How to Make Animations?

Many different techniques or methods could be used to create your own animation. One can either use the traditional technique, computer animation or the stop motion technique in creating animation. The following paragraphs provides information about the basic types of animation.





Traditional Technique



The technique was used for many films that were made in the 20th century. In the traditional technique, the first step is to make drawings for the sequences to be presented in the animation. These drawings are photocopied onto acetate sheets. The side of the sheet which is opposite to the line drawings should be filled with the assigned colors. These sheets are then photographed on motion picture films using a rostrum camera.





Computer Animation



The two basic categories of computer animation are 2D and 3D animation. The 2D animation is created either using '2D vector graphics' or '2D bitmap graphics'. Morphing, tweening, interpolated rotoscoping and onion skinning are the techniques used in 2D animation.



The technique known as 'rigging' is used to create 3D animations. Although many other techniques are used to create a 3D animation, rigging is most commonly used. The digital models made for 3D animation are manipulated with the help of an animator. The mesh is given a digital structure to facilitate easy manipulation.





Stop Motion



The stop motion technique too uses the phenomenon of optical illusion to create animations. However, in this method, real world objects are manipulated physically and then photographed one frame at a time. Puppet animation, clay animation, cutout animation are some of the types of stop animation.