INTRODUCTION

The first part of this chapter puts animation in context, and in the second part you'll learn important animation concepts that will have a bearing on all the animation you produce. When you have finished reading this chapter you will have a basic understanding of:

• How we perceive moving images.

• How animation has evolved over the centuries from simple toys to today's mass entertainment media.

• The impact of computers on animation and how digital convergence affects you, the animator.

• Concepts of movement to help you create more effective animation.

Animation is inextricably bound up with other technologies, most notably cinematography itself springing from photography and especially the discovery of a means of capturing a rapid, sequential flow of images: moving pictures.

There is magic in making drawings move. As a child you probably also created your own mini animations by making flipbooks: you drew an illustration on one page, drawing it again in the same position on the next page but moving an element or two, and so on until you had filled up many pages then, the best part, flipping them to see your illustrations magically come to life. You can try it here (fig. 1.2). The magic's been known about and exploited for many hundreds of years. The ancient Egyptians developed optical toys. In the 13th century, an English monk by the name of Roger Bacon studied optics and experimented with the optical illusion of movement and focusing light through a small aperture...