type of animation. The creator then draws the frames that he or she wants to create on the sand continuously and then quickly moves onto the next frame by erasing the previous frame to tell a longer story.

Typography Animation 

When you combine letters and font faces with animation, what you get is typography moving picture, which in turn is letters in motion. Mostly used as a means to create attractive titles for movies, there are software programs such as Fontlab to create such graphics now.

Paint-on-glass animation 

In this type of graphics, paints that are slow-drying are used to paint on glasses; they are then photographed.  Post that, they are manipulated again to create another frame and photographed again. In this way the creator is able to create a narration based on the numerous frames created by drawing on the glass and photographing them. This is quite a laborious job when an animator has decided to do the same.

Drawn-on-film animation 

As the name would give away, these types of are created by etching, drawing or scratching to create images on exposed films or else by exposing lights onto the film as required for creating images in a dark-room. Being one of the earlier versions of animatronics, it was relatively cheaper as it only requires a reel of film, drawing equipment and projector to create an animated cinematic experience.

Experimental animation

It is the art of creating an animation by combing two or more entirely different images. They may be any kind of animated images introduced at any point of narration to create a different frame or scene when combined. This depends upon the way of thinking of the creator.

Erasure animation

This type of graphics makes use of 2Dfor motion graphics. There are several charcoal erasure films created by the most famous animator William Kentridge. In order to provide a feel of fluidic motion to the animation, at every point where there is a change, photography and animation need to be carried out.

Pinscreen animation 

In this type of animation, thousands of pins without head are pinned onto a screen to create frames and images. Once the pins are pricked onto the screen, the screen is lit on one of the sides to create shadows. The shadows created are directly proportional to the depth of the pricks of the pin.

Flip book Animation

As you would know, even before computers were at large, animation was still a big thing. In the older days, animators used to carry a flick or flip book which they used to draw pictures. On each page they drew images having minor difference to the image drawn on the previous page. As a result, when the pages are flicked, all the images combined together to make a scene with an illusion of fluidic movement.

Future of Animation in India and its Benefits

Animation has become an integral part of not only entertainment but also of every business that wants to make use of the same. There are countless advantages of animation in various industries. The applications of simulation are in fact limitless; anyone can make use of graphics in whatever forms they would like it for them. Especially in India where there are thousands of new animated movies and serials created with each passing day, animatronics is definitely on a continuous and rapid boom.

It also has a huge impact in the live-action movies as well. These live action movies make use of graphics as a convenient means to bring exceptionally great and convincing action scenes to life with the use of special effects which uses animation as its base.

The main thing that has to be kept in mind is that exceptionally convincing and lifelike animations can only be created only by creative and experienced experts in the industry. It must be noted that since this is an affair that involves a lot of time, efforts and financial resources, selection of service providers is something that has to be done with considerable care. Outsource only after being completely assured that you expectations will be met and the services prices quoted are reasonable.