Mediums of Animation

Traditional Animation

Traditional animation is the most widely used medium of animation. Each scene or action of the character is drawn by hand. This medium of animation is probably the most lengthy and painstaking form of animation because you have to do everything by hand.

The techniques and tools that are used in this medium of animation are the cel and limited animation, animation loops, multiplane camera, hand inking, xerography, the APT (animation photo transfer) process, cel overlay, rotoscoping and live-action hybrids.

Cel and limited animation is a technique where a part of each frame can be repeated from other frames. This technique is mostly used by low-budgeted animation since they will only use limited scenes. For example, there are two characters in a scene. One character is moving while the other is standing still. Since the other is not moving, animators can use one drawing for the character.

Animation loops, otherwise known as animation cycle, is a technique used for animating actions that are repetitive, such as walking, running, etc. For example, the character is seen blinking in the scene. Both the eyes are closing and opening together. This scene is looped so that it can follow the blinking like a real person does.

Multiplane camera is not a technique but a tool used for 2D animations. This tool is used to make effects such as adding depth to it. This effect is called multiplane effect. Each drawing is placed on different glass plates to make realistic backgrounds and foregrounds. Pinocchio is one example of this effect.

Hand inking are cels that are originally inked by hands. The outlines of the artist's drawings are traced by the inkers to the cels. The outlines can be traced with different colors. But since the invention of xerography, this technique is lesser used.

Xerography is a technique that is similar to hand inking but instead of the outlines being copied into the cels, the drawing can now be copied directly to the cels and the colors used for the lines with different colors of cels are called colored toner powder. The coloring is left to the inkers . You can now put in more details and the size of the Xeroxed characters and objects can be controlled.

The APT Process or the Animation Photo Transfer Process is a modification of the repro-photographic process. In this process, animators photograph their drawings on a high-contrast litho film. A plastic sheet, formerly covered with dye, is where the resulting negative is copied. It is also offered in many colors.

Cel overlay. In this technique, the inanimate objects on a cel are made to make the audience think that they have depth, but this is different than the multiplane camera. Line overlay, which is a special version of cel overlay, is a technique where it is made to complete the background, not the depth. It was also invented for the hazy appearance of the Xeroxed drawings.

Rotoscaping is a process in which drawings are traced on real actors and surroundings. The motion of the product, though still look hand drawn, is amazingly realistic.

Live-action hybrids is a technique that makes use of live-action and animated footage. The ones that are usually filmed first are the live-action parts. For example, actors talking to animated characters, props, etc. are filmed first. The animated characters are then added to the scene, to make it look that the actors are talking to them.

Digital Animation

Computer Animation as we all know, is an animation-using computer. In this type of animation, animation is mostly formed through 3D-computer graphics and 2D-computer graphics. In films, CGI or Computer Generated Imagery is mostly use. Animators usually start with a stick figure and an animation variable called Avars defines the location of the features of the character. Then the movement of each character is being worked on. An image is pasted on the screen then it is rapidly replaced by a fresh image with a different position.

Drawn on film animation is a technique in animation where a video recording is created by making images straight on a filmstock or a photographic film.

Special effects animation is a specialty on traditional and computer animation processes. A thing that moves in an animated motion picture is not considered as a character but as a special effect.