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In this massive guide I try to cover (almost) everything you might need to know about animation if you're trying to get into the animation industry.

I'll cover some of the basic concepts of animation, vocabulary, principles, software, hardware, books, courses as well as some of the options for people who want to get into the animation industry, but are overwhelmed or intimidated.

I'll go over what is animation, what it takes to make animated movies (2D or 3D), and even how to start looking for a job in the industry.

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You can start small and simple and slowly develop your skills and unique style. You don't even need to know how to draw well.

We built an entire course dedicated to understanding the basic principles of animation, so that you can cover your basics before jumping into animation. It's this one, right below.  

Learn the basic principles of character animation, including a survey of the different types of animation, basic vocabulary, and the 12 principles of animation. If you’re just starting out and want to make sure your basics are covered – this course is the best place to start.

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The most important part of all of that is the word life. Bringing life is the true essence of the animator's job. And there are many ways of doing that.

Before we jump it, you can watch this video where I explain the differences between animating in 2D and 3D. This will give you an idea of what an animator actually does.

Now that we covered the basic idea of what animation is, it's important to understand the vocabulary and specialized terms used in the animation and filmmaking industry.

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Depending on the software, we might use the timeline to make changes to the timing of the animation, as well as the position of the elements.

The frame rate of an animation is the number of individual images (or frames) that are being displayed over the span of one second. It is a setting you can adjust in the animation software.

Working on twos means holding each drawing for two frames, so one second of animation at 24 frames per second would only be 12 drawings, not 24.

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In 2D animation working on two's looks fine in most instances, and there are even cases where drawings can be held longer. In 3D, though, working on one's is the standard.

Normally in live action filmmaking, the term 'shot' refers to the images between camera edits, while a scene is all the shots and dialogue that take place at a particular location for a continuous block of time.

In animation, however, we often use the term 'scene' and 'shot' interchangeably. When we talk about a scene/shot, we often refer to one specific continuous piece of animation in between camera cuts.

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In hand drawn animation, keyframes (or just keys) are the major important poses that define the scene. Breakdowns come between keys and define what the motion from key to key will be. In-betweens are all the frames that come in between to smooth out the motion.

In 3D, a keyframe is any position on the timeline where the animator has defined the position of the character. In-betweens are all the frames that the computer interprets or automatically generates to move the character from key to key.

Timing means the total number of frames that will be used for a movement. Spacing is the amount of change that comes between each frame. Decreasing the spacing, makes an object slower, while increasing the spacing makes it look faster.

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In paper animation this is done by having multiple drawings on a light table, but in modern animation programs there's often a feature called onion skinning. It lets you see semi-transparent representations of the frames behind or ahead of the current frame you're working on.

You might have a background, multiple characters, and some scenery all being developed separately. Compositing is how all those pieces get put together into a single scene.

The 12 principles were a set of core concepts that were developed in the 1930's by animators at Walt Disney Studios as they were transitioning from doing shorts to feature films. It was a gradual process of discovery and refinement as the animators tried to push their work to a new higher standard.

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These 12 principles were first compiled by the legendary animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in 1981 in their book The Illusion of Life.

Creating the illusion of life is what the principles are all about. They help us create characters that look like they have weight, personality, and exist in a real world with real physics at work.

Squash is when the object is compressed by an impact of an opposing force. Stretch is when an object is distended by something pulling on it, or by moving quickly.

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Staging is the presentation of a shot in a way that makes the content of the shot as clear as possible, and the narrative function of the shot as strong as possible.

Straight-ahead means creating each new frame in sequence from beginning to end. Pose-to-pose means creating the key poses for each action first, and then filling in the in-between poses.

Slow-in and slow-out refer to the tendency of objects to gradually accelerate (and then decelerate) when moving from one position to another.

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Exaggeration means representing a subject in a heightened or more extreme way, rather than strictly realistic, in order to push your animation further.

It covers the basic principles of character animation, and goes deeply into each of the 12 principles of animation, as well as basic animation workflows and techinques. If you’re just starting out and want to make sure your basics are covered – this course is the best place to start.

There are many different types of animation, some of which you're probably already familiar with, so let's do a quick rundown of the different types of animation and what the differences and similarities are.

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3D, also referred to as CGI (computer generated imagery), is the most popular type of animation for feature films currently, and it's become common in TV and short films as well.

An animator uses a digital puppet (called a character rig) to position the character, and then use a system of motion paths (or splines) to define the movement of the character between those poses.

The computer proceeds to interpolate the frames of the animation in between the key frames. The animator then refines these frames until they are satisfied with the animation.

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3D animation is a technically intensive process, which often involves many separate specialists to model the character, rig it with bones and controls,  animate it,  and then texture and light it for the final output.

The first type of 2D animation might be called traditional animation or cel animation. I prefer the term hand-drawn animation because that define its most important aspect - the fact that it is drawn by hand.

This is the classic type of animation you're probably most familiar with. In the old days, animators drew characters frame by frame, and then those drawings were transferred onto clear acetate sheets called cels for painting. That's where the term cel animation comes from.

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Through the 1990s almost all animation studios stopped using cels and started scanning drawings into the computer for digital coloring, and now many hand-drawn animators skip paper altogether and draw directly into the computer using a tablet or Wacom Cintiq monitors.

So hand-drawn animation could be done entirely analog or entirely digitally, or some mix of the two. The important thing is that hand drawn animators still create their animation frame by frame using the same techniques and principles as in those old days of paper and cels.

Nowadays there are new ways to create 2D animation using a 2D digital puppet. These are 2D characters which are built with a system of bones and controls that can be manipulated in a way similar to a 3D character rig.

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The difference between 2D rigged characters and hand-drawn characters can get a bit blurry. Programs like Toon Boom Harmony and Adobe Animate CC let you seamlessly mix and match hand-drawn animation with 2D puppet techniques, sometimes even within the same character.

Stop motion has several variants, but they all involve manipulating real world objects. These objects are moved slightly, and photographed one frame at a time. When shown in sequence, these frames create the illusion of movement.

In higher-end stop motion, like the ones created by Laika (Coraline, Kubu and the Two Strings), a specially rigged puppet is shot on a miniature stage.

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Claymation is a similar technique. In it, malleable characters are used, though they're generally made out of a substance called plasticine, not actual clay.

You can also do stop motion with regular figurines, and objects, like all those great Lego animations you can find on YouTube.

Another variation of stop motion is paper cut-out animation. In this style, characters are built out of paper shapes. They might be pinned together at the joints to make a posable figure, or pieces might be set in place so that they can be swapped out. They are then moved and photographed frame by frame, just like a stop motion puppet. That's how South Park was originally animated.

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They all have to be shot straight-ahead, which means starting at frame one and

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