You should mean: What is an animated cartoon? Or what is animation? Right?

Animation is a comprehensive art category and the product of human spiritual liberation in industrial society. It is an artistic expression that integrates painting, comics, movies, digital media, photography, music, literature and many other artistic categories.

English animation: animation, cartoon, cartoon, photography. Among them, the more formal word "animation" comes from the Latin root anima, which means soul; The verb animate is to give life, which means to make something alive. Therefore, animation can be interpreted as the creator's arrangement, so that things that are originally lifeless move like life.

In the early days, China called animation an art film; Now it is called comics internationally.

Lu Lu badminton+C.C. Animation is a kind of fantasy art, which can express and express people's feelings more intuitively, turn what is impossible to see in reality into reality, and expand people's imagination and creativity.

Broadly speaking, it is to turn some inactive things into moving images through the production and projection of movies. This is animation. The Chinese name of "Animation" should be said to have originated from Japan. Before and after World War II, Japan called a comic work depicted by a line "animation".

Animation is to divide the expressions, actions and changes of people and things into many frames, and then shoot them into a series of pictures with a camera, thus creating a continuous visual change picture. Its basic principle, like film and television, is visual principle. Medicine has proved that human beings have the characteristic of "visual persistence", that is, after seeing a painting or an object, people's eyes will not disappear within 0. 1 second. Using this principle, playing before the next painting disappears will give people a smooth visual change effect. Therefore, movies are shot and played at the speed of 24 frames per second, and televisions are shot and played at the speed of 25 frames per second (PAL system, which is used by China TV) or 30 frames per second (NTSC system). If you shoot and play at a speed lower than 10 frames per second, there will be a pause.

The way to define animation is not the material used or the way of creation, but whether the work conforms to the essence of animation. Today, animation media has included various forms, but no matter what form, they all have some similarities: their images are recorded one by one in the form of movies, videos or digital information; In addition, the "action" of the image is an illusion created, rather than existing originally.

So far, animation can be divided into two kinds: two-dimensional animation and three-dimensional animation. Two-dimensional animation is made by software such as flash, and three-dimensional animation is mainly made by maya or 3D MAX. Especially maya, a three-dimensional animation software, has been making three-dimensional animations and movies at home and abroad in recent years, and a large number of excellent and shocking three-dimensional animation movies have emerged, such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Superman Story, Shrek, Transformers and Kung Fu Panda.

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Animation classification

There are no certain rules for the classification of animation. From the production technology and means, animation can be divided into traditional animation based on manual drawing and computer animation based on computer. According to the form of action, animation can be roughly divided into "perfect animation" (animated TV) which is close to natural action and "limited animation" (slide animation) which adopts simplified exaggeration. From the visual effect of space, it can be divided into two-dimensional animation (such as dragon ball and dunk) and three-dimensional animation (such as final fantasy). From the perspective of playback effect, it can also be divided into sequential animation (continuous action) and interactive animation (repetitive action). Judging from the number of frames displayed per second, there are full animation (24 frames per second, Disney animation) and semi-animation (less than 24 frames, third-rate animation). In order to save money, domestic animation companies often use semi-animation to shoot TV dramas.

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Brief history of animation

The analysis chart of bison running in stone age caves 25,000 years ago is the earliest evidence that human beings tried to capture the action and put it on a picture.

The golden ratio figure is drawn together with the simultaneous action, and this concept of "simultaneity" indirectly expresses the human desire to "move". Leonardo da vinci's golden scale diagram shows four arms, indicating the action of swinging hands up and down; In the history of painting in China, artists have a tradition of bringing static painting into life, such as the vivid charm advocated in the "Six Methods" and the characters in "Fairy in Painting" stepping out of the picture in a serial studio (although it is necessary to make up for the dynamic by imagination). These concepts have something in common with animation, but what really makes the portraits on the map move is distant Europe.

1826, Joseph Prato invented the rotating mirror, which is a circular card with cracks on the edge. The viewer approaches a mirror with this card and looks through the crack while the card is spinning. The audience regards a series of pictures near the circumference of the card as moving images.

1828, the French Paul Rogate first discovered the phenomenon of visual persistence. He invented the photographic disc. It is a disk, crossed on both sides with ropes or wooden poles. One side of the plate is painted with a bird and the other side is painted with an empty cage. When the disc rotates, the bird appears in the cage. This proves that when the eye sees a series of images, it only keeps one image at a time.

183 1 year, a Frenchman, Joseph Antoine Prato, put the painted pictures on the circle of a machine in sequence.

On the Finnach mirror plate, the disk can be driven by the machine to rotate. This machine also has an observation window to observe the effect of moving pictures. Driven by the machine, the disc rotates at a low speed. The pictures on the CD also rotate with the CD. From the observation window, the picture seems to be moving, forming a moving picture, which is the embryonic form of the original animation.

1906, J.Steward of the United States made a film close to the concept of modern animation, called the humorous stage of funny face. After repeated pondering and deliberation, he constantly revised the draft and finally completed this short film close to animation.

1908, Frenchman Emile Cohl made an animated film from negative for the first time. The so-called negative is a film whose image is just the opposite of the actual color, just like the ordinary film negative today. Making animation with negative film solved the problem of film carrier conceptually and laid the foundation for the development of animation in the future.

1909, Winsor Mccay of the United States expressed an animated story with 10,000 pictures, which is recognized as the first decent animated short film in the world so far. Since then, the level of creation and production of cartoons has become increasingly mature, and people have begun to consciously make cartoons that express various contents.

19 15 years, Ilhurd created a brand-new animation production process. He first drew cartoons on plastic film, and then made the paintings on plastic film into animated films. This animation technology has been used for many years.

1928, the world-famous Walter Disney created the first animated film Steamboat Willie. 1937, created the first color animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He gradually pushed the animated film to the peak. While perfecting the animation system and production technology, he also linked the production of cartoons with commercial value and was known as the father of commercial animation. Until now, the Disney company he founded is still creating colorful cartoons for people all over the world, which can be said to be the greatest animation company in the 20th century.

From 65438 to 0995, Pixar Company produced the first three-dimensional animated feature film Toy Story, which made the animation industry glow with new vitality.

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Animation production steps

Animation production is a very tedious and arduous work, and the division of labor is extremely detailed. Usually divided into pre-production, mid-production and post-production. Pre-production includes planning, work setting and fund raising. Production includes split mirror, original painting, intermediate painting, animation, coloring, background painting, photography, dubbing, recording and so on. Post-production includes editing, special effects, subtitles, synthesis, screening and so on. Nowadays, animation and the addition of computers make it easier to make animations, so many people on the Internet use FLASH to make short animations. For different people, the process and method of animation creation may be different, but the basic law is the same. The production process of traditional animation can be divided into four stages: overall planning, design and production, specific creation and shooting, and each stage has several steps:

1, overall design stage

1) script. The first step in any film production is to create a script, but the script of an animated film is very different from a feature film performed by a real person. Dialogue in general movies is very important for actors' performances, while in animated movies, we should try to avoid complicated dialogues. The most important thing here is to express visual action with pictures. The best animation is achieved through funny actions, in which there is no dialogue, but visual creation stimulates people's imagination.

2) Storyboard. According to the script, the director will draw a sketch of a story similar to a cartoon (a shot drawing the script) to show the actions described in the script. The storyboard consists of several segments, and each segment consists of a series of scenes. A scene is generally limited to a certain place and a group of people, and the scene can be divided into a series of shots as picture units, thus constructing the overall structure of an animation. While drawing each shot, the storyboard should have the corresponding action description, telling the truth time, photography description and picture connection as its content. Generally, if there are about 400 shots in a 30-minute animation script, a storyboard with about 800 pictures will be drawn.

3) Shooting table. This is the timetable for the production of the whole film compiled by the director to guide the unified coordination of all parties in the animation creation collective.

2. Design and production stage

1) design. The design work is to determine the form and modeling of background, foreground and props on the basis of storyboard, and complete the design and production of scene environment and background map. In addition, it is necessary to design the shapes of characters or other roles and draw several standard drawings from different angles for other animators' reference.

2) sound. In animation, because the action must match the music, the sound recording must be completed before animation. After the recording is completed, the editor must accurately decompose the recorded sound into each picture position, that is, the second (or first) picture begins to speak, how long it will last, and so on. Finally, the whole sound course (that is, the sound track) should be decomposed into a list, corresponding to the sound of each picture position, for the reference of animators.

3. Specific creative stage

1) Original painting creation. Original painting creation is some key pictures of animation drawn by animation designers. Usually a designer is only responsible for a fixed role or other roles.

2) intermediate illustration production. Intermediate illustration refers to a picture starting from two important positions or frames, usually between two original paintings. The assistant animator makes the middle diagram, and the rest artists interpolate and draw the connection diagram of the role action. Interpolating the continuous action of the painting between the original paintings to meet the specified action time and make it close to the natural action.

4. Shooting and production stage

This stage is an important part of animation production, and any details on the performance screen will be produced here, which can be said to be a key step to determine the quality of animation (the other is the design of content, that is, the script).

The following introduces the specific division of labor or steps of two-dimensional animation and three-dimensional animation at this stage.

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Two-dimensional animation production

Paint supervision

Modify the finished product of the original painting and animation to see whether the face of the character conforms to the character setting, whether the movement is smooth and so on. You must be able to repaint when necessary, so you must be a senior original painter and animator.

Color setting, color style, color designer, color coordinator, color key.

The task of specifying colors is called color setting, which is sometimes called color setting with different names. English is called color setting, color modeling, color designer, color coordinator, color keys and so on. In addition to specifying "clothes should be red, pants should be black", it is more important to specify the shadow and gradient colors needed for celluloid painting, and use XXX pigment.

Shishang

In Japanese, the original meaning is to complete and complete the manuscript, in Chinese it means painting, and in English it means painting and completion. Draw the reverse side of the celluloid piece according to the pigment number marked in each piece.

Sound supervision

Responsible for the arrangement of the soundtrack, the preparation of the effect sound, the dubbing recording, the supervision of the mixing project and so on.

producer

The producer's job is mainly to plan the production schedule, arrange the daily production schedule, find the production team/production company and win over foreign investors. At the same time, he must cooperate with the executive production to ensure that each component of the plan can be combined correctly on time.

GK model

The full text of "GK" is Garage Kit, which originally meant "garage components", because westerners used to use the garage as a workshop, and the GK model was born here.

The original GK model is only the works created by some players themselves, and the details of modeling vary from person to person. There is usually only one, which is the only one in the world. Materials (raw materials) may not be made, but clay, gypsum, plates and metals can be made, so the model made by ourselves or produced in small batches is called GK. Later, because some special finished products were very pleasing, I had the idea of selling them as commodities. Selling and selling, suddenly one day, two guys took a fancy to a work at the same time, and someone began to rack their brains to copy the GK model and use the method of flipping the model. At that time, gypsum and other materials may be used as templates to copy, but gypsum is not durable, and copying once or twice may be beyond recognition. At present, silica gel is used as the template material of turnover mould, which is not only excellent in elasticity, but also much stronger in durability than gypsum, but it is still limited in number of copies. Plastic models that can be mass-produced as long as they are not injection molding are called GK, including solid resin, hollow soft rubber and white metal (low melting point, soft lead-tin alloy), and the themes are mostly cartoons or movie characters. The GK displayed in HGA is mainly animated characters (such as HB, Bastiato, Theo) made of solid resin (the earliest source is actually industrial waste).

manage

Supervision is actually written in Japanese, and English is director, that is, Director in Chinese. The director of Japanese animation production is the key to determine the atmosphere style of the whole work, and is in charge of the rhythm of the story, the transition of the atmosphere and so on. Even the same role setting, the same painting style and the same production team will have completely different styles because of different directors.

Role setting

The person in charge of designing the appearance of the character is called character setting. His job is not only to let the subsequent painters know what the person to be painted looks like, but also to tell them the facial features, eyes, expressions and so on. This character, but also from several different angles to design the same character's face, as well as a clear sea with closed lines, which is different from ordinary comics. The design of robots, vehicles and weapons responsible for the debut is mechanical setting. In addition to drawing the mechanical shape, it is also necessary to mark the possible detailed structure, movement mode, openable place and so on. Unless otherwise specified, design drafts are generally clean line drafts without shadows.

Sinario

Namely English script and Chinese script. Write stories in pure words, including scenes, places, background sound effects, character dialogues, character movements, etc.

Split stage

English is Continuity Script and Chinese is mirror table. The homework in this step is the first step to truly transform the things on the paper into the pictures to be presented in the future. The person who draws the mirror table turns them into pictures in his mind according to the instructions of the script, and then draws them on paper. The purpose of drawing a mirror table is to decompose the continuous action in the animation into 1 cutting units, and mark the way of moving the mirror, dialogue, special effects and so on beside it. The most important time, number of sheets, etc. It will also be written on the far right side of the stage.

overall arrangement

Typesetting is a relatively rare job, which is close to Chinese composition in nature. It can only be used in some dramatic works, such as designing multi-level backgrounds, so that each layer of background moves at different speeds, which can show a realistic sense of distance. The person who draws the layout must be aware of the existence of the camera in his mind, look at the grass and trees in the scene from the camera's point of view, and then draw these pictures in detail.

There will be this job, mainly to make up for the mirror table painted by the director who is not good at painting, and to present the messy and simple picture carefully as the basis for the original painting, animation, background, color designation and so on. Works in Mamoru Oshii, such as Mobile Police Theater Edition, Mobile Police Theater Edition 2, Ghost in the Eggshell, etc. , are examples of extensive use of layout, characterized by "2D painting can also accurately express 3D visual effects".

fulfil

Japanese "performance" is a unique title in Japanese animation production. To put it simply, he is an assistant director, and his role in TV series is different from that in OVA and movies.

In TV series, the director is too busy to take care of every episode, so the "performance" of each episode is equivalent to the "exclusive director" of the episode, who controls the production of the episode according to the intention of the general director. In OVA and Movie, the position of "performance" is more like helping the producer (deputy director), understanding the director's intention and helping to deal with the details of the performance work ("performance work" is the process of transforming script words into lens images, which is a bit like the so-called scene scheduling in western movies or stage plays). His job is quite similar to producer, and he must be familiar with animation language, but he doesn't have to be good at painting (just as a director doesn't have to be good at painting), so some people translate it into "assistant director" and some people translate it into "assistant director" or "executive director".

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three-dimensional animation

1, storyboard

With the idea of a good story, you can animate it. Here you can reflect the basic expressions, postures, scene positions and other information of the characters. Kind of like a simplified picture book. All the later work is based on this, and if there is any modification, the cost is minimal.

2. Setting dressing

This step is to perfect the scene without lighting or special effects. But this is the basis of the background of the next few steps; Moreover, many models (such as buildings, plants, etc. ) needs to be established in this step. These models are usually complex and consist of thousands of polygons. In order to make them look real and natural, animators have to spend a lot of energy to do this.

3. Layout

This step is the layout of the three-dimensional scene according to the story version, which is probably the layout and planning when translated into Chinese. This is the first step from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, which can more accurately reflect the location relationship between the scene layout and the task. The scene also does not need details such as lighting, materials and special effects. Let the director see the position, length, switching, basic posture and other accurate information of the role in order to achieve the goal.

4. Stop animation.

This step requires the animator to make animation in blocks according to the scenes and shots of the layout design, and then it begins to enter the real animation production stage. It is the key posture to set the action, and it has been able to reflect the body movements, expressions and other information of the role in detail. The director can't proceed to the next step until he approves it.

5, making animation (animation)

After the last step is passed, the animator can further make animation details according to the block animation. Add extrusion and stretching, following, overlapping, secondary action, etc. (for example, the mouth shape when speaking). At this point, the action of the animator has been completed. This is also the core of the film, and other special effects lighting and so on are all things that help the animation to be more brilliant.

6. Simulation and coloring (simulation &; Set shadows)

This step is to make something related to dynamics, such as hair, clothes and cloth. Through material mapping, people and backgrounds have colors, which make them look more detailed, real and natural. After this process, the color can change under different lights (for example, glass can reflect the surrounding scenery).

7. Special effects

The step of special effects is to make fire, smoke, water and other effects. Although these things are condiments, without their animation effect, Car Story is inferior.

8. Lighting equipment

No matter how good the scene is, it is only a semi-finished product without beautiful lighting. By placing a virtual light source to simulate the light in nature, and editing the set reflectivity and other data according to the scene made in the previous steps, the scene will be almost the same as the scenery in nature (of course, it can only be seen after rendering).

9. Translation

This is the last step of 3D animation video production. Render and output the complex data in the computer, plus post-production (add audio, etc. ) is a movie that can be used for screening, because the effects of the previous steps need to be rendered before screening (due to hardware limitations in the production process, high-quality images cannot be displayed in real time). There are many ways to render, but they are all based on three basic rendering algorithms: Scan-liner, Ray-trace and radiance (Car Story uses ray tracing technology to make the scene look more realistic, but it also greatly increases the rendering time).

Animation master

USA: David Eric, Walter Disney.

Osamu Tezuka, Miyazaki Hayao.

China: Wan Brothers, Tewei,

Animation tool

Because animation needs precise and meticulous division of labor, its production method is mainly single line, and there are counterpoint and color boundary relations between scenes and people, people and things. So there are a series of specialized and systematic production tools to make animated films quickly and accurately.

1. animation table

Also known as "transparent table" and "replicated table". It is different from the general writing desk in that it uses frosted glass as the desktop, and lamps are installed below it, so that the desktop can transmit light, and multiple superimposed drawings can be clearly seen for drawing and copying animated line drawings. The desktop always tends to avoid direct light to the eyes, which is convenient for work.

2. Copy Desk [1]

Copying desk [1], also known as writing desk [1], is a tool for copying manuscripts. There is a platform composed of fluorescent lamp, white acrylic board, glass and box.

3. Positioning ruler

It is a tool used by animators to fix animation paper when drawing design draft and original animation, or to ensure the accurate positioning of background draft and cellophane when taking traditional animation photography. In all aspects of animation production, the design of personnel in each department is inseparable from its positioning function. The positioning ruler can fix dozens of drawings with standard holes at a time, and can also be used to browse drawings.

4. Animation paper

According to different uses, animation paper can be generally divided into three types: original drawing paper, shaping paper and animation paper.

General animation paper can choose 70~ 100g/m2 white paper. When making movie and television animation, the paper size is mainly divided into two types, the size is about 24cm*27cm and 27cm*33cm (commonly known as 9F and 12F), which are set according to the different requirements of picture framing and picture. Animation paper should have good transparency, and the paper should be uniform, white and smooth, with hard and thin edges and good toughness.

The original drawings do not require high paper quality.

Most of the setting paper is light yellow tissue paper.

5. Rolling and cutting machine

The function of the punch corresponds to the positioning ruler. The main function is to punch holes with the same size and the same distance as the three fixed columns (one column and two long columns) of the positioning ruler for papers that need to be fixed on the positioning ruler, such as original drawings, design papers, modified papers, animation papers, background papers and celluloid sheets, so that these papers can be accurately sleeved on the positioning ruler.

6. Wipe the blackboard, eraser, ruler and iron clip.

7. Animation pen

Animation pens generally refer to all kinds of pens used in pre-production and post-production of cartoons. There are mainly pencils, mechanical pencil, colored pencils, signature pens, dip pens, Gou Xianbi, writing brushes, watercolor pens, chalk and so on.

8. Celluloid chips

Also known as "Mingpian", it is a transparent film made of polyester material, with smooth surface and full transparency like tissue paper. When making cartoons, using this material can not only make different action figures be shot on different films, but also make them overlap with the background to enhance the level and three-dimensional sense of the picture.

9. Trace ink and colored pigments

10. Background document

1 1. stopwatch

12. Photographic table, frame-by-frame camera

The camera shooting animation is a frame-by-frame camera, which can shoot animation drawings one by one. It is vertically placed on the column of the photography platform specially used for shooting cartoons, and can move up and down through the crank as needed.

13. Photographic table

Photography table is used to record the time, speed, dialogue and background photography requirements of animated characters, and is the main basis for drawing and shooting each animation shot. The table is marked with the title of the film, the number of shots, specifications, seconds and contents, as well as the mouth shape, photography requirements and other items, which is a bridge between the director, the original painting, animation, line drawing, coloring, proofreading and shooting.