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FOCUS: This session focuses on Animation. This page targets basic to intermediate level of users.

ANIMATION INTRODUCTION:

An animation is nothing but a motion. This motion can be applied to any thing in the nature right from living beings to non-living things. It could be any motion like clouds movement in the sky, ripples movement in the water, movements of our body parts etc. The meaning of animation is 'movement' or 'to bring life', anything that moves in the universe is said to be animating.

Animation not only implies to the movement, but can also be used to create magnificent piece of art. It is another artistic method of expressing feelings and emotions. It has the ability to bring our imagination onto the screen, and it can bring life in static things and show emotions inside lifeless beings too.

According to computer graphics, Animation is a study and re-creation of motion of all the kinds of living and non-living beings. Here we study how the laws of physics and anatomy play their roles to exhibit the movements. We can even take liberty to get movements that are not possible in real-time environment for specifying specialized characteristics of objects or to exhibit certain actions that create attention. This could be anything right from a paper flipbook to a higher end motion picture film; animation requires keen observation and well understanding of natural movements.

Digital animation does not mean that we have to replicate the exact movements of the objects / characters based on principles of physics. It has no limitations. It can also be used to create things beyond reality. In animation, a mouse can speak, a panda can fight, a human can travel to other galaxies within fraction of seconds or we can even cut a cat into slices and can bring it back to life. The only limit is our imagination.

If we ask the question ‘why animation?’ – the answer lies in understanding the question itself. It is highly impossible to imagine day-to-day life in this world without any movements. Motion is everywhere in the nature. Without motion, there is nothing in the world; and without animation, there is no creation. If you take a simple stable rock as an example, again it has millions of movements inside in its atomic structure. Imagine a cell phone without any kinds of movements in its text or images.