5 Types of Animations Easily Applied (With Examples)
Interested in motion graphics but don’t know where to start? This post will reveal five types of animations easily applied to e-courses, corporate training, and websites. Not only easier to make, these animation styles but also fit a shoestring budget.
Animation is an effective tool to communicate notions. It can capture viewers’ attention, keep them focused, arouse their emotions, and convince them to remember key messages. Despite these enormous benefits, the process of producing animations is not that easy. Hence, it may become the main obstacle for many people. Especially for those who are not tech-savvy.
Other than some complicated types of animation in multimedia, most are not as hard to create as you think. Below are some easily applied ones. They may help inspire you to kick-start your first animation project.
Here on the list:
- Animated Infographics
- Kinetic Typography Animations
- Stop Motion Animations
- Screen Capture Animations
- Whiteboard Animations
Animated Infographics
As you may know, infographics are one of the preferred forms of content. It is also one of the content types people love to share the most.
So, why do infographics work? It is, of course, not by chance that infographics are having a moment in recent years. Their beauty is in the way they help to convey info. Infographics contain visual elements. For example, images, charts, diagrams, shapes, text, colors, and other eye-catching factors. These elements are organized in a simple structure. Thanks to that, humans can absorb information faster. Besides, they can retain them better.
Yet, most infographics we glimpse today are still in a static form. They are commonly long images that need viewers to scroll down. Animated infographics, which are also known as interactive infographics, can resolve this issue. It is an animation type that helps to present bite-sized information in motion. As you may know, moving elements can catch the eye better than static ones. It makes content more lively, digestible, and compelling to consume.
Example 1:
Do you have any unmoving infographics? If so, how about turning them into more lively and eye-catching versions? No worries about the complexity of the conversion. A free infographic maker can help you at ease. It is a piece of cake to add some kinds of entrance and exit effects to visual elements. Making text, numbers, graphs, shapes, and images move is not a daunting task at all.
Kinetic Typography Animations
According to Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries:
- Kinetic means “of or produced by movement”.
- Typography is “the design of the writing in a piece of printing or on a computer screen”.
So, this phrase implies “moving text”. In other words, a text element is the main component of this animation style. The combination of text and motion helps evoke viewer emotion. As a result, messages are better conveyed.
Compared to cartoon animation styles, this one requires less complicated techniques. All you need to do is to create some kinds of text animations. That’s why making it is much easier than other types of animations.
Amazing kinetic typography animations can hold a feast for the eyes. It compels viewers to read text dancing on the screen to understand your notions. Thus, this style is an effective visual story-telling technique. If your course or page fills with text, you can try it to make your content look more appealing.
Example 2:
How to Add Animation Effects for Text in ActivePresenter 8
Some apps like ActivePresenter or Saola Animate can help you to create text animation at ease. They offer preset effects that can apply to text with one click. Then, feel free to customize other properties. For example, effect duration, direction, easing, and the delay time between letters (words). You may be surprised at the final result for sure.
Stop Motion Animations
Stop motion is another animation type that is simple to create. It has another name – stop-frame animations. Do you know that putting drawings together can produce the illusion of motion? Take a look at the History of Animation section for further info if needed. The way to create stop motion animations is quite similar. The difference is that objects are physically manipulated frame by frame. As a result, they look as if they move on their own.
The steps to create stop motion animations include:
- Take the first photo of objects.
- Move them to other positions and capture another shot.
- Repeat the two steps above as many as you want. When reviewing these photographs continuously, you can feel the fluid movement.
- Finally, upload these photos to an animation app to assemble them into an animation. You can also customize the background, add sound effects, music, etc.
It’s what filmmakers did in the past to create animated movies. The art of this process is in the way of arranging objects and shooting photos. This process is not too complex. Yet, it takes time, patience, and ingenuity.
Example 3:
Controlling Animations – Click any of the buttons to see how the bus moves.
If you don’t have enough time to take the steps above, you can find animation software to do that. For example, Saola Animate can help you make objects move by using the Motion Path feature. In this app, you’ll work with keyframes to create desirable motions. It allows you to make objects move smoothly. The moving bus above is an example of how to create and control animations in Saola Animate.
Screen Capture Animations
Are you seeking an effective way to instruct your audience on how to use something? If so, screen capture animations may be your perfect answer.
Screencasts help show a step-to-step process to use something. It is one of the simplest options for those who are not tech-savvy. With the support of a free screen recorder, capturing the screen is a simple task. It allows you to capture full-screen or a selected area of the screen. Any action along with system sound will be captured in real-time. Then, feel free to export the recording to different formats. Thanks to that, it is easy to create instructional videos or interactive software simulations.
This animation type is not only cost-effective. But it also produces good results. In detail, it is best suited for:
- Online environment. For example, how to take part in an online course? Or, how to find specific info on a website?
- Corporate training. For instance, how to use an app? How to deal with customer complaints in a working environment?
Example 4:
Create and Manage Order in Odoo
The example above shows viewers single steps to create and manage a sales order in Odoo. It is a suite of business management software tools. With this sample, viewers have two options:
- Click the Show Me button, viewers will learn every single step to create an order. The arrival of hint messages and narrator voices will show them how.
- Click the Let Me Try button, they have a chance to try the task themselves. There will be no hint messages or guided voices like the first option.
Whiteboard Animations
When it comes to whiteboard animation, you’ve probably heard of or seen it many times. The content of this animation style looks like being hand-drawn on a white background.
It is one of the most trending types of animations in recent times. The reason for its popularity is the broad and direct applicability to many aspects. Marketers love using whiteboard animations. Since it helps grab viewers’ attention with the movement of the illustrator’s hand. The way pictures are drawn keeps viewers curious about what will happen next. Also, this animation type helps simplify complex concepts. Apart from that, it makes the info look more engaging. It comes in handy for not only introducing a new topic but also summarizing the knowledge.
Example 5:
Originally, this animation style is produced by filming physical drawing actions on a whiteboard. Nowadays, there are many whiteboard animation software to make the process much easier. The Prevent Covid-19 project above is a simple example. It is created in Saola Animate 3.0. You can make use of the Line Length keyframe to animate the line drawing. Thanks to that, objects such as shapes or pictures appear as being hand-drawn.
Final Words
Now, you know five types of animations that are easy to create. They will help you enrich your e-courses, corporate training, and websites. There are many tools in the market that help the process to produce animation much easier. These tools will do the hard work for you. As a result, you can focus on the content more. Keep following up on our website if you want to read further info about these animation styles.
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