Trend animation

Recently three-dimensional paper sculpture/cut-out/origami has exploded as a major trend across multiple disciplines including animation, illustration and design. In an animation context, the factor that distinguishes this trend from traditional stop-motion is that the artist builds their own models/sets out of paper and other household materials. Two new books have been published documenting the movement in primarily non-animation media: Three-D: Graphic Spaces (Amazon link or book review) and Tactile: High Touch Visuals(Amazon link or book review ). One of those books even has Steven Heller’s name on the cover, a sure sign of fad status in the design world (seemingly the only design trend Heller hasn’t ‘discovered’ yet is our little world of animation).

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. It is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in a number of ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although several other forms of presenting animation also exist.

3D ANIMATION

Computer animation (or CGI animation) is the art of creating moving images with the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time rendering needs. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes the target is another medium, such as film. It is also referred to as CGI (computer-generated imagery or computer-generated imaging), especially when used in films.