Animation Jargon 101:

Sometimes animators, CGI Artists, film makers, videographers etc can throw around design and tech jargon as if it’s common place. Here are some basics - but essentials - which you may hear me through around if we ever work together.

Treatment:

Treatment is a pre-production document that provides and overview of an animations concept and defines the creative direction of the final product. Often included are the objectives, technical approach, potential contributors and project timeline.

Assets:

By definition an asset is a useful or valuable thing. In the case of animation and illustration an asset refers to the deliverables I design and create.So the overall Animation - is an asset but so to are the character designs, the background design, the prop designs.

Aspect Ratios:

Essentially, an Aspect Ratio describes an image's shape. Technically it is a proportional relationship between an image's width and height. Written as a formula of width to height. For example, a square image has an aspect ratio of 1:1 since the height and width are the same.16:9 or 1920 x 1080 is a common video aspect ratio. However with the rise of video being watched on phones a number of other formats have arisen.

Voiceover:

Narration or dialogue is only as good as the voice speaking it. For projects that need voice overs I can facilitate casting, directing, recording and editing.

Compression:

The point of compression is to minimise the file size in bytes without degrading the quality of the image or sound to an unacceptable level.Reducing a file size allows more videos or images to be stored in a given amount of disk or memory space. It also enables faster download times and smoother playback online.

Resolution:

Resolution refers to the number of pixels contained in each frame of a video. It determines the amount of onscreen detail, or how realistic and clear the image appears.Common video resolutions include 1080p and more and more 4K.

Animatic:

An animatic is like a moving storyboard. Created early in the animation process, an animatic is an excellent way to ensure the pacing of a story makes sense off the page and in the timeline. They’re a rough functional tool that can save you an immense amount of time down the pipeline.

Key Frames:

A Key Frame is a frame within an animation timeline that depicts an important or integral part of the motion. Key frames are the first animated, with in between frames then created to join the keys together. With frame- by frame illustrated animation these frames are all drawn. With other types of methods, software AI can automatically tween motion between the key frames.

Rendering:

Rendering is a part of both 2D and 3D computer animation. It describes the process of getting the final assembled video out of which ever software is being used and into a video format or a sequence of sequential image files. Depending on the length of a video or level of detail on screen to generate a render can take, seconds, minutes, hours or even days.

Frame Rates:

Frame Rates or fps (Frames Per Second) is the frequency of consecutive frames at which they are displayed on screen within one second. The frame rate helps create the illusion of motion. Within Australia, the traditional frame rate of live action footage was 25fps. Animation often used 12fps. As it can get away with a slower rate.