All ANIMATION TECHNIQUES - List

Let's explain a bit
the animation techniques.

So, for starters,

remember that animation is an illusion,

so everything you see is not real.

Even I am not really moving now.

You're just seeing a semplification...

...of the movement I made right now,

because the video camera takes
thirty frames per second,

which simplify my movement...

...and create the illusion,
but you don't really see the movement.

This illusion works incredibly well.

How does animation work?

Animation consists in:

instead of taking someone
who is really moving,

and using a movie camera
to record their movement...

...and creating a simulation,

we do the opposite.

There is no movie camera in animation.

There is none.

You don't need
the techonolgy of the machine...

...recording you
with thirty frames per second,

because each picture can be taken...

...potentially even years later.

Animation is that illusion
in which I, human being,

take pictures whenever I want,

to create the illusion that something
that can't actually move, is moving.

The most famous and used
technique ever is the traditional.

The traditional technique
consists in a drawing,

which gets redone from scratch,

and redone again,

and redone again.

Each drawing you make has
some slight changes,

so when you see
these drawings in sequence...

...it creates
the illusion of movement.

Pretty simple concept, right?
This is traditional animation.

Then it takes many names
based on the support used to draw.

If you use a cel,
that is an acetate sheet,

with a paper sheet, strapped together,

it's hard to explain,
but that is an animation cel.

If you use a real classic drawing,

done by pen nib and all that,

that is traditional animation.

If you instead used
the same technique,

but the sheet was digital...

...and the drawings are made
on a tablet, for instance,

it's called paperless.

And it's the same as
traditional technique,

there's simply no paper waste.

What if it's with pixels?

That's pixel animation.

Pixel animation is the same thing,

but the drawing this time is made...

...using little colored
squares called pixels.

You could animate
in any other way, using sand,

you could use any support...

...but if every time
you have to redraw the character,

it's traditional animation.

Rotoscope is one of the types
of traditional animation.

What is the rotoscope?

It's the same thing,
but I didn't make up a drawing,

I filmed a person...

...and now I'm tracing
the individual frames.

There are also full movies
made with rotoscope,

tv series made with rotoscope,

but in the past
the rotoscope was mainly used...

...to create more realistic humans,

who perhaps could
be a bit unsettling...

...and, I don't know,
give off a strange feeling.

In Pinocchio and 101 Dalmatians...

...the vehicles are animated
with rotoscope,

so there are tiny models
that actually move,

they are filmed and then
the movement is traced.

In The Lord of the Rings
everything is in rotoscope,

there are real people actually moving,

that get traced later.

Nowadays we hear much
about cel-shading.

What is cel-shading?

It's just an effect
you apply to your drawing.

So you make traditional animation,

usually paperless, all chill,

but then you use the computer
to help you with the lights.

And maybe some other details too.

That's what happened
in Klaus for example.

So you drew everything by hand,

the lights are simply
done with the computer.

Disney already used
another technology called C.A.P.S.,