what is animation? give full detail?

Answer 1

Animation is the optical illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. In film and video production, this refers to techniques by which each frame of a film is produced individually. These frames may be generated by computers, or by photographing a drawn or painted image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed, there is an illusion of continuous movement due to the phenomenon persistence of vision. Generating such a film tends to be very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Animation techniques
Traditional animation began with each frame being drawn, painted and then filmed. Cel animation, developed by Bray and Hurd in the 1910s, sped up the process by using transparent overlays or cels so that characters could be moved without the need to repaint the background for every frame. More recently, styles of animation based on painting and drawing have evolved, such as the minimalist South Park television series, or the roughly sketched short film The Snowman.

Computer animation has advanced rapidly, to the current stage where movies can be created with characters so life-like as to approach indistinguishability from live-action actors. This involved a move from 2D to 3D, the difference being that in 2D animation the effect of perspective is created artistically, but in 3D objects are modeled in an internal 3D representation within the computer, and are then 'lit' and 'shot' from chosen angles, just as in real life, before being 'rendered' to a 2D bitmapped frame. Predictions that famous dead actors might even be 'brought back to life' to play in new movies before long have led to speculation about the moral and copyright issues involved. The use of computer animation as a way of achieving the otherwise impossible in conventionally shot movies has led to the term "computer generated imagery" being used, though the term has become hard to distinguish from computer animation as it is now used in referring to 3D movies that are entirely animated.

Computer animation involves modelling, motion generation, followed by the addition of surfaces, and finally rendering. Surfaces are programmed to stretch and bend automatically in response to movements of a 'wire frame model', and the final rendering converts such movements to a bitmap image. It is the recent developments in rendering complex surfaces like fur and clothing textures that have enabled stunningly life-like environments and character models, including surfaces that even ripple, fold and blow in the wind, with every fibre or hair individually calculated for rendering.

On the other hand, life-like motion can be created by a skilled artist using the simplest of models. A computer is nothing more than a very expensive and complicated drawing tool, as a pencil is a drawing tool. Even if a complex physics-simulating program were created complete enough to exactly mimic the real world, without an animator to guide the imagery produced, the end result may not be emotionally affecting. This is because a significant part of the craft of animation concerns the artistic choices that an animator makes, and of which a computer is as of yet incapable.

History
Further information: History of animation
The major use of animation has always been for entertainment. However, there is growing use of instructional animation and educational animation to support explanation and learning. Animation is also celebrated as an artform (sometimes it receives government funding; this was especially common in Eastern Europe in the Communist era), and is showcased in many film festivals worldwide.

The "classic" form of animation, the "animated cartoon", as developed in the early 1900s and refined by Ub Iwerks, Walt Disney and others, requires up to 24 distinct drawings for one second of animation. This technique is described in detail in the article Traditional animation.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1910s (ex. the pioneering stop-motion animator Ladislas Starevich in the Russian Empire), with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry. Bill Plympton is one of the most well-known independent animators today. Today, with the rise of inexpensive animation programs like Macromedia Flash and free distribution channels such as Newgrounds and deviantART, being an independent animator and getting your work seen by (potentially) millions of people is much easier than it used to be.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.

Animation studios
Animation studios, like movie studios, may be production facilities or financial entities. In some cases, especially in Anime, they have things in common with artists studios where a Master or group of talented individuals oversee the work of lesser artists and crafts persons in realizing their vision.

Styles and techniques of animation
Traditional animation
Character animation
Limited animation
Rotoscoping
Computer animation
Analog computer animation
Cel-shaded animation
Flash animation
Morph target animation
Motion capture
Multi-sketching
Onion skinning
Traditional animation
PowerPoint animation
Skeletal animation
Stop-motion animation
Brickfilm
Cutout animation
Clay animation
Object animation
Pixilation

Answer 2

Hellloooo :3 I believe in Japan all animation is considered anime (because that's their word for it). Like Phineas & Ferb from America would be anime or Totally Spies from France would be anime also. But in non-Japanese countries anime is Japanese animation. Bonus: 1)Did Japan have Animations before Anime?, If so then what name did those animations go by? And dont say standard Japanese-Art because obviously the Japanese were making things like Paintings centuries before Anime was even thought of. For this I mean actual animation as in movement, not just pictures. ♥Um...idk. I was going to say the art because I was watching a program on Starz and they had pictures from the early 1900's I think and they were like early manga drawings. 2)Would it really make a HUGE difference if all Animations were called Anime? ♥In Japan it is. 3)Would it really make a difference if Anime weren't called Anime and were just simply called Cartoons instead? ♥Nah...My grandmother calls Death Note a cartoon. Lol. Animation=Cartoons= same thing right? It doesn't matter where it comes from. Random BQ: Do you agree with this picture? ♥Lmao wow. It's just an Otaku stereotype that people who like anime are unattractive and they don't get laid or anything. I know anime fans who are pretty good looking and they have a healthy social life. Baiii! Have a great day :D

Answer 3

Animation is the optical illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. In film and video production, this refers to techniques by which each frame of a film is produced individually. These frames may be generated by computers, or by photographing a drawn or painted image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed, there is an illusion of continuous movement due to the phenomenon persistence of vision. Generating such a film tends to be very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Answer 4

Process of giving the illusion of movement to drawings, models, or inanimate objects.

From the mid-1850s, such optical devices as the zoetrope produced the illusion of animation. Stop-action photography enabled the production of cartoon films. The innovative design and assembly techniques of Walt Disney soon moved him to the forefront of the animation industry, and heproduced a series of classic animated films, beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The Fleischer brothers and theanimators at Warner Brothers offered more irreverent cartoons that often appealed to adult audiences. In Europe new animation alternatives to line drawing were developed, including animation using puppets (sometimes made from clay). In the late 20th century computer animation, as seen in the first fully computer-generated animated feature, Toy Story (1995), moved the art to a new level.

Answer 5

animation is the technique of filming successive drawings, or positions of models, to create a film giving an illusion of movement, simply like cartoons.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

animation
Animation means, literally, to breathe life into some thing. A transformation is involved, what was still now moves. Here we explore its place in stimulating learning
In the English language animation is mostly associated with the work of film makers. Illustrators create action from a series of images and we have the illusion of something living. In French and Italian especially, it takes on a further meaning. It is linked to the activities of community workers, arts workers and others, for example:

Using theatre and play as means of self-expression with community groups, children and people with special learning needs. (sometimes called creative-expressive animation).
Working with people and groups so that they participate in and manage the communities in which they live (sometimes called socio-cultural animation).

Developing opportunities for pre-school and school-children such as adventure playgrounds, toy libraries, outdoor activity centres, and organized sports activities (sometimes called leisure-time animation).

If we return to the word’s Greek origins then we are likely to be drawn to Aristotle and his distinction between that which is alive - and that which is inanimate. The thing that marks the former off from the latter is psuche (from which 'psychology' is derived) and this can be variously translated as soul, breathe or life. At one level, thus, we can talk of animation as 'making things move or happen' - much as animators do of cartoon pictures. In this way, in some of the literature concerned with community development, animators are discussed as 'motivators'. At another level there is something more - soul.




Some definitions for starters
A fairly standard way of approaching animation in a European context is via 'community development'. The following definition is taken from a Report of the European Cultural Foundation in 1973

Animation is that stimulus to the mental, physical, and emotional life of people in a given area which moves them to undertake a wider range of experiences through which they find a higher degree of self-realization, self expression, and awareness of belonging to a community which they can influence (quoted by Simpson 1989: 54).

Some animators (animateurs) are less keen on an emphasis on stimulation, motivation and inspiration as it can lead to doing things to people, rather than working with them (a concern shared with Buber and Freire. Animators in this sense, look to breathe life into situations rather than people. They help to build environments and relationships in which people can grow and have a care for each other. It is this latter strand that is closest to informal education.

This idea runs quite closely to the concerns of experiential educators. Indeed, a recent book by David Boud and Nod Miller (1997) is entitled Working with experience. Animating learning. They use the word because of its connotations: to give life to, to quicken, to vivify, to inspire. They see the functions of animators to be that of ‘acting with learners, or with others, in situations where learning is an aspect of what is occurring, to assist them to work with their experience’ (1997: 7).

In more self -consciously 'radical' terms, (and with a nod to Freire), animation is described by one Italian commentator as:

a form of social practice oriented towards the conscientisation [presa di conscienza] and the development of the repressed, deprived or latent potential of individuals, small groups and communities. (Contessa quoted in Maurizio 1991)

This orientation has been influential in some of the approaches developed within popular education traditions in south American countries such as Nicaragua. It is associated with the thinking and practice of educators such as Paulo Freire and the director Augusto Boal.

Part of the problem we have here is that animation, like community education, social pedagogy or informal education, can be used in a variety of ways. In what follows we explore the emergence of the idea and some of the practices and theorizations associated with different traditions of practice.




Animation, formation and education
To make sense of animation we need to look at the ways that thinking around education and training have developed in Europe. Animation can be contrasted with education and formation (after Aristotle).

education (from educere): to lead forth; or to rear or bring up children or animals.
formation (from formare): to mould, fashion by discipline or education





Thus, in some European discussions (e.g. in Italy) animation can be linked to socio-cultural work, and work with associations; formation with training - vocational and professional; and education with the activities of schools and colleges. However, this misses a fundamental usage and distinction; one that can be seen in phrases such as 'character-building' and 'character-forming'. Formation can be:

at once a mystical concern, steering the soul to its salvation, and a social programme as it aims at the transmission and the improvement of appropriate forms of social life. (Lorenz 1994: 88)

There are areas of considerable overlap in these notions, for example the way that they each could be seen to have a concern with 'soul' or being. However, they do bring out different dimensions. There are times when we seek to open up possibilities and look to encouraging people to become involved in some activity, experience or campaign. At other times we will seeking to create an environment in which people can develop specific skills (and hopefully, also to link them to some wider purpose and meaning). There will also be times when we encourage people to reflect on their feelings, experiences and ideas. In some respects animation, formation and education connect with another familiar threesome: knowledge (education), attitudes (animation) and skills (formation). I say 'connect' here - but I am not sure that I want to push this too far.

Part of the confusion comes from the way the words are used in practice. Each (after Freire and others) could be said to have an active and a passive side. The passive side is the provision of services in all three. This is often associated with treating people like objects. We breathe life into them, we try to shape them. We act on them.

An 'active' orientation views people as subjects, as active agents. In this orientation workers are concerned with the environment and interaction. They look to people as participants. They join with them in their struggles to make sense of themselves and the world - and to act.




Animation in France
Animation came to particular prominence within French adult educational thought during the late 1950s. 'Adult educators' began to be replaced by animateurs.

The animation fever of the 1960s received a surprising degree of acceptance. This desire to communicate and to create relationships manifested itself in the form of the group as an ideal which marked a separation from the popular education of yesteryear. The educator had been in a sort of dual relationship between the teacher and the taught. The animator, on the other hand, is in an intimate relationship with the group or gathering. (Poujol 1981 quoted in Toynbee 1985: 11)

This development was strengthened by the rise in local and movement-based initiatives following the social upheavals of 1968. Just as in the UK at the same time, a growing band of community workers were able to draw on the colonial experiences of attempting to foster development, so it was in France.

The new animateurs could also draw on the efforts of workers with youth groups. As Cannan et al (1992: 72-73) suggest, animateurs have established themselves as a fairly distinctive professional grouping. In the early 1990s there were around 13000 animateur in France under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Social Affairs and National Solidarity, and the Ministry of Free Time, Youth and Sport. Since the Second World War this group has been mainly concerned with young people's leisure activities (e.g. in maisons de jeunes et de la culture - youth and culture centres). More recently they have also been an expansion with regard to centres sociaux (social centres) and maisons de quartier (community centres) (Cannan et al 1992: 72-73).

However, today, there is some evidence that they have taken the 'pragmatic road of providing services to particular interests and interest groups often on a commercial basis' (Lorenz 1994: 99). There has also been a significant development in the integration of social policy around the prevention of exclusion and the the promotion of integration (insertion) (discussed by Cannan 1997). Animation has become an element within this strategy - and there has been a particular emphasis on the group.

Social action in contemporary France... is concerned above all with social integration and with working collectively with groups of local people, children, youth and adults, to promote that integration. It valorises and encourages group activities - holidays, outings, eating together - which centre on participation in the public sphere. It seeks to develop the neighbourhood as the new locus of solidarity now that the workplace cannot be so. (Cannan 1997: 100)




Animation in Italy
Animation in the Italian context has been associated with the work of Roman Catholic teaching orders such as the Salesians. However, it could be said to have really come into life during the late 1960s. The early rhetoric (and some practice) reflected radical preoccupations - but like their French colleagues, practitioners have bowed to the market. This can be seen in the strands of practice current in Italian animation.

Four strands in Italian animation
Lorenz (1994: 101) details four key strands within Italian animation (although these can also be seen, to some extent, within French approaches):

creative-expressive animation. These use theatre and play as means of self-expression with community groups, children and people with special learning needs.

socio-cultural animation. This has links to with the adult and community education movement and relates to communities and aims at 'promoting the development of abilities of people and groups to participate in and to manage the social and political reality in which they live. It is education as liberation which makes use of community action as well as of psycho-social methods to advance the expressive capacities of people' (Pollo 1991: 12)
cultural animation. This is more an 'educational-didactive' approach applicable to schools and after-school activities. It views education mainly as socialization.

leisure-time animation. This area is differentiated between initiatives relating to pre-school and school-children such as adventure playgrounds, toy libraries, outdoor activity centres, play in hospitals and in treatment centres, and organized sports activities, in which the commercial sector is also strongly present in the form of outdoor pursuit centres and activity holidays.


There are, again. obvious linkages into UK practice here - but what is interesting (and as was the case with social pedagogy) is the extent to which the notion of animation allows practitioners to operate across very different organizational contexts. The contrast is all the stronger here because of the way in which they are engaged in commercial activities.