Limited animation

Limited animation is an animation technique that reduces the number of distinct drawings or moving elements used to create a sequence. It trades fluid motion for lower production effort and can also create distinctive graphic styles.

Animation frame rate: The number of distinct images displayed per second in an animated sequence. Holding drawings across multiple frames lowers the rate of new artwork without necessarily changing playback speed.
UPA: An American animation studio founded in 1941, known for modernist design and economical production. UPA made sparse movement and graphic simplification central to a distinctive studio style.
The Simpsons: An American animated sitcom that began as a television series in 1989. Its sustained series production uses held poses and economical motion within a highly expressive design.
Full animation: An animation approach that uses many distinct drawings to depict detailed, fluid movement. It contrasts with limited animation's reduction of drawings per action.
Pose-to-pose animation: An animation workflow that defines key poses first and fills in intermediate drawings afterward. Strong key poses let limited animation communicate action with fewer intermediate drawings.
Television animation: Animation produced for television, often under schedules and budgets unlike theatrical production. Television schedules and budgets encouraged studios to reduce drawings and reuse material.
South Park: An American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Its deliberately rigid visual style grew from cutout-like construction and sharply limited movement.
Rotoscoping: An animation technique in which artists trace over filmed live-action movement. Rotoscoping can produce closely observed motion, unlike the simplified movement often chosen for limited animation.
Animation smear: A distorted drawing that represents rapid motion across an interval too broad for a literal pose. Smear drawings can suggest speed without requiring many incremental images.
Hanna-Barbera: An American animation studio founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1957. The studio developed highly economical television production practices that made limited motion a recognizable norm.

Linked from 17 pages