What are animated graphics?
Animated graphics are essentially a series of still images displayed in quick succession, giving apparent movement to otherwise inanimate objects and images. The term ‘animation’ has come to be most commonly associated with animated films, from cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and stop-motion animation such as Wallace and Gromit, to full-blown computer-generated animations like Toy Story. Whilst such sophisticated examples are beyond the scope of this document, it is worth noting that all types of animation, regardless of their complexity, are based on the same fundamental technique: putting together successive still images to produce the effect of motion. So for the purposes of this document, the terms ‘animation’ and ‘animated graphics’ are interchangeable. Our definition of animated graphics also includes interactive two- and three-dimensional immersive technologies, such as QuickTime VR, VRML and x3D. What our definition does not cover is film and video ‘motion pictures’ – i.e. real-
