Cutout Animation
We can spend days and pages just talking about types of animations. From motion graphics to kinetic typography, every type of them has their own specialty and characteristics to help you get your message across. In this post, we’ll get more in-depth about another engaging type of animation. Yeah, you’ve seen it in the title: it’s cut out animation. This engaging type of animation is quite interesting since it may look like stop motion but it’s different. It can also look like flat 2D animation, but it can also be 3D objects more often than not.
Cut out animation is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: cut-out shapes arranged on a flat surface. Cut out animation is actually a form of stop motion animation. It uses materials like papers, cards, or stiff fabrics as the characters, pops, or backgrounds. Those materials would be cut out and manually moved and re-positioned to simulate animation and it in vogue among corporate businesses.
Originally, the technique of creating cutout animation is that you need to move pieces of material cutouts under a fixed camera. Next, you shoot it frame by frame as they come. Well, pretty much like stop motion technique — did we mention it’s a form of stop motion animation? However, in this digital era, technology is constantly evolving, and cutout animation processes have also evolved with it.
While the traditional method requires you to cut the materials or images for video production, you can now do all the work with software on your computer, animating it digitally. There, you don’t need to redraw frame by frame each drawing.
When you think that professional cutout animation is the right type for your explainer videos, short movies, or other types of videos, why don’t we get closer to the advantages and disadvantages you need to consider?
Cutout animation is, hands down, one of the most engaging and attractive types of animation. Of course, that’s because it creates the illusion of movement by combining art, motion, and metaphor to convey an idea. Making moving images with the stop motion production technique is gratifying and fun. So, if you’re a fan of paper cutting crafts activities, creating paper cutout animation can be so much fun.
Custom cutout animation offers a captivating way to bring your stories to life. This type of animation gives you more freedom to tell your stories by designing the cut-out pieces yourself. That way, the range of subject matter is limited only by your imagination.
Cut-out animation is a professional animation technique in which pre-cut elements of the desired shape are moved frame by frame to recreate the illusion of movement. Let’s take a concrete example: in the case of character’s animation, we will first divide the whole character by as many cut elements as needed to animate them. Each part of the body corresponds to an independent piece that can usually be articulated around a pivot point.
So, for example, in the case you want to animate the arm of my character and my puppet is “rigged” properly. If we move the hand, then should follow the forearm, and then the arm. Each pivot point of the puppet usually corresponding to an articulation of the human body. This kind of custom animation is similar to Inverse Kinematics. A process used a lot in 3D animation that allows to move several members in a logical and more natural way. For example, if we lift the foot of the character in a 3D space, his whole leg should rise with it.
The Digital Era and Cut Out Animation
Nowadays, technology evolving, animation processes have also evolved with it. But despite the progress and complexity of new devices and software put on the market, the cut-out animation technique remains almost the same. It is still widely used by animation studios nowadays. The only difference is that the puppets are drawn in an animation software. The points of pivots placed in a 2D or 3D space. And then the rotation of these points of pivots is calculated by computers! This is called Tweening Animation. The bright side is that cut out animation has now become affordable for all.
Nowadays, animation studios often use this production technique because it saves a lot of time and money, while attaching corporate interest. No need to redraw frame by frame each drawing, as it is supposed to be with traditional 2D animation. We can draw each part of each character just one time. But it still is a tedious process when you think about it, because it is necessary to separate and prioritize each element 1 by 1 and it takes time!
However, after that, we can use them as much many times as we want to do for as much animation as possible. Sometimes we can even reuse some animations already done. A good example of what is made nowadays in digital cut-out animation is the TV series “South Park”.
Owing to the reasons mentioned above, your business and company can benefit from using a cut out animation video. In the same vein, any company looking to add a little zing to its marketing communication can also reap the benefits of this medium greatly.
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