We won’t lie, animation’s not easy. But the results can make the work worthwhile. To make sure the final product matches the initial concept, here are a few guidelines to make the best possible animation.

What are your options?

3D Animation

CGI (Computer generated animation) is animation created with the aid of digital computers and specialised 3D software. It’s often used in tandem with live action to create fantastic effects. Think Terminator 2, the Matrix, or any number of blockbuster movies. It looks great but takes time and effort to master.

Stop Motion Animation

Central to the clay animation technique used in Wallace and Gromit, Britain’s best-known ‘stop start’ creations. The process is painstakingly slowl! A couple of seconds may take days to create, but the great thing is, all you need is a video camera and lots of patience.

2D Animation

Disney, The Simpson’s, Bugs Bunny; traditional animation began with each frame being painted and then filmed. It is still used today despite the advances of modern animation technology.

The Software

There are lots of different packages for animation, but be warned, prices vary dramatically. The main software packages can be divided into the categories: 3D animation, web animation and motion effects. Unfortunately, using some of them for the first time is akin to landing a Concorde with your hand stapled to your face. So, if you’re new to animation, either immerse yourself in 3D software training or go for one of Comedy Soup’s slightly more accessible options:

Web Animation

1. Flash: The vector 2D animation tool that brought animation to the web and South Park into our lives. There is lots of online help to get you started, but please bear in mind that we can’t accept flash files (swf’s) for Comedy Soup, so all animations need to be encoded to a video format.
2. Swift3D: This bit of kit allows for the creation of simple 3D vector and raster animation. It provides the ability to export 3D animations to Flash, directly from high-end 3D applications like 3D Studio Max.

Effects

1. After Effects: A motion graphics tool that allows you to animate objects, but won't allow any modelling. If you want to make a great title sequence, this is where you start. If you are doing advanced Stop Motion animation, you can sequence your frames in Photoshop and, using After Effects, polish and complete your animation.

The hardware

These days your average home PC has a pretty decent spec. But before you think about installing, or even buying animation packages, you should check your PC can handle the pressure. You may need a good graphics card or more RAM then you currently have. Why? Well it's not just running the programme that requires lots of processing power, it's rendering the animation.

Once you’re happy with your equipment, take time to familiarise yourself with it and go for it. Here’s a guide of need-to-know information.

Planning

Before you put move a cursor across the screen, do a storyboard - it will save you a lot of problems in the near future. Basically, it’s breaking down the story into a comic book format and serves as a guide as you go through the process.

Some animators even go as far as scanning in their storyboards and setting a scene-by-scene timeline to gauge how long their animation will last. This is called an 'animatic' and it's a useful approach which could save you a lot of time by dropping bits that you envisage won’t work, before modelling and animating them. The same goes for character and environment design. Sketch it out.

Animation style

Do you know what your animation is going to look like? Is it more Akira than Wallace and Gromit? Have a look at the different animation out there. Is there anything that’s close to the picture you have in your head? If so, find out how it was done and what it was done with? The animation forums on the web are good for sourcing this kind of information. You never know, you might actually end up chatting to the person who made the animation you like.

Keyframes and Tweening

Keyframes are those frames which tell the story - the main focus of the action. Without keyframes, there is nothing to tween. Having worked out your keyframes you can then start to tween them - filling in the gaps. Short for in-betweening - the method of making the frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image - tweening is a key process in all types of animation. High-end animation software enables you to identify specific objects in an image and define how they should move and change during the tweening process.