Apparent Motion

Apparent Motion

If you’ve ever watched a cartoon, you’ll have a good understanding of Apparent Motion – this is an optical illusion that makes a still object appear to move. It works by flashing pictures of a still image in different locations so quickly that the image seems to move from one location to the other. If you draw a picture of a stick person throwing a ball, and have consecutive pictures of the ball in different spots along its path until in the last picture it is on the ground, and then flip quickly through the pictures, it would appear the ball was actually thrown. The animation uses this phenomenon to give the impression that inanimate objects are moving as well.