Computer animation

Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating moving images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both still images and moving images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics.

Computer animation is a digital successor to stop motion and traditional animation. Instead of a physical model or illustration, a digital equivalent is manipulated frame-by-frame. Also, computer-generated animations allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without using actors, expensive set pieces, or props. To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly replaced by a new similar image but advanced slightly in time (usually at a rate of 24, 25, or 30 frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures.

To trick the visual system into seeing a smoothly moving object, the pictures should be drawn at around 12 frames per second or faster (a frame is one complete image). With rates above 75 to 120 frames per second, no improvement in realism or smoothness is perceivable due to the way the eye and the brain both process images. At rates below 12 frames per second, most people can detect jerkiness associated with the drawing of new images that detracts from the illusion of realistic movement. Conventional hand-drawn cartoon animation often uses 15 frames per second in order to save on the number of drawings needed, but this is usually accepted because of the stylized nature of cartoons. To produce more realistic imagery, computer animation demands higher frame rates.

Films seen in theaters in the United States run at 24 frames per second, which is sufficient to create the appearance of continuous movement.

Computer-generated animation is an umbrella term for three-dimensional (3D) animation, and 2D computer animation. These also include subcategories like asset driven, hybrid, and digital drawn animation. Creators animate using code or software instead of pencil-to-paper drawings. There are many techniques and disciplines in computer generated animation, some of which are digital representations of traditional animation - such as key frame animation - and some of which are only possible with a computer - such fluid simulation.

'CG' Animators can break physical laws by using mathematical algorithms to cheat mass, force and gravity, and more. Fundamentally, computer-generated animation is a powerful tool which can improve the quality of animation by using the power of computing to unleash the animator's imagination. This is because Computer Generated Animation allows for things like onion skinning which allows 2D animators to see the flow of their work all at once, and interpolation which allows 3D animators to automate the process of inbetweening.

For 3D computer animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a virtual skeleton. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the figure are moved by the animator on key frames. Normally, the differences between key frames are drawn in a process known as tweening. However, in 3D computer animation, this is done automatically, and is called interpolation. Finally, the animation is rendered and composited.

Before becoming a final product, 3D computer animations only exist as a series of moving shapes and systems within 3d software, and must be rendered. This can happen as a separate process for animations developed for movies and short films, or it can be done in real-time when animated for videogames. After an animation is rendered, it can be composited into a final product.