# Animation & the Frame Loop

**Track:** Foundations — Creative Coding — the existing 50
**Framework / surface:** p5.js
**Level:** Beginner
**Prerequisites:** Variables, Conditionals

**In one line:** Smooth motion from a small change every frame.

## Theory, aesthetics & inspiration

Motion on a screen is an illusion assembled from stillness: redraw the frame many times a second, change a little each time, and the eye fuses the sequence into continuous movement. The principle predates computers — Eadweard Muybridge's stop-motion locomotion studies and the craft codified in Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston's "The Illusion of Life" both rest on it. What code contributes is that the change can be a rule rather than a hand-drawn cel; John Whitney's pioneering computer films derived motion from mathematics. The frame loop's discipline is incremental: state advances by small, consistent deltas, and from those modest steps emerges the felt sense of life.