Animation 2
Lecture 3
Joseph Michael Aramil, MIT

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Types of animation Continuation…
Computer Animation
2d animation
3d animation

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Computer Animation
• An animator’s job is to take a static image or object and
literally bring it to life by giving it movement and personality.
• In computer animation, animators use software to draw,
model and animate objects and characters in vast digital
landscapes.
• Computer animation consists of relative movement between
rigid bodies and possibly movement of the view point or
virtual camera.

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There are two basic kinds of computer animation:
• Computer-assisted animation
• Computer-generated animation.
Computer assisted animation
The computer is used to make the animation process quicker and easier. It is
typically 2-D:
• Objects are drawn either by hand or a computer.
• Then the animations are computerized. • Then, keyframing and
• Tweening is done.

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Functions like in-betweening and motion capture are examples of computer-assisted
animation
Methods for creating animation
• Digital Animation – based on a sequence of slightly
different visual images compressed and then played back
to convey a sense of motion.
2D images are flat, by changing the position or
location of the image and then recording this change

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and replaying the entire sequence of changes, the
2D
image appears to be animated
Animation rates
There are two rates to measure animation:
• Sampling rate – the number of different images that appears
in a frame per second in raw production.
• Frame rate – the number of frames displayed per second
when the animation is being viewed. Both the sampling rate

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and playback rate work together to create a high quality
animation
Note: the frame rate cannot be higher than the sampling rate
and a higher sampling rate will generally result in a higher
quality animation
• Tweening – is the process of drawing the cels or frames
needed to create the illusion of movement
• Keyframe – is an illustration of a key event in the timeline
of an animation.

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• Morphing – is a special technique that uses frames to
create the illusion of one object metamorphosing into
another.
• Path-based animation – it is also called “Vector
animation”. This creates animated objects by following
an objects transition over a line or vector.
• Motion tweening – used to fill in the frames as the object
moves along the path of the path-based animation.
• Computational Animation – allows an object to be
moved across a screen by varying its X and Y coordinates.

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Changing the x-coordinate will change the objects
horizontal position while changing the y-coordinate will
change the objects vertical position.
• Program-based or script-based animation – involves the
use of programming and scripting languages to create
animation.
• 3D animation – 3d animation takes the entire multimedia
experience to another level. It is the foundation of many
multimedia games and adventure websites. 3d animation
involves two additional steps – modeling and rendering.

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• Modeling – the process of creating the wireframe or
structure of 3D objects and scenes. Various views of an
object(top,side, cross-section) are drawn by the setting
points on a grid or polygon mesh. These views determine
the object’s shape.
• Rendering – the final step in creating 3D animation. It
involves giving the object attributes such as colors,
surfaces, textures and opacity.

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Special animation effects
1. Onion skinning- allows the user to create new images
by tracing over an existing image. It is particularly
useful technique when the user is creating parallel
animation in which part of the image is static while
another portion of the image changes.
2. Trail effect – when the image from previous frame is
not completely erased so that it appears in the new
frame.

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3. Warping – similar to morphing however, instead of
using two different images, warping used single image.
It allows you to distort part of an image.