Select One from Column A and One from Column B

If you've ever asked Google what kinds of animation there are, At the top of your search results will probably be a studio or an art college and they will tell you that there are five or six kinds of animation. They'll tell you that there's Traditional Animation, 2D animation, 3D animation, stop motion, whiteboard and motion graphics. This answer may be good enough for you if you don't think too deeply about it. If you ponder the simple answer for a while, though, you might find some holes in that explanation.

"Isn't traditional animation done in 2D?" you may think. You're right.

"Didn't I see them do some 3D stuff in that traditional animation thing?" you may try to remember. You're right about that too.

What do these discrepancies mean for our hard and fast list? Not much really. It only means that the list is correct but limited. In truth, attempts to create a list of "major" kinds of animation is far too limiting for the art form.

Ok, that's a really cerebral answer for a simple question. Its depth may impress the other people in the bar at 1:30 in the morning, but, accurate or not, it's useless when you need to choose an animation type for your media campaign or elearning course.

At Novamation MEDIA, we like to take the family restaurant approach when it comes to helping you make that decision. We do that by dividing your animation choices into column A and column B. You see, at Novamation, there are "kinds" of animation and "styles" of animation. Our animation meal also comes with a side dish that we will refer to as "the deliverable", or "type" of file.

A style of animation describes the way the animation "looks like" it was created. Traditional animation looks like every frame was drawn by hand. 2D or vector animation only moves a little bit at a time and only in certain parts. 3D animation looks like it was done on a computer, while stop-motion looks like it was done with puppets or clay. These "looks like" analogies are mostly incorrect when it comes to how the animation may actually be made, but it help us define a style the animation takes on. Incidentally, isometric is a form of fake 3D we will explore a bit later.

A kind of animation describes the delivery method of an animation. Whiteboard animation has a static, unmoving background that is a single color or image. Animated Gif usually cycles around again and again in just a matter of seconds. This can sometimes be called a logo animation. Motion graphic animation is an animation where stuff moves but there are no characters. This can sometimes be called a text animation.

A type of animation doesn't necessarily limit itself to animation. Almost any media file can come in a type. A file type can be a static image that includes jpeg, tiff, bmp or png files which technically can't be “animation” because they can't move. Animated image files don't require streaming or a player like animated gif files. Internet movie files that can be streamed over the Internet like mov, mp4 or avi files. And, you can even request a file that runs from a dvd like an mpeg-2.

Now, all that's necessary is to select a kind of animation. Let's say, you want a static background (whiteboard animation). Then you can combine that selection with a style of animation. How about a 3D robot (3D animation). You may even add that you want it to repeat a certain action (animated gif).

This makes things simpler, but not always fool-proof. There are some exceptions. When we explore some of those complications later, as some requests and perceptions get confused.

"Hey Buddy, you wanna buy a cartoon?"

You ever try to buy animation?  It's tough.

Often clients set out to buy animation knowing exactly what they want until they say it out loud.  They know they want some type of cartoon.  They know that the 2D stuff is like Disney.  The 3D stuff is like Pixar and moving doll stop-motion stuff is like Tim Burton.  That's the terminology people use when they ask for animation.  If you've ever gone to a "giganomics" site like freelancer or fiver, people requesting animation use those names in their requests.  You see bids like, 

"We need a ten-minute instructional video. We need Pixar quality. We have a $300 budget. We must have it finished in two weeks."

You wonder if this makes sense. “Toy Story 4” is about one-hundred minutes long. Did Disney only pay three-thousand dollars to make it, and did it only take half a year to produce? You would suppose paying for the voice talent of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen probably drove the price up a bit, and there is the question of distribution dates, but it’s not unreasonable for you to doubt that Disney even came close to these budget and time restraints.

You begin to wonder if a request like this is realistic.  Realistic or not, these requests seem to have many bid responses, so there must be at least a few animators out there who believe they can achieve this goal. You wonder if that belief is just as unrealistic as the request.

You have your doubts, and you should. After all, you have your own hard-earned marketing budget to think of.

At Novamation MEDIA, we don't name drop.  We like using simple terminology so that you can get just what you want.  These blog posts are designed to help you understand what's available, and why its used do you don't end up wasting your money on unrealistic results.

"Characters Telling Stories"  Explains the kind of animation you want based on what you need it for.

"Characters On The Grid"  How the McCloud Rating System helps me pick the character design I want.

Project Size (aspect vs. resolution)

Two of the most important decisions to make when starting a live or animated video social media project are the aspect ratio and resolution.  Deciding one usually dictates the decision of the other, but this isn't always the case depending on the social media platform used.  It can all get very confusing for the social media experienced and novice alike.  A good place to start is with this informational graphic.

The numbers in this image show two numbers separated by a colon. This is called the aspect ratio and it represents a correlation between width and height.  The numbers aren't units of measure like inches, millimeters or pixels.  They represent a unit of the project itself.  For instance, in the case of "Square (Instagram and Facebook Feed)" shown above, the aspect ratio is 1:1, that is, if the width of the video were a unit unto itself, the height would be equal to that unit. (1 unit of width:1 unit of height = square).  However, in the case of "Vertical  (Instagram and Facebook Feed)", the aspect ratio is 4:5.  This means that if the width of the project were divided up into four equal units, the height of the project would be equal to five of those units. (4/4 unit of width:5/4 unit of height=portrait rectangle=average cellphone video). 

Aspect Ratio gives you the general shape of your project, but it doesn't explain the resolution.  A resolution is usually two numbers separated by an "x" like 640 x 480 or 800 x 600.  The resolution describes the quality of the project and the numbers here ARE units of measure.  The numbers usually represent image pixels.  A pixel is the smallest element that makes up an image.   Images with few pixels tend to be rough and blocky while images with lots of pixels tend to be crisp and clear.  It should also be pointed out that images with few pixels take up less computer memory and can be processed quicker, while images with lots of pixels take up more computer memory are processed slowly.  The trick is finding a resolution high enough to make your project look professional while still low enough to run on slower smartphones, tablets, and computers.

It should also be added here that there is a standard ratio commonly used for digital video (DV).  The 4:3 aspect ratio works on some social media and was, at one time, the only aspect ratio YouTube ever used.  Recently, YouTube switched to the 16:9 aspect ratio and all 4:3 videos had to be altered.

At Novamation MEDIA we use follow special rules to govern our project sizes.  Those rules are posted in our Media Projects post located here- http://novamationmedia.blogspot.com/2021/05/media-projects-aspect-vs-resolution.html