
ANIMATION
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images to create an illusion of movement. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture. Humans require 16 HZ minimum; 24 Hz used for films; 30Hz used for TV.


Each frame is a photograph, drawing, or computer generated image and each frame also differs slightly from the one before it. Viewing the frames in rapid succession implies “motion”.
How Animation Is Generated
Typical examples include
- Keyframing (specified by hand)
- Data-Driven (motion capture)
- Procedural (rules, flocks)
- Simulation (laws of physics)
History Of Animation
- Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) Cave Paintings
Animals depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions to convey the perception of motion.

Zoetrope
- As the cylinder spins, one looks through the slits at the pictures
- One sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion
- The earliest known zoetrope was created in China around 180 CE (may have existed in China even 300 or so years before that)

Phenakistoscope
- A spinning disc attached vertically to a handle
- A series of drawings around the disc’s center
- A series of equally spaced radial slits
- The user spins the disc and looks through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror
- Invented by a Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau in 1841

Praxinoscope
- Improved on the zoetrope by replacing slits with an inner circle of mirrors
- Invented in France in 1877 by CharlesÉmile Reynaud
- In 1889, he invented an improved version that allowed one to project the images onto a screen

Flip Book
- The first form of animation to employ a linear sequence of images, rather than a circular set
- In 1868, John Barnes Linnett patented it under the name kineograph (“moving picture“)

Cinematograph
- Fed the linear film through with a hand operated crank
- Projected the images onto a large screen
- Invented in 1895 by the Lumiere brothers
- Took their “film projector” around the world, charged admission for movies
- Original films were 17 meters long and lasted 50 seconds

Hollywood
- Hollywood First film studio established in Hollywood in 1911, followed by 15 more later that year
- Charlie Chaplin Studios established in 1917
- Silent Film Era until 1929
- 1st Academy Awards in 1929

Stop Motion
- Physically manipulate real-world objects and photograph them one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement
- Create and tell non-physical non-real-world stories
- Gumbasia was the first clay animation
- A short film produced in 1953 and released on September 2, 1955
- Produced by Art Clokey, who went on to create the classic series “Gumby” and “Davey and Goliath” using the same technique



Cartoon
- Produced in large numbers in the Golden Age of Hollywood; usually shown before feature films
- First animated full length film: Snow White, 1937 (took 4 years to make)
- Moved to TV in the 1950’s, when TV became popular – Flintstones: first successful prime time TV cartoon


