Unit 10 Animation Techniques : Task 1

Optical Toys
Thaumatrope
The Thaumatrope was a popular toy in the 19th century. It is a disk with a picture attached on both of it's sides and it's attached to two pieces of string. When you twist each of the strings between your thumb and index finger the two pictures will appear to blend into one because of the persistence of your vision.

The coined name translates roughly as "wonder turner", from Ancient Greek: θαῦμα "wonder" and τρόπος "turn".

The invention of the thaumatrope is usually credited to either John Ayrton Paris or Peter Mark Roget.

Paris used one to demonstrate persistence of vision to the Royal College of Physicians in London in 1824. He based his invention on ideas of the astronomer John Herschel and the geologist William Henry Fitton, and some sources attribute the actual invention to Fitton rather than Paris. Charles Babbage reported being introduced to the concept by Herschel and Fitton.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatrope

Phenakistoscope
The Phenakistoscope was an early animation device which uses a spinning disk with sequential images and like the Thuamatrope it uses the persistence vision principle which creates an illusion of motion.

Although the principle behind the phenakistoscope had been recognized by the Greek mathematician Euclid and later in experiments by Newton, it was not until 1829 that this idea became firmly established by Belgian Joseph Plateau. Plateau planned it in 1839 and invented it in 1841.
Zoetrope
A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that produce the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing progressive phases of that motion. The name zoetrope was composed from the Greek root words ζωή zoe, "life" and τρόπος tropos, "turning".

The zoetrope consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. On the inner surface of the cylinder is a band with images from a set of sequenced pictures. As the cylinder spins, the user looks through the slits at the pictures across. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together, and the user sees a rapid succession of images, producing the illusion of motion. From the late 20th century, devices working on similar principles have been developed, named analogously as linear zoetropes and 3D zoetropes, with traditional zoetropes referred to as "cylindrical zoetropes" if distinction is needed.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope

Zoetrope Experiment

I used Xoetrope template sheets, tracing paper and an example sheet to make five drawings of a flying-cycle sequence that could be turned into a strip and then placed into the drum of the toy. The tracing paper allowed me to register the second drawing to the first so that the movement was fluid and I repeated this with the third, fourth and fifth drawings. Our technique used digital techniques to build the animation. The drawings were made onto larger sheets, that were scanned, registered on layers using Adobe Photoshop and then animated using the Animation palette. The resulting sequence was then saved as an animated GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) which can be played within a webpage. The result is below:

I feel that the experiment was successful, but I should have taken more time in registering one drawing to the next.

Cell
Cell Animation Techniques
A cel, or celluloid for short, is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn or painted for traditional, hand-drawn animation. Actual celluloid (consisting of cellulose nitrate and camphor) was used during the first half of the 20th century, but since it was flammable and dimensionally unstable it was largely replaced by cellulose acetate. With the advent of computer-assisted animation production, the use of cels has been all but abandoned in major productions. Disney studios stopped using cels in 1990 when Computer Animation Production System (CAPS) replaced this element in their animation process.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ORkIrHUbg

Onion skinning experiment
I used Adobe Flash to simulate the cell process. I drew a sequence frame by frame, using the drawing tools within Flash. Flash allows you to used a function called onion skinning, which gives you the ability to see faded versions of the previous frames drawn and so assists in the drawing of the rest of the sequence. This is a digital version of the traditional cell animators flicking backwards and forwards through their animation paper (almost like tracing paper).

Key frame
Key-frame animation technique
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. The drawings are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film. A sequence of key frames defines which movement the viewer will see, whereas the position of the key frames on the film, video or animation defines the timing of the movement. Because only two or three key frames over the span of a second do not create the illusion of movement, the remaining frames are filled with inbetweens.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_frame

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFrBg1yb6g

Key-frame experiment

Classic tween animation experiment

Im pleased with the resuslts for this one.

Motion guide stripped experiment

I am also pleased with the results.

Flash masking experiment

I obviously had some difficulty on this, if you watch the video it stops half way and carries on playing.

Video
Filtered video animation technique
Motion interpolation or Motion-Compensated Frame Interpolation (MCFI) is a form of video processing in which intermediate animation frames are generated between existing ones by means of interpolation, in an attempt to make animation more fluid and to compensate for display motion blur.

Traditionally this is a type of animation technique which the animators can trace over the original video frame by frame to use in either live-action or animated films giving it an animated look when finished.

Experiment with filtered video using DSLR, Adobe Flash Effects, Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation
Stop-Motion
Stop-motion animation technique
Stop motion (also known as stop frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object or persona appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or "clay-mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect. Stop motion using objects is sometimes referred to as object animation.