Popular Forms of Animation Used in Media Today

3D computer graphics

The advanced technique of graphic designing is the 3D computer design which gives the 3 dimensional illusions for the designs using the geometrical data. It also uses the light, wind and other effects to give a realistic view of the graphic. It is mostly used in entertainment world especially movies to design artificial environment. Movies like Avatar, used the 3D graphics using various software like Maya that on rendering gives a realistic 3 dimensional illusion of the sketch. The stages of 3D designing are modeling, layout and animation, and rendering. Often it is a time-consuming process.

Architectural animation

Architectural animation is used for the designing of the proposed architecture or a building. This is used to provide a view of the final product with a realistic vision of how it looks. Unlike the traditional blue print which is in sketch model, or 2D designing, the architectural animation provides a 360 degree view of the building inside and out thus able to know how it looks and to understand the strategic points of the building. The software used in designing the animation are Autodesk maya, CAD, CAM.

Graphic designing

Graphic design is an art of combining words, symbols, images etc to communicate a visual impact or a message to the target audience. The common graphic designing can be seen in sign boards, logos, brand image, websites, publishing, advertisement and product packaging. The graphic artist is a creative person who designs a new design for the client according to their requirement. With the development of computer and animation, it is much easier to design the graphics. It is often used in entertainment and business world. The graphic designing is now also done using 3D which is called as 3D graphics.

Motion capture

Motion capture is a technique of capturing the movements of the actors and transforming them in to the 2D or 3D animated characters. The technology used is highly sophisticated and is not easily available for small productions. The cost of handling the environment and the transformation is also too costly. But the end result which transforms the human action on to the animated characters is highly realistic. By rendering the computer generated environment and add-on features, the movie can be highly realistic. An example of the motion capture can be seen in the movies like Beowulf, Avatar, Sindbad etc.

Skeletal animation:

The skeletal animation is a form of animation which uses the skeleton design to render the movement of the animation. It is called the animation of the vertebrates that gives very flexible realistic movement for the animation. In this the parent skeleton bone is designed and then the child nodes are added to it. It is called the hierarchy which using the laws of physics act when the parent moves, the related child node also moves, thus providing the full control over the skeleton. It plays an important part on the animation techniques like motion capture.