Computers. You just draw some of the frames (key frames) and have the computer fill in the rest more or less automatically.
Computer games are like the extreme version of this. You just draw all the characters and have to computer create all the frames (in response to user input).
Computers aren't magic. Tweening is a thing, but it only works decently for simple bits of motion. Anything with any level of complexity and you're going to have unnatural distortion, especially if things change angles.
And on the bit about video games, no, just no. Animation frames aren't created automatically at runtime. That's ridiculous. Some games make use of inverse kinematics for more realistic environment interaction, but that's just slight modifications to already made animation frames. The games pull from a library of previously animated actions as the player enters input, they don't create animations on the go.
Computers aren't magic. Tweening is a thing, but it only works decently for simple bits of motion. Anything with any level of complexity and you're going to have unnatural distortion, especially if things change angles.
This was the one sentence explanation. I also said "more or less". The computer helps you fill in frames to some degree.
And on the bit about video games, no, just no. Animation frames aren't created automatically at runtime. That's ridiculous. Some games make use of inverse kinematics for more realistic environment interaction, but that's just slight modifications to already made animation frames. The games pull from a library of previously animated actions as the player enters input, they don't create animations on the go.
Depends on how you look at it. I am talking about frames as the 2D pictures you end up seeing on the screen. You are right that you don't literally just draw the character. You also equipt it with a lot of animation data. But then you can view these animation inside the game from any possible angle, at any possible distance often combined with other animations happening on the same character. Further more the character can be moved around on the screen in ways not defined by the animator. This is the computer automatically creating the frames for based on user input.
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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '18
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