Why does animation look like motion?
Short answer
Animation shows a sequence of drawings or images that differ slightly, one after another at short intervals. The eyes and brain interpret the changes as continuous movement rather than as unrelated pictures.
How it works
If a character changes position a little from one frame to the next, and the change continues across the sequence, viewers perceive the character as moving. The display interval and the size of each change affect the speed and smoothness of the motion.
This is not simply a matter of the eye holding one image for a long time. Visual processing helps combine changes that occur close together in time into the experience of motion.
Key point
Adding more frames does not always make movement natural. Animators combine changes in the drawings, timing, blur, and sound to create the motion they want viewers to feel.