Definition of 2D Animation

A moving image, shown in only one perspective or side. Movement/action on a 2D plane using a X and Y axis.

History of 2D Animation

William Horner 1786-1837 - British mathematician ,school headmaster. He was the pioneer who made 'Zoetrope'. He originally named it the 'Deadalum'(wheel of the devil).This device was an optical device which created an illusion on movement. It worked by using a spinning drum mounted on a spindle with a series of frames attached to the inside. The drum had slits on the outside which the viewer could peer through. Therefore as the drum span, the viewer would look through the slits and see the frames moving quickly, which then created the illusion of animation.

Thomas Edison 1892 - An American inventor and invented the kinetoscope, one of the first motion-pictures devices ever invented. The kinetoscope was a large device that created the illusion of animation by continuously moving endless loop of film over a certain light source with a rapid shutter. The viewer would have to look inside a slit, which meant the device could only be used one at a time.

Different 2D Animations

TV/FILM

Introduces the narrative and focuses on that more, the style is usually the same as it will be in the film but usually quicker, sometimes they will show exactly what happens in the film but in less detail so they don't let the narrative get given away.

Video Games

The animation in a 2D video game, the character only usually have 4 animations depending on the game. In mario the animations are, jump, stand, crouch and run. The animations are very simple yet effective in the game.

Music Video

In a music video 2D animation is used to show a visual story which matches with the lyrics,melody and harmony of the song. The animations are usually matched to tell the story and song, the animations can be of an object, character or any subject.

TV Idents

2D Simulations

Analysis of 'Limbo'

Within the animation we can clearly see the that Limbo uses a dark spooky theme to immerse the players.

The animation creates meaning for the audience through its use of animation and narrative. The colours represent the theme and the theme is mysterious and dark.

A strength of the animation is the clean and smoothness, The animations of the main character looks realistic with a great amount of attention to detail, the detail and smoothness makes the character look more realistic making it more immersive for the players.

A weakness of the animations is the perspective, the screen always looks tight and smaller compared to the good immersive realistic character which matches the theme.

Making my own 2D animations

Steps of making my 2d animation

I first made my character in a normal standing stance, doing this later lets me change the movements and different stances. I change the movements frame by frame and then by changing each limb to make the character move.

This is the next movement I added to my timeline of the character as the second movement throughout the frames.

Again a different stance, this is just the one above flipped horizontally across. The characters movements are all joined together and to make him look like the character is dancing.

Here I changed the mouth and eyes and also made it look like my character is in the air after jumping.

Here is half of my timeline of frames, as you can see each time there is a slightly different movement of the character. This is how 2D animation is created, making many different frame sequences.