Difference: Animation In Games, Movies And Corporate Films

What is animation in simple words?

Animation is a way of making a movie from many still images. The images are put together one after another and then played at a fast speed to give the illusion of movement. … A person who makes animations is called an animator.

Why is animation used in films?

Computer animation in otherwise live-action films is commonly known as computer-generated imagery (CGI), or CG in the motion picture industry. … It is also used to create special effects that might otherwise not be possible or that would detract from the visual “feel” of the film

• What is the difference between cartoons and animated films? A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor. No matter how you look at it, an anime is a cartoon.

What is the benefit of animation?

There are many advantages of including animation in web design. It keeps your visitors on your site longer so your bounce rate is lower. This means that your visitors may be staying on your page longer. It increases the level of interest in your site and encourages more shares and revisits.

What is full animation?

Full animation refers to the process of producing high-quality traditionally animated films that regularly use detailed drawings and plausible movement, having a smooth animation.

How do animations work?

Animation works by using an optical illusion. By presenting a sequence of still images in quick enough succession, the viewer interprets them as a continuous moving image. This is the same principle that enables live-action film making and projection to work.

• You might think animation for video games and animation for movies is really the same thing. That’s a fairly common misconception. Even though the same tools and principles of animation apply to both mediums, the processes and techniques actually differ greatly between the two.

Animation in Games

Games are meant to be interactive. When you play a game, you’ll have complete control of the character and the camera. You’re the one driving the story forward and making the character move. So not only does the animation need to look good, it needs to look good from every possible angle. 

• For instance, if the game is the third person, and the player rotates the camera around they’ll see the walk or run cycle from a completely new angle. This new angle can reveal things like knee pops that may not have been visible in the normal camera view. These are things that a game animator needs to take into account to ensure their animation holds up to whatever the player may throw at it. Unlike animation in a movie where the animator doesn’t need to worry about how it will look from a side view or from behind, creating animations for games needs to look good from any angle. For instance, when implementing the principle of arcs into an animation, the animator needs to ensure the character is following nice smooth arcing motions from any camera angle.

Animation in Movies

When it comes to animation for movies, the animator is only responsible for animating whatever is in the view of the shot camera. In other words, they only have to worry about one camera angle at a time. If you’re watching a movie, you hit the “Play” button on a movie you can’t rotate around to look at the whole set. So you’re stuck looking at whatever the camera is viewing.

• This allows an animator working on a movie to cheat in many ways because they know that the shot will only be seen from one angle. So if it looks great from that angle, that’s ultimately all that matters. This isn’t to say animating for movies is easy. Quite the contrary. But there are certain difficulties that arise with video game animation that can be very different than the difficulties that arise with animating for movies. As previously mentioned, in movies the audience has no control over what’s happening. In a sense, they’re just along for the ride. If you were to get a behind the scenes look at a movie you’d see a whole set, with the director, lights and many other things sitting right behind the camera. As long as they’re out of the shot of the camera, the audience is never going to see the whole production crew.

Creating Game Animation

As a game animator, you’ll be exposed to many more types of animations than what is typically found in a movie like Pixar or DreamWorks produces. You may find yourself creating animations for fantasy creatures, giants, combat maneuvers, scripted events, etc. And you’ll do many different types of cycles, not just walk and run cycles. For instance, most games will need to have a breathing cycle, an idle stance cycle (when the character is standing still) crouching and walking, walking forward while aiming a gun, laying down and crawling forward, the list goes on.

• Most games are driven by body mechanics, so you’ll need to spend a lot of time perfecting your body mechanics to be successful in games. That’s not to say you won’t be animating any acting scenes, but if you look back at the last video game you played, you’ll probably see just how body mechanics heavy it is.
• The timing for animations in games is often determined by the needs of the player inputs. Nothing is more frustrating than getting caught in a gunfight in Call of Duty and suddenly having to reload, typically resulting in your death. But those reload animations have to be timed perfectly to enhance the gameplay. For instance, you want a reload animation to be fast enough so the player can get back to the action, but also slow enough to be realistic, and add a challenge for the player.

Working in Games

Typically each animation you’re given must be completed in a much shorter amount of time than film. It’s not uncommon in feature film animations for an animator to have several months to finish a single shot, depending on how complex it is. In games the turnaround is much faster, while the animations may not need to be as perfect as in a movie, they still must look good in the game. The number of passes you can have on a single animation is often much smaller, simply because you won’t have the time to go from blocking, blocking version 2, blocking version 3, etc. You will need to find ways to get from blocking to the finished animation in the shortest amount of time. Since there is less time to refine your work, you will need to have a greater understanding of the animation and the purpose of it, and what you want the player to feel. Game animation isn’t about creating top-notch performances like in Frozen, but about ensuring the animation will work well for the player.

Working with Motion Capture

While there’s a huge emphasis on body mechanics in game animation, there’s still a need to push the story forward, and as hardware progresses games are becoming even more story-driven. Video games are typically a much more realistic style of animation, rather than something like Toy Story or Megamind, of course, there are more stylized animations in games like Wildstar but for the most part, games try to be grounded in realism to help keep the player engrossed in the gameplay. To ensure the game is as realistic as possible motion capture is a technique that’s being used more often, especially for the more subtle acting cut scenes like you would find in The Last of Us. As a video game animator motion capture is something you will need to become familiar with because more studios are implementing it into their pipeline. This does not mean traditional animation is not needed, but you will often need to use motion caption data as a starting point in your animations, and build off from there. Animating for games can bring a whole new set of challenges to the table, but it’s also very rewarding.

Corporate Animation Films

Today it’s no secret that the human brain processes visuals more than it processes texts. Therefore adding corporate animation videos to your marketing efforts will make your target audience 10 times more likely to engage with your brand. An animated video will offer endless benefits for your small business — they’re fun, they’re persuasive, and they build trust.

• For a small business, customer acquisition is just as important as customer retention, and a surefire way to acquire customers is to pique their interest. Animated videos are great at this. People like watching animated videos because they tell stories in a fun and easy to digest format. Essentially, businesses create marketing videos to keep their brand top-of-mind for their customers. So it’s imperative to understand what makes the best animated corporate videos.

Things You Should Know When Creating Corporate Animation Videos

1. Take Care of the Vital Elements of a Great Video
   • What makes great animated brand videos? Videos become enthralling when there are suitable video narratives. Such inclusions play a significant role in any kind of video and when it comes to corporate video, a narrative means compiling an engaging and compelling story with certain elements. You can mesmerize your audience by the best corporate process animation videos.
   • The four major elements of a grand video narrative are:
     • Character- The main character of your product video is the product or the service.
     • Quest – Your audience is always at the lookout whether you know their pain points or not.
     • Climax – This element tells your customers how your hero (the product) can solve their problem.
     • Resolution – The final part of the video, it’s about introducing the CTA.
2. Human Touch – Let Your Customers Discover What Benefits Them
   • People select a brand when it conveys a message that resonates with them. Therefore, the trick of creating a high engaging corporate video involves illustrating to your clients the informative features of your product. When your customers understand how they can benefit from your brand, needless to say, they will choose you over your competitors.
   • According to experts, when you decide to create an impressive video that draws the client, you need to have an ideal buyer persona in mind. With such a persona in your mind, you can quickly raise awareness of your brand and educate your existing customers.
3. Brand Personality – Create Your Video with a Signature Style
   • According to science, people tend to grasp about 20% of what they read, 10% of what they hear and in comparison remember 80% of what they see and do. This is why your video animation demands to be an impressive extension of your brand so that viewers watch it and the image of your brand gets imbibed into their minds.
   • So when you are creating a corporate video, building with your brand signature style will get you amazing results.
   • Now, what does signature style mean? A signature style is synonymous with brand personality and it is more than any visual aspects like brand colors and logo. It includes elements like who your target audience is, what’s your niche industry and what way you direct your messaging, whether it’s towards the B2B companies or B2C.
4. Brand promotion – Place your logo appropriately to promote your brand
   • Why do we create videos? The most common answer would be to promote our brand, isn’t it? And the obvious way to market your brand is by appropriately using logos and taglines. So, needless to say, your logos should be clear and recognizable.
   • In this regard SeSenior Digital Marketing Executive at LogoDesignGuru.com, Aamina Suleman opines including logo on any accessories like in the shirts, coffee mugs, or other items inside the shot would bring amazing results.
   • This means you need not have to limit yourself to using your logos. Logos as a corner badge, watermark, or anywhere that is visible and catches people’s attention proves to be rewarding.
5. Audience Engagement – Take care of the length of the video
   • Length is one of the vital elements of all kinds of videos. It’s the era of instant gratification. People don’t wait too long to process information. So to match the people’s attention capacity, you have to take care of your video length. There’s no denying, the length is the deciding factor whether your people will watch the video or not. When a video is too lengthy, the level of engagement begins to drop after some time.
   • A video that is not more than two minutes long is found to be more engaging and most importantly, viewers won’t turn off before they reach call-to-action.
   • Experts are always of the view that videos are mainly designed to encourage viewers to find out more about your company. Its vital goal is to spark their interest and transform them into your valued customers.
6. Distribution Channels – Find the Right Platforms to Share Your Video
   • The final step after creating a video is promoting it. But one of the biggest mistakes most of us do while uploading videos – is not to share it on proper platforms that can bring exposure. One thing which we must keep in mind while sharing our video- viewers respond to video content differently depending on the social platform or marketing channel.
   • Hence, you should have an idea of where you want to market your video. Whether you want to upload it on Facebook or use video in an email, don’t forget to optimize the video title, description and call to action accordingly.
   • This is for your information – your video should always fit into the context of where it is marketed. Don’t forget to match the elements of your video demanded by the platforms. For example, if most of your customers are on Instagram, your video should not be any longer than 15 seconds and when you want to place an ad on YouTube 30 seconds long video will work wonder.
   • Other channels where you can distribute and promote your videos include your website homepage, email newsletters, trade shows, and social media.
7. Use Effective Tools to Create Animated Videos for Business
   1. Animaker
      • Animaker is one of the best tools to create corporate animation videos. This DIY tool has become a much-preferred one for its users as it allows them to display statistics and data more compellingly. With functions like drag and drop, sound effects, music, pre-animated assets, and many such features, any business can craft a memorable video for its clients. Animaker also understands that a lengthy video is of no value to the audience; that’s the reason the videos you create with the help of the tool is not more than 2 minutes long. You can go for a free trial period and then choose three monthly payment options.
   2. Vyond
      • Vyond, formerly known as GoAnimate, is one of the useful tools that have been helping professionals to make successful animated corporate videos. This do-it-yourself and an affordable tool allows its users to create an engaging corporate video with their huge library of templates, sounds and much more. Why don’t you use Vyond and start transforming generic content into dynamic ones in minutes?
   3. Wideo
      • Creating animated brand videos is never being so easy when it’s with Wideo. The tool allows you to step your video creation up by adding marketing features to the mix. Studies show that more than 50% of Marketers are delighted with this animation maker software due to its flexibility and affordability.
   4. Moovly
      • Are you looking for a tool with unlimited downloads and unlimited videos offer? Mooyly is one such tool that has all the features a professional loves. It’s easy-to-use customizable video software that helps you win clients easily. You can create visual reports, explainer, and tutorial videos easily and creatively. Their pricing structure ranges from an essential subscription of $5 a month to a Moovly Business subscription costing $300 a year.
   5. CrazyTalk
      • With the advancement in technology, you need breakthrough software to create high-quality corporate animation videos to engage your clients. Crazytalk is today the world’s one of the most popular animation software to use voice and text to brilliantly moving facial images. CrazyTalk 8 contains all the powerful features that help the users create high end and revolutionary talking animation projects. Needless to say, it’s the best corporate animation software of all time.

With videos continuing to gain momentum as one of the fastest-growing marketing strategies, it’s high time that we focus on exploring the power of an effective corporate video. But we need to remember that an impressive animated brand video needs to follow a basic formula. Like any other production, you need an ideal script to start with, essential music and sound to engage your audience. A perfect message that says you can solve your audience’s problem is last not the least a call to action section. Compiling all these you will create a perfect video that’s virtually and intellectually pleasing.

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