Animation has been around since the phénakisticope, an animation device used to create a distinct illusion of motion, was invented in 1833. Since then, many types of animation have been introduced, including cel animation and computer animation. These two types of animation are different in many ways.

Cel animation uses sheets of transparent paper, pencils, coloring tools and a camera to capture frames of the animation. This was hard to do since the frames had to match exactly what was going on in the soundtrack, including sound effects. After the coloring has been done, and the backgrounds have been painted, the drawings are transferred to sheets of plastic called cels, which is short for celluloid, and the frames are photographed by an animation camera, also called a rostrum camera. This process is called “ink-and-paint.” Sometimes, the frames are scanned into a computer. This process is called “digital ink-and-paint.”

With computer animation, all the animation is done using animation programs. Adobe Animate can be used for 2D animations, while Blender can be used for 3D animations. There are some animation programs that can do both 2D and 3D animations, like the aforementioned Blender. Adobe Animate costs about $20.99 per month, while Blender is free to use.

The earliest instance of computer animation comes from the 1940s and 1950s, when a series of experimental films were created by John Whitney, Sr and his brother James. The first computer-drawn film was created in 1961 on the BESK (Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator) computer. It featured a car travelling down a highway. This 49-second animation broadcasted on November 9, 1961, on the Swedish news program Aktuellt.

Cel animation and computer animation have come a long way since they were first introduced. With many history-making animated films out there, from Fantasmagorie to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and many others, animation has found many ways to entertain people around the world.