3D Animation vs. Flash Animation

Animation is a simulation of movement, performed by showing a series of frames, or pictures. Cartoons are one example, but animation on a computer is one of the most impactful multimedia presentation ingredients. There are many applications that enable one to create animations whether in 3D or 2D that one can display on a computer monitor. Animation is not video because video takes continuous motion and breaks it into discrete frames. Animation starts with pictures independent of one another to form the illusion of continuous motion.


3D Explained

Computer Graphic Designers concern themselves with displaying three-dimensional objects in a two dimensional space. Normally, pixels in a 2D graphic have color, position, and brightness properties. A 3D pixel will add depth properties to indicate where a point likes on the imaginary Z Axis. When one combines many 3D pixels where each have their own depth value, the result will be a 3D surface, or texture and the 3D graphics can support multiple objects interacting with one another like hiding objects behind one another. A technique called ray tracing can also be used to apply realistic shadows.

Rendering, or converting information about 3D objects into a bit map, requires a ton of memory and procession power that used to only be available in the highest end of work stations. Now, graphics accelerators are commonly found in personal computers which contain memory and a specialized microprocessor to handle many rendering operations.


Flash Animation Explained

A Flash cartoon or animation is an animation on the web created using Adobe Flash software. The fast loading animations can be created in Flash itself or in other programs capable of distributing/writing files in the flash .swf format. “Flash Animation,” the term, refers to a certain kind of movement and visual style that is often seen as simplistic or unpolished. Although not as REAL looking as 3D, there are countless more flash animated TV commercials and online shorts in circulation.

One large advantage of flash files over 3D files is size. When bandwidth is an issue, a 1MB flash file is much better for distribution than 3D files which can never be that small. We must always consider our audience for this reason. Flash animations are typically more widely used on the World Wide Web, for advertisements, user interactivity, persuasion, presentation, and more than ever in online multiuser communities