VIsual Effect Major Software

Autodesk Media and Entertainment

• Combustion, 
• Maya, 
• Softimage, 
• 3ds Max, 
• Inferno, 
• Flame, 
• Flare, 
• Flint, 
• Smoke, 
• Lustre, 
• Backdraft

Nuke

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Special effect

For the 1996 documentary film, see Special Effects: Anything Can Happen.

A Fireball In The Dark

Bluescreens are commonly used inchroma key special effects.

A methane bubble bursting

The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, videogame, or simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual world are traditionally called special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, SPFX, or simply FX).

Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of optical effects and mechanical effects. With the emergence of digital film-making tools a greater distinction between special effects and visual effects has been recognized, with "visual effects" referring to digital post-production and "special effects" referring to on-set mechanical effects and in-camera optical effects.

Optical effects (also called photographic effects), are techniques in which images or film frames are created photographically, either "in-camera" usingmultiple exposure, mattes, or the Schüfftan process, or in post-production processes using an optical printer. An optical effect might be used to place actors or sets against a different background.

Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects), are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanized props, scenery, scale models, pyrotechnics and Atmospheric Effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds etc. Making a car appear to drive by itself, or blowing up a building are examples of mechanical effects. Mechanical effects are often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, a set may be built with break-away doors or walls to enhance a fight scene, or prosthetic makeup can be used to make an actor look like a monster.

Since the 1990s, computer generated imagery (CGI) has come to the forefront of special effects technologies. CGI gives film-makers greater control, and allows many effects to be accomplished more safely and convincingly – and even, as technology marches on, at lower costs. As a result, many optical and mechanical effects techniques have been superseded by CGI.

Developmental history

Early development

In 1856, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "trick photograph" by combining different sections of 30 negatives into a single image. In 1895, Alfred Clark created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever motion picture special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clark instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clarke stopped the camera, had all of the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted filming, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing the dummy's head. "Such… techniques would remain at the heart of special effects production for the next century."[1]

This was not only the first use of trickery in the cinema, it was the first type of photographic trickery only possible in a motion picture, i.e. the "stop trick".

In 1896, French magician Georges Méliès accidentally discovered the same "stop trick." According to Melies, his camera jammed while filming a street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men turn into women. Melies, the stage manager at the Theatre Robert-Houdin, was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films, between 1914, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand painted colour. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." His most famous film, Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, featured a combination of live action and animation, and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work.

From 1910 to 1920, the main innovations in special effects were the improvements on the matte shot by Norman Dawn. With the original matte shot, pieces of cardboard were placed to block the exposure of the film, which would be exposed later. Dawn combined this technique with the "glass shot." Rather than using cardboard to block certain areas of the film exposure, Dawn simply painted certain areas black to prevent any light from exposing the film. From the partially exposed film, a single frame is then projected onto an easel, where the matte is then drawn. By creating the matte from an image directly from the film, it became incredibly easy to paint an image with proper respect to scale and perspective (the main flaw of the glass shot). Dawn's technique became the textbook for matte shots due to the natural images it created.(Baker, 101-4

During the 1920s and 30s, special effects techniques were improved and refined by the motion picture industry. Many techniques - such as the Schüfftan process - were modifications of illusions from the theater (such as pepper's ghost) and still photography (such as double exposure and matte compositing). Rear projection was a refinement of the use of painted backgrounds in the theater, substituting moving pictures to create moving backgrounds. Lifecasting of faces was imported from traditional maskmaking. Along with makeup advances, fantastic masks could be created which fit the actor perfectly. As material science advanced, horror film maskmaking followed closely.

Several techniques soon developed, such as the "stop trick", wholly original to motion pictures. Animation, creating the illusion of motion, was accomplished with drawings (most notably by Winsor McCay in Gertie the Dinosaur) and with three-dimensional models (most notably by Willis O'Brien in The Lost World and King Kong). Many studios established in-house "special effects" departments, which were responsible for nearly all optical and mechanical aspects of motion-picture trickery.

Also, the challenge of simulating spectacle in motion encouraged the development of the use of miniatures. Naval battles could be depicted with models in studio. Tanks and airplanes could be flown (and crashed) without risk of life and limb. Most impressively, miniatures and matte paintings could be used to depict worlds that never existed. Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was an early special effects spectacular, with innovative use of miniatures, matte paintings, the Schüfftan process, and complex compositing.

An important innovation in special-effects photography was the development of the optical printer. Essentially, an optical printer is a projector aiming into a camera lens, and it was developed to make copies of films for distribution. Until Linwood G. Dunn refined the design and use of the optical printer, effects shots were accomplished as in-camera effects. Dunn demonstrating that it could be used to combine images in novel ways and create new illusions. One early showcase for Dunn was Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, where such locations as Xanadu (and some of Gregg Toland's famous 'deep focus' shots) were essentially created by Dunn's optical printer.

[edit]Colour era

The development of colour photography required greater refinement of effects techniques. Colour enabled the development of such travelling matte techniques as bluescreen and the sodium vapour process. Many films became landmarks in special-effects accomplishments: Forbidden Planet used matte paintings, animation, and miniature work to create spectacular alien environments. In The Ten Commandments, Paramount's John P. Fulton, A.S.C., multiplied the crowds of extras in the Exodus scenes with careful compositing, depicted the massive constructions of Rameses with models, and split the Red Sea in a still-impressive combination of travelling mattes and water tanks. Ray Harryhausen extended the art of stop-motion animation with his special techniques of compositing to create spectacular fantasy adventures such as Jason and the Argonauts (whose climax, a sword battle with seven animated skeletons, is considered a landmark in special effects).

[edit]The science fiction boom

Through the 1950s and 60s numerous new special effects were developed which would dramatically increase the level of realism achievable in science fiction films. The pioneering work of directors such as Pavel Klushantsev would be used by major motion pictures for decades to come.[2]

If one film could be said to have established a new high-bench mark for special effects, it would be 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, who assembled his own effects team (Douglas Trumbull, Tom Howard, Con Pedersen and Wally Veevers) rather than use an in-house effects unit. In this film, the spaceship miniatures were highly detailed and carefully photographed for a realistic depth of field. The shots of spaceships were combined through hand-drawn rotoscopes and careful motion-control work, ensuring that the elements were precisely combined in the camera – a surprising throwback to the silent era, but with spectacular results. Backgrounds of the African vistas in the "Dawn of Man" sequence were combined with soundstage photography via the then-new front projection technique. Scenes set in zero-gravity environments were staged with hidden wires, mirror shots, and large-scale rotating sets. The finale, a voyage through hallucinogenic scenery, was created by Douglas Trumbull using a new technique termed slit-scan.

The 1970s provided two profound changes in the special effects trade. The first was economic: during the industry's recession in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many studios closed down their in-house effects houses. Many technicians became freelancers or founded their own effects companies, sometimes specializing on particular techniques (opticals, animation, etc.).

The second was precipitated by the blockbuster success of two science fiction and fantasy films in 1977. George Lucas's Star Wars ushered in an era of fantasy films with expensive and impressive special-effects. Effects supervisor John Dykstra, A.S.C. and crew developed many improvements in existing effects technology. They developed a computer-controlled camera rig called the "Dykstraflex" that allowed precise repeatability of camera motion, greatly facilitating travelling-matte compositing. Degradation of film images during compositing was minimized by other innovations: the Dykstraflex used VistaVision cameras that photographed widescreen images horizontally along stock, using far more of the film per frame, and thinner-emulsion filmstocks were used in the compositing process. The effects crew assembled by Lucas and Dykstra was dubbed Industrial Light and Magic, and since 1977 has spearheaded most effects innovations.

That same year, Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind boasted a finale with impressive special effects by 2001 veteran Douglas Trumbull. In addition to developing his own motion-control system, Trumbull also developed techniques for creating intentional "lens flare" (the shapes created by light reflecting in camera lenses) to provide the film's undefinable shapes of flying saucers.

The success of these films, and others since, has prompted massive studio investment in effects-heavy fantasy films. This has fuelled the establishment of many independent effects houses, a tremendous degree of refinement of existing techniques, and the development of new techniques such as CGI. It has also encouraged within the industry a greater distinction between special effects and visual effects; the latter is used to characterize post-production and optical work, while special effects refers more often to on-set and mechanical effects.

Introduction of computer generated imagery (CGI)

A recent and profound innovation in special effects has been the development of computer generated imagery, or CGI which has changed nearly every aspect of motion picture special effects. Digital compositing allows far more control and creative freedom than optical compositing, and does not degrade the image like analogue (optical) processes. Digital imagery has enabled technicians to create detailed models, matte "paintings," and even fully realized characters with the malleability of computer software.

The most spectacular use of CGI has been the creation of photographically realistic images of fantasy creations. Images could be created in a computer using the techniques of animated cartoons or model animation. In 1993, stop-motion animators working on the realistic dinosaurs of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park were retrained in the use of computer input devices. By 1995, films such as Toy Story underscored that the distinction between live-action films and animated films was no longer clear. Other landmark examples include a character made up of broken pieces of a stained-glass window in Young Sherlock Holmes, a shapeshifting character in Willow, a tentacle of water in The Abyss, the T-1000 Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, hordes of armies of robots and fantastic creatures in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the planet Pandora in Avatar.

Planning and use

Although most special effects work is completed during post-production, it must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. A Visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with the Director and all related personnel to achieve the desired effects.

Live special effects

Live special effects are effects that are used in front of a live audience, mostly during sporting events, concerts and corporate shows. Types of effects that are commonly used include: flying effects, laser lighting, Theatrical smoke and fog, CO2 effects, pyrotechnics, confetti and other atmospheric effects such as bubbles and snow.

Visual special effects techniques :-

Bullet time

Computer-generated imagery

Digital compositing

Dolly zoom

In-camera effects

Match moving

Matte painting

Miniature effects

Morphing

Motion control photography

Optical effects

Optical printing

Practical effects

Prosthetic makeup effects

Rotoscoping

Stop motion

Go motion

Schüfftan process

Travelling matte

Virtual cinematography

Wire removal

Notable special effects companies :-

Adobe Systems Incorporated (San Jose, CA)

Animal Logic (Sydney, AU and Venice, CA)

Bird Studios (London UK)

BUF Compagnie (Paris, FR)

CA Scanline (München, DE)

Cinesite (London/Hollywood)

Cinematic Wizards (Greater Copenhagen)

Creature Effects, Inc. (LA, CA, US)

Digital Domain (Venice, LA, CA, US)

Double Negative (VFX) (London, UK)

DreamWorks (LA, CA, US)

Flash Film Works (LA, CA, US)

Framestore (London, UK)

Giantsteps (Venice, CA)

Hydraulx (Santa Monica, LA, US)

Image Engine (Vancouver, BC, CA)

Industrial Light & Magic, founded by George Lucas

Intelligent Creatures (Toronto, ON, CA)

Intrigue FX (Canada)

M5 Industries (San Francisco i.e. Mythbusters)

Mac Guff (LA, CA, US; Paris, FR)

Matte World Digital (Novato, CA)

The Mill (London, UK; NY and LA, US)

Modus FX (Montreal, QC, CA)

Moving Picture Company (Soho, London, UK)

Rhythm and Hues Studios (LA, CA, US)

RIOT (Santa Monica, CA and Manhattan, NY, USA)

Rising Sun Pictures (Adelaide, AU)

Snowmasters (Lexington, AL, USA)

Sony Pictures Imageworks (Culver City, CA, USA)

Strictly FX, live special effects company

Surreal World (Melbourne, AU)

Tippett Studio (Berkeley, CA, US)

Tsuburaya Productions (Hachimanyama, Setagaya, Tokyo, Jap)

Vision Crew Unlimited

Weta Digital

Zoic Studios (Culver City, CA, US)

ZFX Inc a flying effects company

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Breaking down Ghost Recon Alpha

One of the very insightful presentations given at the recent FMX conference in Stuttgart was by Mikros Image on their 360 visual effects shots for Ghost Recon Alpha, a promo short for the game Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. Directed by François Alaux and Hervé de Crécy (Logorama) and produced by Ubisoft Motion Pictures and Little Minx, the short was filmed in 35mm anamorphic in the Czech Republic and features fully CG creations and composited elements.

Production scouted an abandoned metallurgy plant in Vítkovice Ostrava to serve as the location for the film which follows an anonymous team of Ghosts who secure a nuclear device while being ambushed by a group of cloaked troopers. One particular challenge there was the rain – during the 19 day shoot there were 10 days of precipitation with the other days being sunny, a challenge to match in post-production. A massive sail was built to deal with the sun, but it was also very windy and would often blow off.

Tower shot - original plate.

Tower shot - matte painting inserted.

Tower shot - final with graphics overlay.

All of the weapons seen in the short were real, but augmented with digital cartridges and tracer fire. Blood hits were often practical elements. A particular challenge involved creating muzzle flashes and matching those to the frame rate of the film. One key element for the soldiers are the head-up displays on their helmets. On set, the prop master inserted small LED lights into the headset that would be triggered when the screen was showing and so illuminate the area. Mikros then designed readouts, holographic screens and other graphics.

A small US air drone scout is a key piece of weaponry seen in the film, something that went through a number of design iterations. Initially a futuristic-looking machine, plates were filmed with that design in mind, but in post the scout was moved along to something more rotor-driven to provide a more realistic and contemporary approach. Mikros needed to make that new element work in the plates that had been filmed, and also deal with scenes in which it shot down and crashes.

Download Video

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Breakdown images of the scout drone.

In one hair-raising moment on set, the production un-boxed a container that appeared to have a real missile inside (thankfully it was unarmed). For the gun fight, practical bullet hits in the ground were achieved by burying small squibs. And a massive system of piping helped create smoke on the location. Interestingly, occasionally Mikros had to remove eye blinks when one of the Ghost Recon soldiers fired his on-set weapon: “Because he’s a Ghost Recon!”

The signature weapon seen in the film is the Warhound, sent in to destroy the Ghosts. Based originally on real ‘Big Dog’ military hardware, it also went through several design changes, from having legs to wheels and the inclusion of a Gatling gun. Initial tests to work out the speed of the Warhound revealed that it didn’t quite look scary enough, so Mikros slowed its movement down to be more frightening and threatening.

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Original plate.

Final shot.

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The Warhound was modeled and animated in Maya, with shots tracked in 3D Equalizer, rendered in Arnold and comp’d in Nuke. A couple of the shots featuring the war machine were completely digital. The Warhound meets a watery demise, the splash for which was achieved with a practical buck and many hours of work to line the area like a swimming pool.

Other shots completed by Mikros included an opening scene of a truck driving past camera that ended up being done with CG and matte paintings, and also the invisibility cloak work designed to be just a small extension of what now exists for real. Overall, Mikros relied on 27 artists to complete 360 effects shots – totaling 1200 days of work and taking up three terabytes of disk space.

Watch the full film Ghost Recon Alpha here on Ubisoft’s YouTube channel.

Warhound animation pass.

Textures added.

Added to background.

Final shot with shadow and ground interaction.

Credit List

Based on novels by Tom Clancy
Production: Rhea Scott, Frédéric Thonet
Directors: François Alaux, Hervé De Crécy

Post-production and VFX by Mikros Image
Executive producer: Frédéric Groetschel
Visual Effect Producer: Sarah Cauchois
Head of VFX: Julien Meesters
VFX Supervisor: Antoine Carlon
VFX Supervisor: Nicolas Rey
Character Modeling: Jérôme Martinez,Mathias Barday, Guillaume Ho Tsong Fang
Texture Artists: Olivier Mitonneau, Nicolas Bruchet, Alexandre Sauthier
Tracking – Layout: Yvan Galtié, Lorenzo Veracini, Marie Heine
Lead tracking: Stéphane Richez
Lead Animation: Alexandre Sauthier
Animation: Anne Chatelain, Damien Climent, Eric Prebende, Marie Celaya
SFX: Benjamin Lenfant, Simon Trouillet
Lighting: Mathias Barday, Nicolas Bruchet, Daniel Guimard, Benjamin Lenfant, Henri Derue
Digital Matte Painting: Christophe Courgeau, Alexandre Rouil
Rotoscopy 2D: Estelle Chiron, Sylvette Lavergne
Lead Compositing: Julien Dias
Lead Compositing: Philippe Huberdeau, Erick Hupin, Bathélémy Beaux, Stéphane Stradella, Olivier Blanchet
Compositing – Motion Design: Benjamin Pelletreau, Nathalie Paire, Vincent Venchiarutti
Compositing Teaser: Michael Moercant, Elisa Pretta
Scan: Jean Baptiste Le Guen
Color Grading: Jacky Lefresne, Magali Leonard
I/O Conformation: Thomas Bour
Datalab: Benoit Gille

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Animation details

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 or video program, although there are other methods.




Contents:-
1 Etymology
2 Early examples
3 Techniques
3.1 Traditional animation
3.2 Stop motion
3.3 Computer animation
3.3.1 2D animation
3.3.2 3D animation
3.3.2.1 Terms
3.4 Other animation techniques
3.5 Other techniques and approaches

Etymology

From Latin animātiō, "the act of bringing to life"; from animō ("to animate" or "give life to") + -ātiō ("the act of").

Early examples

Main article: History of animation

Five images sequence from a vase found in Iran

An Egyptian burial chamber mural, approximately 4000 years old, showing wrestlers in action. Even though this may appear similar to a series of animation drawings, there was no way of viewing the images in motion. It does, however, indicate the artist's intention of depicting motion.

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

A 5,000 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.

A Chinese zoetrope-type device had been invented in 180 AD. The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, and the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 19th century.

These devices produced the appearance of movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the "creator" of film animation, as there were several people working on projects which could be considered animation at about the same time.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special-effect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years.

The earliest surviving stop-motion advertising film was an English short by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called Matches: An Appeal (1899). Developed for the Bryant and May Matchsticks company, it involved stop-motion animation of wired-together matches writing a patriotic call to action on a blackboard.

J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American film-maker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to film-making by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton's "lightning artist" routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès' early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator.

Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl, 1908

Another French artist, Émile Cohl, began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. This makes Fantasmagoriethe first animated film created using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation.

Following the successes of Blackton and Cohl, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One such artist was Winsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, who created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper; which invariably required backgrounds and characters to be redrawn and animated. Among McCay's most noted films are Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

The production of animated short films, typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own during the 1910s, and cartoon shorts were produced to be shown in movie theaters. The most successful early animation producer was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade.

El Apóstol (Spanish: "The Apostle") was a 1917 Argentine animated film utilizing cutout animation, and the world's first animated feature film.

Techniques

Traditional animation

An example of traditional animation, a horse animated by rotoscoping from Eadweard Muybridge's 19th century photos

Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, which are first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one onto motion picture film against a painted background by a rostrum camera.

The traditional cel animation process became obsolete by the beginning of the 21st century. Today, animators' drawings and the backgrounds are either scanned into or drawn directly into a computer system. Various software programs are used to color the drawings and simulate camera movement and effects. The final animated piece is output to one of several delivery media, including traditional 35 mm film and newer media such as digital video. The "look" of traditional cel animation is still preserved, and the character animators' work has remained essentially the same over the past 70 years. Some animation producers have used the term "tradigital" to describe cel animation which makes extensive use of computer technology.

Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), and Les Triplettes de Belleville (France, 2003).

• Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films, which regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement. Fully animated films can be done in a variety of styles, from more realistically animated works such as those produced by the Walt Disney studio (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King) to the more 'cartoony' styles of those produced by the Warner Bros. animation studio. Many of the Disney animated features are examples of full animation, as are non-Disney works such as The Secret of NIMH (US, 1982), The Iron Giant (US, 1999), and Nocturna (Spain, 2007).
• Limited animation involves the use of less detailed and/or more stylized drawings and methods of movement. Pioneered by the artists at the American studio United Productions of America, limited animation can be used as a method of stylized artistic expression, as in Gerald McBoing Boing (US, 1951), Yellow Submarine (UK, 1968), and much of the anime produced in Japan. Its primary use, however, has been in producing cost-effective animated content for media such as television (the work of Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, and other TV animation studios) and later the Internet (web cartoons).
• Rotoscoping is a technique, patented by Max Fleischer in 1917, where animators trace live-action movement, frame by frame. The source film can be directly copied from actors' outlines into animated drawings, as in The Lord of the Rings (US, 1978), or used in a stylized and expressive manner, as in Waking Life (US, 2001) and A Scanner Darkly (US, 2006). Some other examples are: Fire and Ice (USA, 1983) and Heavy Metal (1981).
• Live-action/animation is a technique, when combining hand-drawn characters into live action shots. One of the earlier uses of it was Koko the Clown when Koko was drawn over live action footage. Other examples would include Who Framed Roger Rabbit (USA, 1988), Space Jam (USA, 1996) and Osmosis Jones (USA, 2002).

• Stop motion

A stop-motion animation of a moving coin

Stop-motion animation is used to describe animation created by physically manipulating real-world objects and photographing them one frame of film at a time to create the illusion of movement. There are many different types of stop-motion animation, usually named after the medium used to create the animation. Computer software is widely available to create this type of animation.

• Puppet animation typically involves stop-motion puppet figures interacting with each other in a constructed environment, in contrast to the real-world interaction in model animation. The puppets generally have an armature inside of them to keep them still and steady as well as constraining them to move at particular joints. Examples include The Tale of the Fox (France, 1937), The Nightmare Before Christmas (US, 1993), Corpse Bride (US, 2005), Coraline (US, 2009), the films of Jiří Trnka and the TV series Robot Chicken (US, 2005–present).
  • Puppetoon, created using techniques developed by George Pal, are puppet-animated films which typically use a different version of a puppet for different frames, rather than simply manipulating one existing puppet.
    

    

    Clay animation
• Clay animation, or Plasticine animation often abbreviated as claymation, uses figures made of clay or a similar malleable material to create stop-motion animation. The figures may have an armature or wire frame inside of them, similar to the related puppet animation (below), that can be manipulated to pose the figures. Alternatively, the figures may be made entirely of clay, such as in the films of Bruce Bickford, where clay creatures morph into a variety of different shapes. Examples of clay-animated works include The Gumby Show (US, 1957–1967) Morph shorts (UK, 1977–2000), Wallace and Gromit shorts (UK, as of 1989), Jan Švankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue (Czechoslovakia, 1982), The Trap Door (UK, 1984). Films include Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and The Adventures of Mark Twain.
• Cutout animation is a type of stop-motion animation produced by moving 2-dimensional pieces of material such as paper or cloth. Examples include Terry Gilliam's animated sequences from Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK, 1969–1974); Fantastic Planet (France/Czechoslovakia, 1973) ; Tale of Tales (Russia, 1979), The pilot episode of the TV series (and sometimes in episodes) of South Park (US, 1997).
  

  

  A clay animation scene from a Finnishtelevision commercial
  • Silhouette animation is a variant of cutout animation in which the characters are backlit and only visible as silhouettes. Examples include The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Weimar Republic, 1926) and Princes et princesses (France, 2000).
• Model animation refers to stop-motion animation created to interact with and exist as a part of a live-action world. Intercutting, matte effects, and split screens are often employed to blend stop-motion characters or objects with live actors and settings. Examples include the work of Ray Harryhausen, as seen in films such Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and the work of Willis O'Brien on films such as King Kong (1933 film).
  • Go motion is a variant of model animation which uses various techniques to create motion blur between frames of film, which is not present in traditional stop-motion. The technique was invented by Industrial Light & Magic and Phil Tippett to create special effects scenes for the film The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Another example is the dragon named Vermithrax from Dragonslayer (1981 film).
• Object animation refers to the use of regular inanimate objects in stop-motion animation, as opposed to specially created items.
  • Graphic animation uses non-drawn flat visual graphic material (photographs, newspaper clippings, magazines, etc.) which are sometimes manipulated frame-by-frame to create movement. At other times, the graphics remain stationary, while the stop-motion camera is moved to create on-screen action.
  • Brickfilm A sub genre of object animation involving using LEGO or other similar brick toys to make an animation. These have had a recent boost in popularity with the advent of video sharing sites like YouTube, and the availability of cheap cameras, and animation software.
• Pixilation involves the use of live humans as stop motion characters. This allows for a number of surreal effects, including disappearances and reappearances, allowing people to appear to slide across the ground, and other such effects. Examples of pixilation include The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb and Angry Kid shorts.

Computer animation

A short gif animation of Earth

Computer animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer. This animation takes less time than previous traditional animation.

2D animation

2D animation figures are created and/or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as of, interpolated morphing, onion skinning andinterpolated rotoscoping.

2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphsare still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.

3D animation

3D animation is digitally modeled and manipulated by an animator. To manipulate a mesh, it is given a digital skeletal structure that can be used to control the mesh. This process is called rigging. Various other techniques can be applied, such as mathematical functions (ex. gravity, particle simulations), simulated fur or hair, effects such as fire and water and the use of motion capture to name but a few, these techniques fall under the category of 3D dynamics. Well-made 3D animations can be difficult to distinguish from live action and are commonly used as visual effects for recent movies. Toy Story (1995, USA) is the first feature-length film to be created and rendered entirely using 3D graphics.

Terms

Cel-shaded animation, is used to mimic traditional animation using CG software. Shading looks stark, with less blending colors. Examples include, Skyland (2007, France), Appleseed Ex Machina (2007, Japan), The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (2002, Japan)

• Machinima, Films created by screen capturing in video games and virtual worlds.
• Motion capture, is used when live action actors wear special suits that allow computers to copy their movements into CG characters. Examples include Polar Express (2004, USA), Beowulf(2007, USA), A Christmas Carol (2009, USA), The Adventures of Tintin (2011, USA)
• Photo realistic animation, is used primarily for animation that attempts to resemble real life. Using advanced rendering that makes detailed skin, plants, water, fire, clouds, etc. to mimic real life. Examples include Up (2009, USA), Kung-Fu Panda (2008, USA), Ice Age (2002, USA).

2D animation techniques tend to focus on image manipulation while 3D techniques usually build virtual worlds in which characters and objects move and interact. 3D animation can create images that seem real to the viewer.

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