Animation

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part of Creative Production · tier 1 · 3 pieces of work carry it · 5 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Hired when a brand needs moving image that is built rather than filmed: explainer videos, animated brand spots, logo animation and motion-branding toolkits, character-led storytelling, title sequences. Studios sell this as 'Animation' or 'Motion Design' alongside Design and Live Action (Hornet's work filter is literally Design / Animation / Live Action).

The craft field of made-not-shot moving image: motion created frame-by-frame or through keyframed and rendered graphics, characters, and type, generated by animators rather than captured by a camera. Its classify-target leaf groups (canonical_id grain, Option-F) are exactly three: character_animation, motion_graphics, and kinetic_typography (Title Design). The tree also physically holds soft-retired exec_* rows (cel, stop motion, photoreal), the 2d_animation/3d_animation lens rows, and stage_3d_* pipeline-stage rows — none are classify targets: 2D/3D is the dimensionality facet, cel/stop-motion are Execution METHOD tags, and photoreal/illustrative are LOOK words (content_material store, DN-199) — never child tiers of this discipline.

Tag it when…

Tag when the moving imagery is generated, drawn, or rendered by animators rather than captured by camera: keyframed graphic elements, animated characters, animated type, CG renders in motion. Use this L1 tag ALONE when the work is clearly animation but no leaf fits confidently — discipline-known/leaf-unknown is a legal honest tag (CM1); never invent a leaf to avoid it.

Never tag it when…

Never tag camera-captured footage — that is Video Production (Cinematography) by craft, however heavily graded or edited. CG/graphic enhancement composited INTO live-action footage goes to Post-Production > Visual Effects, not here. A look that merely APPEARS drawn ('illustrative') without animated construction is a LOOK word (content_material store per DN-199, the VISUAL_STYLE axis), and cel/stop-motion name the Execution METHOD facet on an Animation leaf — neither is a reason to withhold or substitute this tag. Static illustration or graphic work with no motion goes to Design (Illustration / Graphic Design). Content type never decides: an animated testimonial, tutorial, or TVC is still Animation by craft.

Easily mistaken for 5 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• Visual Effects (Post Production) — VFX enhances CAMERA footage (compositing, CG integration into live action); Animation IS the imagery. If removing the live-action plate leaves nothing, it's VFX territory, not Animation.
• Cinematography (Video Production) — Captured by lens vs constructed by animators. A live-action film that CONTAINS animated beats stays Video Production at asset grain; the beats are moments.
• Commercial/Spot · Branded Content · Documentary · Film & TV (Video Production deliverable homes / content type territory) — Deliverable and content-type words never displace craft: a fully animated TVC, branded film, explainer, or documentary-style piece is Animation by craft even though its deliverable shape files under VP Commercial/Spot or a content_type value (v2.2 SERVICES-vs-CRAFT boundary law — deliverable-shaped gaps mint under a craft home; craft tags co-exist with those homes, they never compete).
• Illustration / Graphic Design (Design) — Same visual craft family but static — no motion, no Animation tag. 'It looks drawn' is a look-word facet (content_material), not this discipline.
• Generative AI Production — content_origin (ai_generated) is a facet orthogonal to craft — an AI-generated clip that LOOKS animated still gets craft tags for the look; Generative AI Production is the discipline only where the ratified CD4 rules route it.

At what size it applies

Asset tag when the whole piece IS animation end-to-end — the §3 acid test verbatim: "Would you say the whole piece IS this, to a buyer?" → asset; "Is this a beat you'd clip and reference?" → moment. An animated beat inside a live-action piece (logo animation, title card, animated insert) is a MOMENT on its shelf, never this asset tag. L1-grain asset tags are legal when the leaf is unknown (CM1).

Pieces that settle the definition

• Probed 2026-07-21: the 3 corpus rows currently linked directly to disc_animation all ALSO carry leaf tags, so no genuine L1-only exemplar exists in corpus yet — archetype kept deliberately rather than fabricating one

The 17 crafts inside it

• 2D Animation — 0 pieces
• 3D - Photo Real — 0 pieces
• 3D Animation — 0 pieces
• Cel Animation — 0 pieces
• Character Animation — 75 pieces
• Character Animation — 0 pieces
• Lighting — 0 pieces
• Modeling — 0 pieces
• Motion Graphics — 631 pieces
• Motion Graphics — 0 pieces
• Motion Graphics — 0 pieces
• Rendering — 0 pieces
• Rigging — 0 pieces
• Simulation — 0 pieces
• Stop Motion — 0 pieces
• Stop Motion Animation — 0 pieces
• Title Design — 3 pieces

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.