It’s not just the big film studios like Dreamworks or Pixar that can take advantage of computers for producing animation. There are programs around suitable for home use that are either affordable like Antics or without any cost at all like Pencil.

Creating a cartoon with a computer might be faster than drawing every frame by hand but many of the skills are just the same regardless of how the cartoons are made.

The book is very well laid out with plenty of illustrations of the various concepts described.

New sections of the book cover topics such as digital storyboarding (the process of planning scenes), digital effects, timing for both hand-drawn and digital and the principles of speed lines and motion blur.

This is an excellent title for anyone planning to work with animation, whether a computer is involved or not. Best of all, it’s inexpensive as far as computer related books go.

You can read a section of the original book at Google Books.

Title: Timing for Animation Second Edition
Authors: Harold Whitaker, John Halas, Updated by Tom Sito
Publisher: Focal Press
Price: £14.99
ISBN: 978-0-240-52160-2