The word animation comes from the Latin animatus, meaning filled with life. Even before invention of cinema. People realized that if the human eyes see series of images that change at a rate of at least 24 frames a second (fps), the brain can be tricked into thinking it is seeing a live moving image. Nineteenth century optical toys such as zoetropes worked on this principle.
Traditional animation
Individual frames of a story are hand drawn on cels -transparent sheets of plastic. They are then photographed as a sequence against painted background
Cut-out
In this type of animation, two dimensional drawing are placed on a fixed background. These are moved and photographed to create the impression of movements.
Stop motion
This type of animation is created by moving three dimensional figures and other objects a tiny amount between shots. This method gas been used since 1925, but the best known modern examples of this technique are the Wallace & gromut films by Aardman animations.
Cgi
CGI (computer generated imagery) has been used since 1970s. Originally for short films. The 1989 film the abyss used some CGI visual effects, but the hugely successful toy story (1995), from the Disney and Pixar animation studio, was the first CGI feature film. Another development known as 3d motion captured has been used in the film such as the polar Express (2004). In this film, which stars tom hanks, the motions of live actions are converted into computer images.
The best for me os the CGI of course. Every year, almost all are improving in terms of animation and I really like that and I am being in love more and more especially to Japanese Anime. It is not only in the animation it is also in the story and expressing the feelings of the writer is the best one on a Japanese Anime.