How do animators make cartoons?

Do some research on “apparent motion”. You should find a lot of material relating to the way that animation works.

there are alot of ways to make an animation. the most simple way is to draw each frame of a charecter doing something. try out pivot. it’s a stick animator which allows you to understand animated motion better, because you make every frame. look up tutorials if you get stuck. it’s a really fun program to try out.

The hell with that; I want to know how re-animators practice their craft. That sounds interesting as hell.

The old method of drawing each frame is dying out. It has become computer generated. Although there has been talk recently of Disney returning to old school style for a few future productions.

To see how “old school” style works draw a simple stick figure on the bottom corner of a page of a paperback book….draw him the same for several pages and then make minute adjustments for few more. repeat this until the stick figure has completely changed position.

Then fan through the bottom corner of the pages like you shuffle a deck of cards and just like that you are an animator.

What’s cool is the modern motion capture animation. They dress the actors into suits with a bunch of dots on them, and they do the motions. The computer reads them, and the animator team will draw over them. Gollum in LOTR is an example of this, as are the characters in Avatar.

No matter what method is used, it is all useless without a good base of art and drawing and a concept of motion.

I recommend “Disney Animation the Illusion of Life”. Every single lesson in that book carries over to 3D.

In the end it is the same in animation as it is for anything. The product is only as good as those who wield the tools.

Animation programs, 2d or 3d, like a scalpel, can be designed to do the best job possible, but in untrained hands you end up with a bloody mess.

What @Naked_Homer says…I’ll also add that one should be aware that even the most photorealistic 2D/3D computer animation still leverages concepts from traditional animation, such as squash and stretch, inbetweening (tweening), and physics that are distorted for effect; also drawn skills for developing animation art, character modeling, storyboarding, and layout are still heavily steeped in traditional foundations.

Here are two resources that you can also research online, that have forums and classes for aspiring animators:

http://www.animationmentor.com/

http://www.acmeanimation.org/

Thanks guys

No problem. I love talking animation!

If your name is Zemekis you do it with velcro and ping pong balls.

And there’s Wallace and Gromit.