Computer animation is a technique of designing, drawing, making layouts, and preparing photographic series that are integrated into multimedia and gaming products. It is a branch of computer-generated imagery (CGI) that focuses on moving images. In simple words, computer animation is a visual digital display technology that processes moving images on a screen. It is the art or power of giving life, energy, and emotions to any non-living or inanimate object via computers. Computer animation is a sub-part of computer graphics and animation.
Key features of computer animation include:
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Transformation: It is the process of giving life to any object in computer graphics by injecting energy and emotions into the most seemingly inanimate objects.
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Frame-by-frame animation: It is the oldest form of animation, where each frame in an animation is drawn by hand.
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3D computer animation: It is a mix of 3D models and traditional frame-by-frame animation. Digital animation creates the illusion of movement, much like historic stop-motion techniques.
The basic idea behind computer animation is to play back the recorded images at rates fast enough to fool the human eye into interpreting them as continuous motion. Computer animation can be used in many areas like entertainment, computer-aided design, scientific visualization, training, education, e-commerce, and computer art.
Computer animation has a rich history, dating back to the 17th century when the magic lanterns were used to project illustrations. The first animated movie/film was "Humorous phase of funny faces" in 1906. The first full-length animated movie was "Prince Achmed" in 1926. Nowadays, computer animation can be seen in many areas around us, including movies, films, games, education, e-commerce, computer art, and training.
