Digital 3D uses programs such as Maya to create animation with more depth. An animator will often create a very simple version (or skeleton) for a digital character (or Avar) and build up from this with digital muscles, skin, hair, pores etc. The animator will use keyframing to set the Avar’s position, just as they would in traditional animation. However, they don’t need to do it on every frame, but just key ones – the computer programs then fill in the movement between the key frames to create a full animation. Digital animation can be very realistic, and animators can be very artistically skilled to create a character. 

Some animators will specialize – for example, facial animators just work on the facial movements and speech of a character, rather than the whole thing. Motion capture is method used to make 3D digital animation as life-like as possible. An actor will be filmed doing actions, speaking, or even acting full scenes, whilst special sensors on their body and face are ‘captured’ by a film camera. This is then translated into a digital character, which can be controlled by the animator. This type of digital animation is often used in blockbusters, including Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and the new The Legend of Tarzan film. 

Stop motion 

Stop-motion is a simple, but time-consuming, form of animation where objects are physically manipulated and filmed frame-by-frame. Stop motion comes in many forms: Object animation and pixilation can use the stop-motion technique without specialist equipment, but special stop-motion models have often been used for special effects in live-action films. The 1933 King Kong film was famous for the stop-motion ape, and the original Star Wars films and The Terminator used stop-motion models for many of the aliens and machines. Other forms of stop-motion use artistic materials to create the physical objects. The earliest known animated feature-film used cut-out animation, where flat pictures are physically cut out of paper or fabric and animated. 

The children’s show Charlie and Lolause a cut-out animation style. Another form of stop motion uses puppets, such as Tim Burton’s animated films. These puppets often have hundreds of interchangeable heads to create lip-movement and facial expressions. Claymation is the name given to stop-motion that is made with clay or plasticine figures. Plasticine is easily moved and shaped, so the figures can be moved very carefully and precisely. It takes a long time to create a Claymation, as a figure is usually moved about twelve times for every second of film. Aardman Animation’s Chicken Run is a Claymation film, and currently the highest-grossing stop-motion film ever made. 

Whilst it is very similar to traditional animation in technique, stop-motion continues to be a popular form of animation, with at least twelve feature-length stop-motions currently in production. Many animators work with stop-motion for artistic reasons, as it is still difficult to recreate stop-motion models digitally.