Table of Contents

What Is Animation?

Animation is a visual art form that creates the illusion of movement by displaying a rapid sequence of individual images — each slightly different from the last. Your brain fills in the gaps between frames, perceiving smooth motion where there are actually just a bunch of still pictures shown really fast.

A Quick History of Making Pictures Move

The basic principle — that rapidly changing images trick the eye into seeing movement — was understood long before film existed. Devices like the zoetrope (1834) and the praxinoscope (1877) spun strips of sequential drawings to create short loops of animation.

Everything changed when Emile Reynaud projected animated sequences before live audiences in Paris in 1892 — three years before the Lumiere brothers screened their first films. But it was the arrival of cel animation in the early 1900s that made animation a viable industry.

Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie (1928) introduced synchronized sound to animation. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) proved that audiences would sit through a feature-length animated film — something the industry called “Disney’s folly” right up until it became a massive hit. These milestones established animation as both an art form and a business.

Types of Animation

Traditional (2D) Animation

Hand-drawn animation dominated the medium for most of the 20th century. Animators draw each frame on paper (or, historically, on transparent celluloid sheets called “cels”), then photograph them in sequence. Disney, Warner Bros., and Studio Ghibli built their legacies on this technique.

Traditional animation at its best — think Spirited Away or The Lion King — has a warmth and expressiveness that’s difficult to replicate digitally. The downside? It’s incredibly labor-intensive. A single second of animation might require 12 to 24 individual drawings.

3D Computer Animation (CGI)

Pixar’s Toy Story (1995) was the first fully computer-animated feature film, and it broke everything wide open. In 3D animation, artists build digital models, rig them with virtual skeletons, and manipulate them in three-dimensional space. The computer calculates lighting, textures, and physics, then renders each frame.

The results can be photorealistic — modern CGI animals and environments are often indistinguishable from live footage. But stylized 3D animation, like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, shows that computer graphics can also be wildly creative rather than merely realistic.

Stop Motion

Stop motion animators physically manipulate real objects — clay figures, puppets, paper cutouts — and photograph them one frame at a time. Move the figure slightly, take a photo. Move it again, take another photo. Repeat thousands of times.

Studios like Laika (Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings) and Aardman (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run) continue to produce stop-motion films that are both technically stunning and commercially successful. The tactile quality of real materials gives stop motion a charm that CGI struggles to match.

Motion Graphics

This branch focuses on animated graphic design — text, logos, shapes, and infographics that move. You see motion graphics constantly: in title sequences, advertisements, explainer videos, and broadcast news. It’s where animation meets graphic design, and it’s a massive industry.

The 12 Principles

In 1981, Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston published The Illusion of Life, which codified 12 principles of animation that remain foundational today:

1. Squash and stretch — Objects deform when they move (a bouncing ball flattens on impact)
2. Anticipation — A character winds up before throwing a punch
3. Staging — Presenting ideas clearly through composition and timing
4. Straight ahead vs. pose to pose — Two different workflow approaches
5. Follow through and overlapping action — Different parts of a character move at different rates
6. Slow in and slow out — Movement accelerates and decelerates rather than moving at constant speed
7. Arc — Natural movement follows curved paths, not straight lines
8. Secondary action — Supporting movements that add richness (a character walking while their hair bounces)
9. Timing — The number of frames between poses determines the speed and weight of movement
10. Exaggeration — Pushing movements beyond realism for emotional effect
11. Solid drawing — Understanding form, weight, and volume
12. Appeal — Characters should be interesting to watch, whether heroic or villainous

These principles apply whether you’re drawing by hand, animating a 3D model, or creating motion graphics. They’re really about understanding how real movement works — and then knowing when to break the rules.

The Industry Today

Animation is enormous. The global animation market was valued at roughly $395 billion in 2023, driven by streaming platforms hungry for content, expanding video game industries, and growing demand for animated advertising.

The labor behind this industry is significant. Feature animated films typically require teams of hundreds working for 3 to 5 years. Frozen 2 had over 700 artists and technicians. A single frame of a Pixar film can take up to 100 hours to render on powerful computers.

Working conditions in the industry have drawn criticism. Crunch culture — extended periods of mandatory overtime before deadlines — affects studios worldwide. Japanese anime production is particularly notorious for low pay and brutal schedules, despite the enormous revenue the industry generates.

Where Animation Is Going

Real-time rendering engines like Unreal Engine are blurring the line between animated film and video games. AI-assisted tools can now generate in-between frames, automate lip-syncing, and even produce rough animation from text descriptions — though the technology is still years away from replacing skilled animators.

Virtual production — where actors perform in LED-walled stages that display animated environments in real time — is merging live action and animation in ways that make the boundary almost meaningless.

The democratization of tools matters too. Software like Blender is free. YouTube tutorials are endless. A teenager with a laptop can produce animation that would have required a professional studio 20 years ago. That accessibility is producing a flood of independent animated content, some of it remarkable.

Animation started as a novelty — spinning toys and flickering images. It became an art form, then an industry, and now a fundamental part of how humans communicate visually. Not bad for a trick that relies on your brain being just a little too slow to see the truth.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many frames per second does animation use?

Traditional film animation runs at 24 frames per second (fps). TV animation often uses 12 fps with each drawing held for two frames. Video game animation typically runs at 30 or 60 fps. Higher frame rates produce smoother motion but require more work — a 90-minute film at 24 fps needs over 129,000 individual frames.

What software do professional animators use?

For 3D animation, the industry standards are Autodesk Maya, Blender (free and open-source), and Cinema 4D. For 2D, popular tools include Toon Boom Harmony, Adobe Animate, and TVPaint. Pixar uses its proprietary software called RenderMan for rendering. The choice depends on the studio, budget, and project type.

Is animation only for kids?

Absolutely not. While Western animation has historically been marketed primarily to children, Japanese anime has always served adult audiences. Films like Spirited Away, Persepolis, and Waltz with Bashir are made for adults. The rise of shows like Arcane, Invincible, and Bojack Horseman has broadened Western perception of animation as a medium for all ages.

Further Reading

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - Animation
• The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839)
• Encyclopedia Britannica - Animation