Types of Animation

Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods.

Zeotrope
A zeotrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. It wasinvented in china around 180 AD. It consists of a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. Beneath the slits on the inner surface of the cylinder is a band which has either individual frames from a video/film or images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder's interior. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together so that the user sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, the equivalent of a motion picture. Cylindrical zoetropes have the property of causing the images to appear thinner than their actual sizes when viewed in motion through the slits.

Flash Animation
Flash animation is a technique of animation using the program Adobe Flash to create an animated film which has a cartoon quality. The style is quite simplistic and unpolished but is very widely liked. There are dozens of flash animated TV series, countless TV advertisements and award winning short films. On the 26th of February 1999, a major milestone for Flash animation, the popular web series WhirlGirl became the first regularly scheduled Flash animated web series when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime. A more recent example of Flash animation is the Family Guy series which is extremely popular.

Stop Motion
There are many different ways of using stop motion animation. You can use manipulate clay whilst taking pictures to make it look as though it is moving on its own. This technique of using models was used by the Aardman company when they created the famous Wallace and Gromit. Another famous animator was Jan Svankmajer who mixed the use of models and live actors. One of his most famous compilations was 'Alice', a strange take on the novel Alice in Wonderland. There are many children's animations created with stop motion from the clangers to the magic roundabout. Stop motion animation has a long history in film. It was often used to show objects moving as if by magic. The first example of the stop motion technique can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life. In 1902, the film Fun in a Bakery Shop used the stop-trick technique in the "lightning sculpting" sequence.