What is Animation?
“Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.” – Norman McLaren
Well, we know animation is much more than simply making drawings in a book and flipping through the pages. The process of manipulating pictures to appear as moving images is animation.
The illusion of motion created by a series of images is more precious than any other form of art. Animators create their own way of telling a story to the world in the most interesting and engaging tone. Animation videos play a major role as it keeps your visitor engaged with your website.
Let’s watch this video to understand the importance of animation videos for a business.
This blog is a great way of learning the basics of animation. Through this blog, we will learn about how animation was done and what are the different types and techniques of animation for beginners.
Animation Today – An Ultimate Tool of Communication
Each of us must have spent hours watching animated shows and movies. Animation today is more than just a mere form of entertainment that we enjoy.
Have you seen the successful animated commercial of Swiggy?
They used 3D Animation for the proper conveyance of the message through this ad. They have depicted their service in an interesting way, by showing Swiggy’s go through the traffics, struggling on roads, but still giving a swift delivery of orders.
Animation today has a lot more to offer than just entertainment. Animators use this powerful means of communication to tell stories and educate others.
Animation has effectively evolved today that it can improve marketing and branding strategies.
Statistics reveal that including an animated video on your landing page can increase your conversion rate by a whopping 80%. You will definitely choose to buy a product if it’s visually illustrated well on a website.
Let’s take a quick look at the benefits of brilliant animation ads.
– Educate while you entertain
When we educate people through entertainment, it gains more engagement. Animation helps achieve this at a drastic level.
Animators have conquered the world of animation, a powerful media to convey a message and educate the world through entertainment.
– Link with the audience emotionally
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6cHwqOsErU
The animation is capable of connecting you with your audience emotionally. Good animation can get the audience emotionally attached to the characters and the storyline.
– Quick delivery of a message
Animation gives life to the concept and product visualized in the video. The quick delivery of a message keeps the audience engaged with the content of the animation.
The complex process which cannot put in mere words is pretty much easy with an animated video, wherein the communication is as magic.
– Increase audience engagement
Visit this site & take a look yourself – FreshOair
An animated video included on a website can add life to the page. While these are embedded on video networks and posted on company websites, search optimization and increased traffic from video channels such as Twitter, Youtube, and other social media platforms could be accomplished.
It makes the audience understand the concept better.
Unlike olden days, there are several different types and techniques of animation for beginners available for marketers to use. Let’s deep dive into the types of animation to make your business approach easier and more visible!
Different Types of Animation Techniques
- Traditional Animation
- 2D Animation
- 3D Animation
- Stop Motion
- Motion Graphics
1. Traditional Animation – Beginning of Animation Era
To begin with the types of animation techniques, it is appropriate to start with traditional animation techniques. The oldest form of the technique used since the 20th century wherein everything is hand-drawn on paper.
In this technique, every frame is drawn in a sequence, and then it is put together.
I am sure you would have seen the flipbook in the movie “Taare Zameen Par” which explains it all. It’s all about creating the illusion of movement from sequential drawings.
Animators draw pictures on a clear piece of paper, fitted on a peg employing a colored pencil, and work on one frame at a time.
Animators sometimes check animations with terribly rough drawings to visualize what number frames they’d want for the figure. Contemporary animation has become a style that combines the techniques of traditional with digital animation.
2. 2D Animation (vector-based) – A technological hold on tradition
“Technology is a friend of traditional animation. It doesn’t have to replace it. It can help you do it” – Tomm Moore.
This is exactly how 2D animation, one of the oldest and most used animation techniques began.
2D animation techniques started out as just drawings on flipbooks and have evolved into the digital motion picture, creating beloved characters like Mickey Mouse and Tom & Jerry.
With the development of technology, animators started to step into an era of digital advancement. They upgraded their techniques by using 2D animation.
Vector-based is a computer-generated 2D animation technique used to create a story to tell to an audience. Even though it’s one of the oldest forms of animation it is still used today in advertisements, films, television shows, computer games, and websites.
Some of the best 2D Animation Softwares are Adobe Flash, Toon Boom Harmony. CelAction2D, Moho (Anime Studio) Pro, Stop Motion Studio, Synfig, Opentoonz, Tupi, and Pencil2D.
Some of the best 2D Animation Softwares are Adobe Flash, Toon Boom Harmony. CelAction2D, Moho (Anime Studio) Pro, Stop Motion Studio, Synfig, Opentoonz, Tupi, Pencil2D.
3. 3D Animation – An avatar of realistic characters
“I believe in 3D for certain kinds of films. I certainly believe in using 3D for all things in animation because animation has such clarity and so much depth of focus” – Steven Spielberg
Let’s talk about Avatar before 3D animation. 70 percent of this film has been animated. For this film alone, a whole new technology has been developed to make the characters look super realistic. The realistic animation seen in Avatar makes the movie different from other 3D movies.
3D animation techniques or Computer Generated Image (CGI) is the latest frontier in animation which makes unreal characters look real.
3D animation techniques show a complete 360 view of the models and make them look super realistic.
Brands like Michelin, Mortein, Pillsbury, Kitkat, and many more have used 3D animation techniques to make their brands more visible and set a brand image.
Software to use for 3D animation is Blender, Wings 3D, K3-D, Source Filmmaker, Maya, Cinema 4D, Mixamo, and Houdini.
4. Stop motion animation
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Take a picture of a model/product. Then move it a little and take a picture again. Repeat this process to get strings of images with tiny movements. This is what stop motion animation is.
Stop-motion is a simple form of animation technique, which gives out realistic, moving, and stylistic results. There are various pros and cons of stop motion animation.
Tim Burton’s films like Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie portray that stop-motion is not a genre, it’s a medium that enables artists to produce anything they think.
Each protagonist in the film has multiple heads and body versions to capture the most human expressions.
Some of the Softwares for stop motion are Movavi Video Editor, Stop Motion Pro, Dragonframe, stop-motion, iStopMotion, and Stop Motion Studio.
pros and cons of stop motion animation :
Cons: You have to be prepared and patient enough to erase and redraw when you make mistakes because you do not have an undo button for this style.
Pros: The visual of the animation will look comparatively more appealing if you are using toys because they look so real
5. Motion graphics
While still regarded as an animation form, motion graphics are quite distinct from other types of animation.
Motion graphics are animation pieces or digital images that create the illusion of movement or rotation and are typically paired with audio for use in multimedia projects.
It is not guided by personality or story, unlike the other kinds of animation. It is the art of transferring graphic components or texts creatively, which are generally for business or promotional reasons.
Motion graphics are usually used to explain complicated ideas in simpler and engaging manners so that the audience is excited and learning something at the same time.
For example, McDonald’s has produced a motion graphic video ads to inform people what they serve. They used it for the promotion of their business.
The best software to use for motion graphics is Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, and Maxon Cinema 4D.
Before You Go…
Think about taking your brand to the next level by incorporating one of the mentioned techniques so that your product/service appeals well to the audiences and keep them engaged and excited.
To help you with this, we are right here at your service. Check out Animation at Moshi Moshi.
What is animation?
The animation is the process of designing, drawing, making layouts, and preparation of photographic sequences which are integrated into the multimedia and gaming products.
What are the 5 types of animation?
5 Types of Animation: Traditional Animation, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Motion Graphics, Stop Motion.
