Assessment 1 - 2D Computer Graphic Animation!!!

2D Computer Graphic Animation

Number 6 here!!!

Now we're digging into the good stuff here! Computer animation! woo! Right so lets get stuck in shall we? The Name itself is pretty self explanatory, its graphics art using a computer! This might seem overly obvious to your goodself, but it wasn't that long ago that computer graphics were getting started! This is where a lot of modern cartoons come from, simple enough in theory, you make a drawing using a computer software, Paint or Flash for example and then stream them together to make the animation run! The examples are almost endless here! I think this time I'll focus less on examples and more of the evolution of 2D Computer Graphic Animation, since it is recent history but its evolved so fast in retrospect!

Making a 2D animation!!!

So in all honesty, there is no easy way to make a 2D Computer Graphic Animation, it takes a lot of time and patience, plus, it also comes down to the software you use, there is different kinds that are easier and harder to use, some for basic animations for people getting started, or more advanced software for more experienced users. A couple of examples would be Adobe Flash which is free to download (as far as I can tell anyways! unless I got it by other means O_o) then there's stuff like blender, a damn good animation software for both 2D and 3D animation! I'd recommend using Flash if your just wanting to get started! iv included 2 video tutorials bellow, one for Flash and one for Blender for those adventurous souls out there!

The Bad and the Worse!!!

So as opposed to what the title says there are great points for 2D Computer Graphic Animation! but the down side is that to begin with the bad out ways the good unfortunately at least until you get more experienced! So the good here is....well its one of the more professional looking animations out there! its nice and smooth, easier to make, even though your still "drawing" the animation, its easier to tweak since you can make copies and highlight the movement sand copy the images to do so! so no more having to draw cel upon cel at a time! Copy the image and small tweaks here and there! so much easier! The bad though, as I said, initially outways the good since you still need a very high level of artistic skill in order to do this properly, id recommend drawing a few things, get some practice in before attempting this other wise it'll come out a colourful blob! (or that might just be me!) it takes a lot of time for the animation to slowly come together, later on I'm gonna have an extra wee bit show casing 2 examples of animation, one from the beginning of an animators career to the most recent, its a youtuber that I've followed for some time and seen his skills improve over the years! So its a great example of practice makes perfect!

Animate me they said! Computerise it they said!

So I'm gonna quickly touch on the beginnings of computer animations, but I mainly want to focus on the first 2D digital image and so on, focusing more on the 2D Computer Graphic Animation rather than computer graphics and special effects in general! So back in 1940 to dudes called John Whitney and James Whitney (yes they are related) cobbled together a device that was similar to an old anti air craft computer! Connected via servos to detect light and lit objects! This was the beginning to animation as we know it! Now lets jump ahead to 1957 to where Russel Kirsch and his team unveiled a Drum Scanner, which scanned the variable differences in a photograph, the picture itself was an image of Russel Kirsch's son, the image itself was only 176×176 pixels! kind of tiny compared to modern images! Lets skip further ahead to 1968, where a small group of soviet physicists and mathematicians with a man called Nikolai Konstantinov at the helm, came together to create a mathematical model for a cat! (do not ask me how, that is way beyond my knowledge!) they used the computer to print off a sequence of images using alphabet symbols that were latter put together in sequence, this created the motion of the cat moving! 2D Computer Graphic Animation itself has evolved and been touched up over the years giving a sharper image than before, improving the quality of it time and time again! Still being used even today you can see how far its came in modern cartoons! the images themselves look crisp and sharp!

Examples all around!

just thought id jump straight in with the examples this time, I tried finding images that shows the breakdown of the 2D Computer Graphic Animation style for you, think these two pictures give a better example than my ramblings could!

Extra!!!

As said early I wanted to show a few video examples of a youtuber that's been animating using 2D Computer Graphic Animation for a few years now! Sadly the original animator did pass away but his work still lives on for the fans! I know Present Eddsworld! the first and last video that's on their channel! just to showcase how advanced 2D Computer graphic Animation can become!

You can tell straight away this was a first attempt! but it was uploaded anyway since its still an animation which needed a damn good level of skill!

Here was are with the most recent video, as I said the original animator passed a few a few years ago, but he left the stuff needed to continue for a while, which is what he wanted, he was always for the fans and put his all into his animations