Types of Animation

Zoetrope

The early Zoetrope was originally in China by a man called Ding Huan in 180 AD. The modern Zoetrope was in vented in 1834 by a mathematician called William George Horner.

The Zoetrope is an open cylinder with slits on the side of it. Inside the open cylinder is the frame by frame drawing. Spinning the Zoetrope and looking through the slit, you will be able to watch a mini animation happening.

Zoetrope means “Wheel of Life” and it didn’t become popular until the 1860’s.

 

Thaumatrope

The Thaumatrope was made to test the persistence of vision. It is a very simple animation in which you have a drawing on one side of a piece of paper and another on the back. The pictures are held with string on the left and right sides. You then twirl and watch it flip. This causes you to see both sides of the picture at once, which seems to make one picture.

 

Phenakistoscope

This is very similar to the Zoetrope but the Phenakistoscope has a spinning disk instead on the cylinder. The Phenakistoscope can only be viewed by one person at a time. You spin the disk and watch the frame by frame animation. The Phenaakistoscope was famous for only two years due to the constant growing of technology.

 

Flip Book

Flip books first appeared in September 1868 and was originally called a kineograph (moving picture). A flip book also relies on the persistence of vision. A flip book consists of of a book with drawings or pictures, and when flipped rapidly an animation is seen. Flip books are usually made for the entertainment of children.

 

Praxinoscope

The Praxinoscope was invented in France by Charles-Émile Reynaud. The Praxinoscope is also similar to the Zoetrope. It has the same cylinder shape but instead of slits on the outside, there is a mirror in the inside. When spun it reflects the pictures and makes it animate. It is considered as the much better version of a Zoetrope.

 

Animation Today: Stop Motion

Today’s animation has gone very far from how it began. There is Stop Motion animation. and this is when you use objects for animation. You move the object slightly then take a photograph of it. If you keep repeating this cycle then view all the images , it will appear that the object is moving. An example of stop motion animation is Wallace and Gromit.

 

CGI Animation

 

CGI Animation stands for Computer-Generated Imagery. The CGI animation are basically made on the computer using 3D animation software. For example, Blender, and 3D Max. The very first CGI animation that was done completely was Toy Story which was made by Pixar.