For people who draw individual images and comics, see Cartoonist
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games. Animation is closely related to filmmaking and like filmmaking is extremely labor-intensive, which means that most significant works require the collaboration of several animators. The methods of creating the images or frames for an animation piece depend on the animators' artistic styles and their field.
Other artists who contribute to animated cartoons, but who are not animators, include layout artists (who design the backgrounds, lighting, and camera angles), storyboard artists (who draw panels of the action from the script), and background artists (who paint the "scenery"). Animated films share some film crew positions with regular live action films, such as director, producer, sound engineer, and editor, but differ radically in that for most of the history of animation, they did not need most of the crew positions seen on a physical set.
In hand-drawn Japanese animation productions, such as in Hayao Miyazaki's films, the key animator handles both layout and key animation. Some animators in Japan such as Mitsuo Iso take full responsibility for their scenes, making them become more than just the key animator.
Specialized fields
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Animators often specialize. One important distinction is between character animators (artists who specialize in character movement, dialogue, acting, etc.) and special effects animators (who animate anything that is not a character; most commonly vehicles, machinery, and natural phenomena such as rain, snow, and water).
Stop-motion animators do not draw their images, instead they move models or cut-outs frame-by-frame,[1] famous animators of this genre being Ray Harryhausen and Nick Park.
Inbetweeners and cleanup artists
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In large-scale productions by major studios, each animator usually has one or more assistants, "inbetweeners" and "clean-up artists", who make drawings between the "key poses" drawn by the animator, and also re-draw any sketches that are too roughly made to be used as such. Usually, a young artist seeking to break into animation is hired for the first time in one of these categories, and can later advance to the rank of full animator (usually after working on several productions).
Methods
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Historically, the creation of animation was a long and arduous process. Each frame of a given scene was hand-drawn, then transposed onto celluloid, where it would be traced and painted. These finished "cels" were then placed together in sequence over painted backgrounds and filmed, one frame at a time.[2]
Animation methods have become far more varied in recent years. Today's cartoons could be created using any number of methods, mostly using computers to make the animation process cheaper and faster.[citation needed] These more efficient animation procedures have made the animator's job less tedious and more creative.
Audiences generally find animation to be much more interesting with sound. Voice actors and musicians, among other talent, may contribute vocal or music tracks. Some early animated films asked the vocal and music talent to synchronize their recordings to already-extant animation (and this is still the case when films are dubbed for international audiences). For the majority of animated films today, the soundtrack is recorded first in the language of the film's primary target market and the animators are required to synchronize their work to the soundtrack.
Evolution of animator's roles
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As a result of the ongoing transition from traditional 2D to 3D computer animation, the animator's traditional task of redrawing and repainting the same character 24 times a second (for each second of finished animation) has now been superseded by the modern task of developing dozens (or hundreds) of movements of different parts of a character in a virtual scene.
Because of the transition to computer animation, many additional support positions have become essential, with the result that the animator has become but one component of a very long and highly specialized production pipeline. In the 21st century, visual development artists design a character as a 2D drawing or painting, then hand it off to modelers who build the character as a collection of digital polygons. Texture artists "paint" the character with colorful or complex textures, and technical directors set up rigging so that the character can be easily moved and posed. For each scene, layout artists set up virtual cameras and rough blocking. Finally, when a character's bugs have been worked out and its scenes have been blocked, it is handed off to an animator (that is, a person with that actual job title) who can start developing the exact movements of the character's virtual limbs, muscles, and facial expressions in each specific scene.
At that point, the role of the modern computer animator overlaps in some respects with that of his or her predecessors in traditional animation: namely, trying to create scenes already storyboarded in rough form by a team of story artists, and synchronizing lip or mouth movements to dialogue already prepared by a screenwriter and recorded by vocal talent. Despite those constraints, the animator is still capable of exercising significant artistic skill and discretion in developing the character's movements to accomplish the objective of each scene. There is an obvious analogy here between the art of animation and the art of acting, in that actors also must do the best they can with the lines they are given; it is often encapsulated by the common industry saying that animators are "actors with pencils".[3] In 2015, Chris Buck noted in an interview that animators have become "actors with mice."[4] Some studios bring in acting coaches on feature films to help animators work through such issues. Once each scene is complete and has been perfected through the "sweat box" feedback process, the resulting data can be dispatched to a render farm, where computers handle the tedious task of actually rendering all the frames. Each finished film clip is then checked for quality and rushed to a film editor, who assembles the clips together to create the film.
While early computer animation was heavily criticized for rendering human characters that looked plastic or even worse, eerie (see uncanny valley), contemporary software can now render strikingly realistic clothing, hair, and skin. The solid shading of traditional animation has been replaced by very sophisticated virtual lighting in computer animation, and computer animation can take advantage of many camera techniques used in live-action filmmaking (i.e., simulating real-world "camera shake" through motion capture of a cameraman's movements). As a result, some studios now hire nearly as many lighting artists as animators for animated films, while costume designers, hairstylists, choreographers, and cinematographers have occasionally been called upon as consultants to computer-animated projects.
See also
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References
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When we deal with animation, we cannot distinguish the types of animation design and the professionals involved in its production. More than half of them are self-employed and may work from home. The most famous creators know a variety of animation techniques and are often hired by the most outstanding animation design studios. Let’s revise which types of computer animation they create for good.
Created by Explain NinjaA professional animator artist is responsible for creating a series of unique images, known as frames, to simulate movement. So, this movement is an animation definition, which is simple. Animated design is creating visual effects, motions, and animations for a variety of multimedia, including video games, video explainers, and digital assets like websites and apps. And different types of animation designs are created by various artists.
Animators are real creators of animated films, and artists, who create drawings with phases of movements of a cartoon or other character (layout drawings) as per their types of animation and modern animation styles. They are also ultimate creators engaged in video design with motion graphics and other computer effects for educative, commercial as in explainer video for luxury products, and other purposes. Here are the different styles of animation they may create, but the most popular will be:
This is the process of bringing a character to life. Usually, animators are using software such as Maya, Flash, Lightwave, and other available or preferred programs. Types of animators as character animators develop their characters from scratch and imitate proper body movements to narrative visual, be it for films, television, or video games.
These artists may create either 2D or 3D animated images to portray motion and illustrate the videos. Digital 2D animation designers may easily work in various mediums of multimedia like movies, ads, TV, music videos, or video explainers.
3D design is created by 3D modelers who make computer models of particular objects from scratch and from every angle. Thanks to that the viewer may view and understand the object in a better way seen from various angles. Many types of industries require them, including film studios, production studios, computer graphic design firms with different design team structure, software firms, and product design firms. Read our blog to learn more about the process of 3d animation.
Short animation video also called stop frame animation is an animation that is made by capturing one frame at a time, with physical objects that are moved between frames. When you play back the sequence of images rapidly, it may create the illusion of movement. Stop motion artists work with animation studios, television, advertisements, films, gaming studios, and the advertising industry.
Motion graphics and animation techniques are key skills of motion artists. They may be responsible for artistic processes at a variety of stages. These artists create 2D & 3D animated-style images to portray any motion. Motion graphics designers work in various mediums of media like movies, ads, TV, and music videos.
Here you will find the top examples of animation created by Explain Ninja for a variety of projects.
Animation is an important component of many modern industries. Often it is tied to the user’s interaction with the website or any other product feature. That’s why animators are very highly sought after for vector techniques of animation, 2D, 3D, or other animation art styles. With the help of animated objects, you can control the behavior of users; guide them in making decisions and so much more. Appropriate technique and competent animation design from a professional please the eye of visitors, helping to increase conversion. Here, animators create animated explainer videos for multiple uses and of variety of animation techniques. Enjoy them and feel free to try something for your project with our motion graphic services.