The Computer Animation

An animation is defined as a change in a visual scene with respect to time. Today, the use of computer technology has made the animation process gradually easier and more powerful. The process of developing images and read at high speed by using software to create an illusion of movement is regarded as computer animation. The illusion of movement is created by displaying an image on the computer screen, and then quickly replace it with a new image, which is similar to the previous image, but shifted slightly.

The computer animation field is a subset of both computer graphics and animation technologies. Computer animation is generally carried out by a series of geometric transformations, scaling, translation, rotation, or any mathematical technique for producing a sequence of scenes. In addition, the animation may be performed by varying one of the following characteristics:

· Camera Settings: Involves the camera position relative to the object, object distance, direction and orientation.

· Lighting conditions: This is the direction of light and color, number of lights, and so on.

In computer animation, the frames necessary for animation are generated using computers, and are then displayed on an output device at a high speed. The basic approach to design an animation sequence consists of four stages, namely, the storyboard layout, object definitions, table of key specifications, and generate intermediate images.

The storyboard is a glimpse of the action. This step essentially defines the movement sequence of the object as a set of basic events taking place. For example, when creating an animation sequence to play cricket, the storyboard layout consist of action and movement of the stick, bowling, fielding, running and so on.

Parameters object: Once the storyboard layout has been prepared, the next step is to define all objects or participating in the action. The objects are generally described in terms of dimensions, shapes (such as polygon or spline surfaces), color, movement, or any other additional information that may help identify the objects. For example, when creating animation for the game of cricket, object definitions could be the size of the player, his uniform colors, ball size, bat, stumps, etc.

Keyframe Specifications: The next step in the animation creation process is to develop specifications for the keyframe. A keyframe is a detailed drawing of the scene at some point in the animation sequence. Each keyframe, position, color, shape, etc., all objects are positioned at a given point in time to the frame. The more pictures, the smoother the animation. For complex movements need to specify multiple keyframes compared to simple varied movements slowly.

Generation-between frames: Once keyframes are specified, the next step is to generate intermediate frames. The total number of intermediate frames a necessary depends animated display means is used. There are twelve basic principles of animation, which were introduced by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in 1981 in his book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. The twelve basic principles of animation are described as follows:

· Squash and stretch: It is the most important principle of the animation. Squash and stretch technique is primarily used to simulate the acceleration effects particularly for non-rigid objects.

· Time: Time is the most vital element of animation. Refers to the spacing between the frames move more is the spacing between the frames, the faster the object appear to move. The speed at which an object is moving gives a feeling that is the object, which may be the weight of an object and it is in motion. The timing of an animation is important for the establishment of humor, emotion and reaction of a character. If it is slow, a character seems to be tired and lethargic.

· Follow through and overlapping action: Follow through refers to actions that are performed at the end of the real movement. Action overlay is another important principle of the animation. Overlap the actions of an object body, hair, tail, clothes, etc., you can make your more fluid, natural and realistic animation. Note that when you create an animation sequence, action should never be brought to a complete stop before starting another action. Overlay maintains a continuous flow between actions entire sentences.

· Action and action opposite facing installation: These are two basic approaches to creating animation. In the animation of the right front, the animator draws a picture frame beginning of the scene at the end. -Installation To represent animation, on the other hand, it is created by drawing some of the key frames, and then by creating between images. The course of action in front allows you to create a more fluid, illusion of movement and dynamics are better to produce realistic action sequences.

· Slow and slow down on (or mitigate and alleviate out): The basic idea behind this principle is that when the human body or other objects move, they need time to accelerate and decelerate. This makes the animation look more natural and realistic. Exaggeration can also involve supernatural changes to the physical characteristics of a character or plot elements specific. Adding secondary actions to the main action add more life to the stage, can help support the main action. The main idea behind secondary action is to highlight the main action, instead of diverting attention from the main action.

· Robust design: The main idea behind solid drawings is to create three-dimensional drawings, and giving them weight and volume. To manage the design and control of animation sequences, several animated films, such as a graphical editor, a key generator, a generator in the middle, and standard graphics routines are needed. While these animation functions can be programmed using a general purpose programming language like C, Lisp, Pascal, Fortran or even more specialized animation languages ​​have also been developed. These animation languages ​​are classified into three types, which are:

· Key executives Systems: These are specialized animation languages ​​that are designed to generate the frames between keyframes specified by the user. Originally, these systems were designed as a set of animation routines, but now these routines are often formed an element in a broader set of animation.

 
· Systems with parameters: They allow you to specify the characteristics of the movement of the object object definitions. Adjustable settings control these objects such features as the degrees of freedom of movement limitations, and eligible shape changes.

· Script systems: These systems allow the user to define the specifications of objects and animation sequences based on the input from the user script.