Animation from Pencils to Pixels

The invention of vector graphics is one of the biggest advances in modern digital arts technology in recent times. Vector animation differs from conventional animation in several ways and therefore demands a separate, albeit brief, look at its techniques and procedures.

Vector-based graphics were developed when it was realized that Internet bandwidth (and even the regular computer technology of the time) was not powerful enough to deal with the graphics and animated imagery that users and creators for the Internet were increasingly beginning to demand. Before vector technology appeared, the best capability for animation on the Web was GIF animation, where a number of successive, highly compressed files were shown sequentially, albeit relatively ...