The word ‘animation‘ comes from the French word ‘animation’ that means enlivening, animation. The synonyms of the ‘animation’ is animated cartoons as a technology and animated cartoons as an art. The main point of the animation is providing ability to move or to bring life into objects, works of art, dead bodies in the invented worlds, etc.

Usually animation is used as a synonym for animated cartoons. But the origins of the terms “animated cartoons” and “animation” are different. For the first time something like animated cartoons appeared in 1977 in France and was called “pracsinoscope”.

The first animations were implemented differently from the cinema that appeared later. But there already was some musical soundtrack synchronized with the appropriate animation. The first popular animated hero was Felix the cat that ten years later was replaced by Micky Mouse. But the main hero of the very best animation ever created was the hedgehog in the animated cartoon “The hedgehog in the Mist”.

Animation creation is a process similar to cinematography. But they use lifeless figures as actors, for example drawn characters, plasticine figures, rag dolls, etc. Although the animation history has examples of combined characters, for example in a feature film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” living actors and absolutely artificial animated drawn characters exist together. However, the barriers between cinema and animation have been disappearing since the computer technologies development started, because the figures created with a computer can be similar to real people and the number of the abilities to create cinema with animation keeps growing on.

Since the bandwidth of communication channels increased, animation appeared on the Internet and became its integral part adding dynamics to the Internet pages. At first there were animated advertising banners and animated avatars on forums, and later full-length online animation appeared. The first abilities for animation embedding into web pages appeared in 1989 when GIF format was extended to GIF89a. This type of animation is supported by the majority of browsers, thus the animated banners and avatars of this format became wide-spread. It is easy enough to create, represent and store such animation, so GIF animation remains one of the most popular animation formats on the Internet. You can create an animation of this format with special programs or load your photos to create an animated avatar online.

Since Flash technology appeared, animation possibilities on the Internet stepped on a new level. The technology uses vector graphics for conversion (unlike GIF89a which holds animation as raster data), that beyond all bounds extends the possibilities of the created animation but considerably raises requirements to the hardware possibilities of the computer. Using flash animation you can create not only banners, but full-grown sites, since the flash technology provides rich interactive possibilities. As creating flash animation is too difficult for the ordinary user, flash animation isn’t used to create avatars.

Also by means of the flash technology video and games (files with extensions.flv and.swf) are being distributed on the Internet. Such video services as www.youtube.com do not require any recommendations.

The alternative way of gif and flash animation can be programming on JavaScript, SVG. JavaScript allows operating the content of a web page directly in the user browser, and SVG adds support of vector graphics, these together provide rich interactive and animating possibilities for web developers. For example, before the New Year holidays there are falling snowflakes appear on many sites. These snowflakes are the animation created by means of JavaScript.

P.S. If you need an animated avatar you can create it online in gif maker online.