Glossary of animation terms

• A
• B
• C
• E
• F
• H
• I
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• R
• S
• T
• V
• W
• X
• Z

A

Animatic

A storyboard edited to the intended timing, with temporary sound, used to test pacing before any animation is produced. It is the first version of a film that runs at the correct length.

Anticipation

A small movement in the opposite direction before a main action, used to prepare the audience for what is about to happen. A character crouches before jumping and pulls back before throwing.

Armature

The jointed metal skeleton inside a stop-motion puppet. Ball-and-socket joints hold a pose under their own friction, which is what allows a figure to stand still between exposures. See 1912: Starewicz makes puppet drama with insects.

B

Background

The static painted or rendered environment over which moving elements are placed. Separating it from the moving artwork is the founding economy of cel animation. See 1914: The cel process is patented and licensed.

Bar sheet

A planning document that maps musical beats and dialogue onto specific frame numbers, so that action can be composed against a score before anything is animated. See 1928: Steamboat Willie premieres with synchronized sound.

C

Cel

A transparent sheet of celluloid, later acetate, carrying inked and painted artwork, laid over a background and photographed. The standard material of animation production for roughly eighty years. See 1914: The cel process is patented and licensed.

Chronophotography

Nineteenth-century photographic recording of successive phases of movement, developed for scientific study of locomotion. It gave artists the first accurate reference for how bodies actually move. See 1878: Muybridge photographs a horse in motion.

Compositing

Combining separately produced image layers into a single frame, including matting, color correction and depth effects. Once optical and photographic, now almost entirely digital.

Cutout animation

Animation using flat jointed pieces of paper, card or other material, moved and photographed a frame at a time. Silhouette animation is a specialized form of it. See 1926: The Adventures of Prince Achmed premieres in Berlin.

Cycle

A short repeating sequence of drawings, such as a walk or a run, reused rather than redrawn. Cycles are fundamental to the economics of television animation. See 1960: The Flintstones premieres in prime time.

E

Exposure sheet

A frame-by-frame chart specifying which drawing appears on which layer for every frame, along with dialogue and camera instructions. Also called a dope sheet. See 1963: Astro Boy launches weekly television anime.

F

Flip book

A bound sequence of drawings animated by riffling the pages. Patented in 1868, it freed animation from the fixed loop and remains a standard tool for testing timing. See 1868: The flip book is patented as the kineograph.

Frame

A single still image in a sequence. Animation is planned, timed and costed in frames rather than in seconds.

Frame rate

The number of frames displayed per second. Sound film standardized at twenty-four, though animation is often drawn at half that rate and each drawing photographed twice.

Full animation

Animation in which a new drawing is made for every frame or every second frame, with continuous movement throughout. The opposite approach to limited animation.

H

Held drawing

A single drawing left on screen across multiple frames. Used for economy, and also as a deliberate dramatic device to arrest motion at a significant moment. See 1963: Astro Boy launches weekly television anime.

Hybrid animation

Any production combining animated elements with live-action photography, or combining two animation techniques within a single image. See 1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit reinvents hybrid animation.

I

In-between

A drawing made between two key poses to complete a movement. Producing them was historically an entry-level studio role and is now largely handled by software in computer animation.

K

Key drawing

A drawing defining an extreme or significant pose in a movement. The lead animator produces the keys; the drawings between them are completed afterwards.

L

Layout

The stage that establishes camera framing, staging, perspective and the position of characters within a scene, produced before animation begins.

Limited animation

A method that reduces the number of drawings and allocates movement selectively, using held poses, separable character parts and reused cycles. Both an aesthetic position and an economic necessity, depending on who is using it. See 1950: Gerald McBoing-Boing wins the Academy Award.

M

Model sheet

A reference sheet showing a character from multiple angles with standard expressions and proportions, so that a large crew can draw the same figure consistently.

Motion blur

The streaking of a fast-moving object across a single exposure. Absent from early computer animation, which made it look artificially crisp until it was solved in the mid-1980s. See 1984: The Adventures of André and Wally B. demonstrates computer character animation.

Multiplane camera

A rig holding painted layers at measured distances from the lens so that a camera move produces genuine parallax between foreground and distance. See 1937: The Old Mill introduces the multiplane camera.

N

Non-photorealistic rendering

Computer rendering that deliberately imitates drawing, painting, printing or other handmade marks rather than photography. See 2018: Into the Spider-Verse rebuilds the look of computer animation.

O

On ones, on twos

Whether a new drawing appears every frame or every second frame. Working on twos halves the drawing count and gives movement a subtly different texture, which can be used deliberately. See 2018: Into the Spider-Verse rebuilds the look of computer animation.

Onion skinning

Displaying faint copies of adjacent drawings underneath the current one so that an animator can judge the spacing of a movement. Originally achieved with a light box.

Overlapping action

The principle that parts of a body do not stop at the same instant. Hair, clothing and trailing limbs continue after the main mass has settled.

P

Peg bar

A strip carrying pegs that engage punched holes in paper and cels, holding every sheet in identical alignment. Without it, the image jitters. See 1914: The cel process is patented and licensed.

Pencil test

A filmed or scanned sequence of rough drawings, viewed at speed to check timing and movement before the artwork is finished.

Performance capture

Recording an actor's body and facial movement as data, then using it as the foundation for an animated character which animators refine by hand. See 2002: Performance capture produces a leading digital character.

Persistence of vision

The nineteenth-century explanation for why rapid successive images read as continuous motion. Modern perceptual science attributes the effect largely to the brain rather than the retina, but the term persists. See 1824: Roget presents his paper on apparent motion.

Phenakistiscope

A slotted disc printed with a cycle of drawings, viewed spinning in a mirror. Devised independently in Belgium and Austria in 1832, and the first true animation device. See 1832: Plateau and Stampfer independently build the first animation discs.

Pixilation

Stop motion using live human performers, photographed one frame at a time so that people move with the physics of animated objects. See 1952: Norman McLaren makes Neighbours with pixilation.

Pose to pose

Planning a movement by drawing its key positions first and filling in between them afterwards. The counterpart to straight-ahead action.

Praxinoscope

An 1877 improvement on the slotted drum, replacing slits with a central ring of mirrors to produce a brighter, steadier image. See 1877: Reynaud patents the praxinoscope.

Previsualization

Rough animated versions of sequences produced early in a production to plan staging, camera and editing before full production begins.

R

Registration

Keeping successive drawings and layers in exact alignment. Solved physically with pegs and punched holes, and digitally with coordinate systems.

Rendering

Computing a finished image from a three-dimensional scene description, including geometry, materials, lights and camera. Historically measured in hours per frame.

Replacement animation

Swapping a whole component of a puppet between frames rather than bending it, most often faces or mouths. Used with carved heads in the 1930s and with printed parts today. See 2009: Coraline uses rapid prototyping for facial performance.

Rig

The control structure built onto a digital model so that animators can pose it, comprising a skeleton, deformation controls and the interface used to move them.

Rostrum camera

A camera mounted vertically above an artwork table, used to photograph stacked cels frame by frame. The standard capture device of cel animation.

Rotoscoping

Tracing animation from projected live-action footage. Patented in 1915 to obtain reliable human movement, later revived as a deliberate aesthetic. See 1915: Max Fleischer files the rotoscope patent.

S

Shading language

A programmable description of how a surface responds to light, allowing artists to define appearance directly. The foundation of both photorealistic and deliberately stylized rendering. See 1988: The RenderMan interface standardizes photorealistic rendering.

Simulation

Computing the behavior of hair, cloth, fluids, fur, crowds or granular materials from physical rules rather than animating them by hand. See 2013: Frozen and the simulation of snow.

Smear frame

A deliberately distorted drawing used for one or two frames to suggest very fast movement between two poses.

Squash and stretch

Deforming a body to convey weight, impact and elasticity while preserving its apparent volume. Among the most recognisable principles of character animation.

Stop motion

Photographing physical objects one frame at a time, altering them between exposures. The oldest animation technique still in regular professional use. See 1907: The Haunted Hotel exports object animation across Europe.

Storyboard

A sequence of drawings planning shots, staging and continuity before production. Also the visual language this site's design borrows from.

Straight-ahead action

Animating a sequence in order from the first drawing to the last, without planning key poses first. It produces spontaneity at the cost of control.

T

Thaumatrope

A spinning card printed on both sides whose two images merge into one. The simplest commercial demonstration that vision combines successive pictures. See 1825: The thaumatrope reaches the London toy market.

Tie-down

A bolt or magnet securing a stop-motion puppet's foot to the stage so that it holds position between frames. See 1993: The Nightmare Before Christmas revives feature stop motion.

Timing chart

A small diagram beside a key drawing indicating how the in-between drawings should be spaced, and therefore whether a movement accelerates or slows.

V

Virtual production

Directing, framing and lighting inside a digital environment interactively, using real-time rendering, rather than waiting for frames to render overnight. See 2019: Real-time engines enter animation production.

W

Walk cycle

A repeating sequence of drawings describing a full stride. The standard exercise for learning weight and timing, and the most reused asset in television animation.

Wireframe

A three-dimensional model displayed as edges only, without surfaces. The characteristic look of early computer graphics and still a working view in modeling software. See 1977: Vector graphics reach a blockbuster audience.

X

Xerography

A photocopying process adapted in 1961 to transfer pencil drawings directly onto cels, removing hand inking and leaving the animator's own line visible on screen. See 1961: Xerography replaces hand inking.

Z

Zoetrope

A slotted drum holding a replaceable paper strip, allowing several people to watch an animated cycle at once. Devised in 1834 and mass-produced from 1867. See 1834: Horner devises the zoetrope drum.