Animation2D animation

In this form of animation every individual frame of action is drawn by hand.

Nowadays the process can be done entirely digitally by drawing the frames on a graphics tablet and feeding each frame into an editing or animation software package.

Advantages:

Like all forms of animation this process is time intensive but it is relatively inexpensive. It also requires no special props or lighting set-ups and can be achieved by one person working alone.

Disadvantages:

This process is time-consuming and anyone trying it needs to be both gifted and fast at drawing if they are to manage the heavy workload and maintain a consistent look throughout the piece.

Rotoscoping

Advantages:

Rotoscoping can look extremely beautiful, turning everyday scenes into living paintings.

Disadvantages:

This process can be very time-consuming and usually requires access to not just a graphics tablet but also to expensive and complex software tools.

3D CGI animation

This is currently the most popular form of animation.

Advantages:

Approached correctly this technique can give us beautifully smooth looking images and fluent movement.

Also, by imitating the real 3D world it allows animators to include complex lighting set-ups and camera moves.

Disdavantages:

The software needed to create 3D animation is usually both costly and difficult to master.

This process is also extremely time-consuming as not only does each frame have to be animated but it also has to be individually rendered by the computer.

On a slow computer it can take anywhere between 5 minutes to an hour to render a single frame of animation.