From Sketch to Screen: The Evolution of Animation

It has been incredible how much animation has changed over the years, from hand drawn pencil sketches to the more complex digital animation we now find in movies, commercials and websites. It’s a shift that has changed the narrative and opened up creative space.

Early Beginnings: Hand-Drawn Animation

Animation started as a process with hand drawn drawings in the first decades of the 20th century. Cartoonists such as Walt Disney and Winsor McCay created drawings from scratch, frame by frame. Initial animation was time consuming, but set the stage for today’s techniques. These pioneers showed the power of animation as an art form that would soon be taken up around the globe.

The Rise of Stop-Motion Animation

Then, in the first half of the 20th century, there was stop-motion animation. Animators might animate inanimate things by manipulating them and taking photos of them frame by frame. Stop-motion animation had taken off with the 1933 classic King Kong whose big gorilla was animated in this way. It opened up more creative possibilities for animators who could work with more elaborate sets and characters.

The Digital Revolution: CGI

It was computer-generated imagery (CGI) that flipped the wheels of animation in the 1990s. When the industry’s first full-length CGI movie, Toy Story (1995), was released, things changed. CGI gave animators more freedom and freedom to build characters and scenes of incredible detail. This was also the opening up of new opportunities for effects, and animated film could become the kind of natural, live-action medium that it is today.

Modern Animation Techniques

Animation today is powered by powerful digital applications like Autodesk Maya, Blender, and Adobe Animate. Such tools can be used by animators to generate complex 3D models, emulate physics, and render amazing effects. There’s also motion capture, which lets animators take the movements of humans and replicate them on a character, creating even more realistic and human-like animations.

The Future of Animation

To the future, animation is even more promising. Artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) are bending the rules of how you can see. These are changes to the production and consumption of animated films and to making storytelling immersive and engaging.

Animation from traditional hand-colored drawings to high-definition CGI and more has shaped our stories. The technology of animation is going to get even more advanced and there are no boundaries in what you can make.