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The History of 2D Animation

This post details a brief history of the pinnacle developments in 2D animation that have been accomplished up until this point in time. What defines animation? Well animation in the sense that we mean it is the simulation of a movement or movement of objects by displaying a series of pictures or frames.

Today there are many forms and uses for animation in our day today media intake and use of software/application. Animation as a whole has changed the world, the human have understood things and the speed in which education has been absorbed, the way in which different media companies make their money, advertise and re-establish themselves.

The earliest forms of animation were produced with the use of light; from candlelight or sunlight to act as the power behind the projector to project the silhouette of an image or shape, this type of animation is one of many stop motion animations. This was one of the “Victorian Parlor Toys”, normally produced a short animation; dependent on the size of the wheel and was spun by hand with images on the inside, normally showing an action like a birds flap of its wings. There were many of these early animating devices designed and dedicated to entertainment for children or small groups, devices that fall into this category include the zoetrope, magic lantern, praxinoscope, thaumatrope, phenakistoscope and the original flip book all of them had their own times to amaze. These inventions were considered very clever for their time and naturally underwent many gradual developments, adding more and more quality and refinement to the quality to the illusion of motion picture.

By this stage in animation development it was 1877 and the concept and theory behind creating animation was becoming well established. But in 1892 the inventor of the praxinoscope, Charles-émile Reynaud had thought wild, outside the box and decided he was to be the first to make traditional motion picture animation. In Paris at the time this French animator or about to become animator had started work on a 12 frame loop animation on cinema projector type device he then moved on to make 500 frame loops and the magic grow from then on, in the projection of frames to produce the illusion of motion.

In 1906 the first standard picture film was created with great use of animation, it appears to be a cartoonist drawing on a chalkboard, bringing life and motion into the face on the chalkboard. This showed the easy development and creativeness of animation and how versatile animation can be; soon animation would turn into feature length films. Developments into animation were slowly being made around the world from country to country; United Kingdom, France and Russia were all making progress in their own developments. The different forms of animation were being explored and were quite eccentric; pictures of dead insects slightly manipulated and taken pictures of to produce 12 frames per second animation still offering the appropriate illusion of motion by the insects, this weird animation would be considered extremely controversial today, but if it was in the aid of animation development then fair enough.

In 1917 the first animated feature length films was produced by an Argentinian Quirino Cristiani, unfortunately to this day the film has not survived, the earliest surviving animated film which used colour tinted scenes, it is a silhouette animated film which used colour tinted scenes. This was a very early use of colour in animation and helped the course of development. Hand drawn animation had created real cinema within the industry for the media but digital was not yet around soon things would be broadcast to homes and televisions but this was not yet, if someone wanted to see this they would have to go to the local cinema for a communal screening.

America had moved into cell and paper animation and was amazing everybody with the beauty in motion it was producing, this type of animation had become allot more popular in America than it had in Europe because of the assembly line that had been taking America by storm giving their development a great advantage. The great Disney was focussing on cell animation drawing each image one at a time using onion skinning techniques; this would require many to work at drawing together in a room filling out the cell animation.

In the traditional cell animation productions, drawings were created one by one with keyframes and assistances would create the in-betweens; onion skinning helps the process by helping you to reference the drawings on previous frames and draw over on to the next frame placed on top. In 1928 Disney had managed to accomplish the great and published the first cartoon with synchronized sound it was entitled “Steamboat Willie”. For the next for few years work in animation would mainly focus in this style and not look into too many other developments.

Japanese animation had moved in to its own style of cartoon with their “manga”, and hand drawn motion picture category picture “anime”, this animation covered much Japanese cinema and was the key and money making hand drawn style for its time in Japan. The artistry really is beautiful and the morals, stories and ethics behind most of the stories are brilliant, a now very well-known company named Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 and puts great heart, character and work into its animation. This company has recognisably changed the face of Japanese animation and cartoon.

Other forms of 2D animation were now ready for development, a simple and easy form of 2D animation was being used greatly all over in the same way that stop motion animation is being produced taking pictures of paper positions above was the method and proved greatly affective. The great and funny cartoon called “South Park” makes use of the method with cut shapes from different coloured paper and different mouth shapes and drawings. This is just one of the many forms of 2D animation and the same effect can be produced in many different ways through uses of computers or other physical objects.

As development in computing had strengthened new software and media editing applications were being produced, allowing people to easily synchronise sound with their animations and bring allot dynamics into their compositions. Through great uses of digital 2D animating this allowed far more objects and vast amounts of data to be edited in the most unimaginable ways. Development has gone into web editing software and interactivity so much to this day that many animation compositions are produced in the applications. Applications such as Adobe Flash, Maya and Synfig are great for producing 2D animations. Now multiple animations are produce in 2D to spice many websites and web applications across the globe and the use of 2D animation this way just keep on growing.

3D Animation developments in italics (accidental waffle forgot this was purely 2D)

In the 1970’s computer geniuses were really proving themselves and showing how computer animation was really a potential, this would be the birth of a revolution into digitised media and application. The idea slowly grew and interactivity did too, 2D animation was slowly being used up till 1976 when the first 3D computer graphics were created for the animation of a hand and face. From 1978 onward the title sequences for films would now be produced on computers also being able to have 2D animations in the background behind the titles. CGI (Computer Generated Graphics) were making great leaps and bounds and in 1981 the first CGI human character, “Cindy” was created and was also the first use of 3D shading of CGI on a computer, a great achievement and would affect animation for ever. Similar developments would then follow until 1986 when the first 3D scanner was used and we had established a new technology and would allow us to create 3D morphing for use in animation, 3D scanners! Then in 1987 the very first TV show was to include characters modelled entirely on computers was made, now 3D computer animations were able to be incorporated into real picture feature length films, this would assist the development of special effects greatly and in 1989 the first 3D digital water effect was incorporated into a composition.

Great films were to come from this CGI and would be developed to a realistic standard/photogenic look; “Jurassic Park” was the first film to offer a photorealistic CG motion of creatures, now this was a scare! From here on end Computer Generated Graphics looked amazing and would conquer the world of children’s films with innocent stories and characters and wonderful stories were now able to be betrayed in such a great detail.