Traditional Vs. 3D pipeline

Here is a rough view of the animation pipe line of Traditional Vs. 3D and how they are closely related.

Animation Podcast Recap and Expand

Hello reader, This is my first time to do a podcast so I used this as a way to retouch things that i believe were more important and expand on ideas that I didn't mention in earlier posts.





I hope you all enjoy the podcast.

-T.O-

What the Future May Hold

Technology advances fast but the concepts stay the same. So what can we expect to have or hope to obtain in the future?

This big dreams list:

• Interactive stories
• Holographic animations
• More intuitive software for all aspects of animation arts to make professional quality with few people

The realistic wish list:

• Higher degree of motion capture
• Better 3D animations to replace stereoscopic 3D
• Tablets that can run to software needed on the go
• Better ways to view films (new theater set ups)^[1]

References:
1. future of animation article by Robin Wilding  Feb 10th, 2012

Interview with Sean McComber

This is the second post of two interviews with industry professionals.

1. To start off the interview let's start by who your are.

My name is Sean McComber and I am an animator who happens to also teach classes in ATEC.

2. What studios have you worked at?

I have worked at Rhythm and Hues Studio, Reel FX, and Sucker Punch Productions.

3. When did you join the industry?

I got my first job animating in 2004, but it took me 2 more years before I made it into film.

4. If you had to pick the biggest barrier with animations right now what would it be?

When it comes to CG, technology is generally the biggest barrier.  As an animator I want to have full control over the character that I am animating and sometimes it’s just not possible to bend, stretch, or contort them into the positions I want.  

5. How have things changed since you started working within the animation industry?

The quality level is immensely better.  That is in terms of animation quality in movies, but also in students coming out of college.  It is extremely competitive.

6. What is your preference? Working in studio or working as a contract artist and why?

Technically even when you are working in a studio you are still a contract artist.  Your contracts last about 6 months to a year at a time (or run of the picture which just means until the movie is done).  There are pros and cons being staff vs contract.  Staff has a bit of security, but with contract you are free to bounce around to try different studios and other projects.

7. What is your favorite animated feature film? Either 2D or 3D

I still really like Finding Nemo.  The Incredibles is also one of my favorites.  If we are talking strictly animation style I really like what Sony is putting out these days with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania.

8. If given the chance to start over fresh would you still chose the same path?

Absolutely

9.  If you were to guess where animation is heading in the future, where would that be?

Honestly I have no clue.  I see motion capture getting a stronger foothold as the technology advances, especially in games.  I also think it will begin to encroach more into film and specifically VFX films.  There will always be a place for full key frame animation, but I do think it will get smaller.

I would like to take this time to thank both Todd Fletcher and Sean McComber for their time. I hope that all the viewers enjoyed these sessions. 

Interview with Todd Fletcher

Today we start a two post series where industry professionals agreed to answer a questionare so that they answers can be compared and contrasted.  

1.  So to start off with the interview lets start by who you are.

Todd Fechter, Assistant Prof of Computer Animation

2. What studios have you worked at?

DNA Productions, Element X Creative, Reel FX (contract freelance)

3. When did you join the industry?

Upon graduation in August 2002

4. If you had to pick the biggest barrier with animations right now what would it be?

Money and Technology. Things are getting cheaper and faster however the need for bigger and better makes money the biggest set back for animation

5. How have things changed since you started working within the animation industry?

Technology has got faster and more complex. Studios are slightly less stable. Animation has spread far beyond entertainment and into medical, architectural, web, etc…

6. What is your preference? Working in studio or working as a contract artist and why?

Each has its good and bad points. Studios allow you to work closely with other artists which is rewarding, but you also have to deal with the studio politics and procedures. Most cg artists working in studios are now contracted only for the duration of a project. This causes a lot of jumping from one studio to another. Freelance contract work is usually done off site, so you don’t get the interaction you would in a studio. You also have to live and die by often very fast turn arounds.

7. What is your favorite animated feature film? Either 2D or 3D

The Incredibles

8. If given the chance to start over fresh would you still chose the same path?

Yes.

9.  If you were to guess where animation is heading in the future, where would that be?

In all directions and into every field imaginable. Everything will involve some kind of animation or visualization in the future.

Guest Appearance by Matt Thurman

Today we have a guest blogger, Matt Thurman. Writer of the blog "The Evolution of Animation."



Hair has always been a troubling problem when it came to 3D animation. Over the years there have been several different methods for dealing with the issue of hair. Some of the most common solutions are what is know as helmet hair, rigged hair, and simulated hair.

Helmet Hair

Helmet hair is by far the easiest solution to hair in 3D animation, and just like the name implies it treats the hair as a static element that is attached to the characters head like a football helmet. This method was common during the early years of 3D animation because it was so simple to sue and required very little time or computing power. The downside of this method is that it doesn't seem very realistic, especially with characters that have longer hair. To mitigate this characters were almost always given short hair or in the case of female characters had it tied up in a bun. Although it is the easiest solution to hair, it's severe limitations led studios to switch to using what is known as rigged hair.

Rigged Hair

Rigged hair is similar to helmet hair in that it is also geometry stuck the the characters scalp. The difference is that rigged hair is movable and as such is more realistic. The hair is split into sections with can be moved around which allows characters to have longer hair that reacts to their movements. It's still limited and has trouble with things like long flowing hair, hair blowing in the wind, and hair colliding with the environment, but it's still noticeably more realistic than the helmet hair method.

Simulated Hair

When 3D animation first came to mainstream attention in 1995 with 'Toy Story' the thought of having dynamically simulated hair was a fantasy.Out of the three methods, simulated hair requires by far the most time and computing power. With this method thousands of strands of hair are created and attached to the character. A computer then simulates, using both real and imaginary physics to make it work correctly, how the hair would move as it follows the character and interacts with things in the film. This method gives the most realistic results and is generally used by the larger studios today who have the time and resources to commit to such a complex method for hair. Sometimes this method works out wonderfully and other times it gives some interesting results that take months to correct. Ultimately though this method achieves the best results and is quickly becoming the industry standard.

Go check out Matt's blog at The Evolution of Animation

Motion Capture in a Nut Shell

Motion Capture is the new shiny object for the animation industry, using the word new loosely. However, many people still don't understand what motion capture really is or how it works yet. So we are going to take this post to explain the different versions along with the pros and cons of motion capture.^[1]

First up is "Mocap."  This is the generic version of motion capture that everyone seems to be the most familiar with.  In this version an actor is given a spandex suit with glowing orbs around it and is put inside an empty set with dozens of cameras tracking the position of each orb as the actor moves.^[1]

I-Mocap also known as inertial motion capture uses smaller sensors than the generic mocap.  This makes use of tracking bright colors on a suit. The cameras track simular to the previous version, but they have the advantage of letting the actor move more normal by not having to make use of the orbs that can get in the way.<sup>[1]

[2]</sup>


There are also now some companies making fully thermal motion capture cameras such as the Kinect from Microsoft. These cameras could be considered a cheap route but they also come with more flaws like not being able to track as much data on exact position of body parts, and can not track any facial animations.

Advantages:

• fast results ( also using the term fast loosely)
• director can correct acting mistakes before they are applied to an object to be animated
• more data is taken in a shorter amount of time than traditional animation processes
• There are some free ware softwares that reduce costs ( just remember you get what you pay for )

Disadvantages:

• Specific hardware and software are needed to make use of this process
• Expensive, most smaller studios can't effectively use motion capture
• Actors still can't break the laws of physics so animation will sometimes still be done by hand
• Models or objects that are not in the same proportion are much more complicated to adjust to fit than to just start traditionally.^[1]

References:

1. motion capture explained Uknown Author.  August 14 2011. Computerstories.net

2. Match Move Reel vimeo video active on 11-18-2012

The Animation Process in Comparison

The previous posts have talked about the fundamentals of animation, the start of the digital era, and how technology has effected the industry thus far. So now we begin to get back to animation as a process and move away from the idea that it is a product created by one person.

The original animation process with pen and paper required up to one hundred animators or more to complete the Disney feature films due to the shear amount of drawings and coloring that needed to be done. For the film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" there were roughly 1,500,000 drawings and water color paintings to complete the film.^[1]

Now art teams are now typically around 30-40 people strong for a feature film and less for a television series. The animation team could be broken down into 3-7 animators for an entire film.  Along with the technology of motion capture now animators don't always have to find references to what movements look like. Actors are now able to fill a decent portion of the animation process and the technical animators will go back and clean up the movements.^[1]

Before digital animation because popular the art team used lead animators to make the pose by pose pictures and the other animators would make the filled in frames of the animation. This took a lot of time to complete due to having to wait on a few artist to finish their work so that the others can start working on their part.^[1]

Much like before digital animators still use animatics and blocking to get the animation ready before they spend time making final versions. Animatics are drawings of the animation with basic movement showing the direction of camera and characters. Blocking is small increase from an animatic where the 3D animation is happening with rough shapes of characters or primitive shapes to replace an object in 3D space so that the animators can get a feel for the performances before adding the final finesse to the project.  This keeps animators from wasting time working on shots that the director does not like for production.^[2]

This video is a good example of a blocked out animation. Going from pose to pose just getting the major parts down.^[3]

References:
1.Making of Snow White
2.About Animatics
3.Animation Blocking "WIP Lever"

Technology and How it Effects Digital Animations

Technology advances have increased the amount of work that can be applied to an animation within the same amount of time.

The average computer in 1995 had 8 megabytes of RAM and also had 420 megabytes of  Hard Disk Space. 

In comparison the average computer for today's standards has 8 to 16 gigabytes of RAM and has 1 terabyte of Hard Disk Space.

RAM vs. Hard Disk Space: 

RAM is the memory that your computer uses to compute processes and is not permanently stored. 

Hard Disk Space is the memory used to store information to be recalled whenever the user wants and    is stored until told to delete the data.^[1]

For those who don't understand the differences in megabytes and gigabytes:

1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte^[2]

1024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte  ^[2]

Just to give some scope to the amount of memory.  Toy Story used around 3 terabytes of Hard Disk Space to hold all the files for the movie at completion.  This was held over multiple servers of memory, now days that could be held on a couple desktops. 

This information is important due to memory and processing power has been the "wall" that animation has been held back by.

The increases in the memory along with processing speeds that have increased at an equal rate to the memory allows the computer to do more functions at once but have not caught up with the pure power behind the software right now such as Autodesk's Maya or Pixologic's Zbrush.  

One of the best ways to show the changes due to technology is to just give examples from industry references such as, "Toy Story was originally rendered back in 1995, and to our best estimate probably had frame render times which averaged in the range of 4 hours or so." according to Craig L Good a pixar artist. Later on Craig Good estimated that with the performance differences in computers by todays standards, they could render each frame in only 15 seconds. However, just because they can redo a movie from 1995 in a flash does not mean that every render time is that low.  An example of this is in Transformers 3 each frame of a Transformer to render took around 72 hours according the commentary on the DVD.^[3]  

Computers have become faster but that has only increased the effort to push the material farther into realism.

References:
1.Computer Comparison via Relatively Interesting

2.Computer Memory Chart

3.Craig Good via Quora

Start of the Digital Era

Since computer imaging made its debut, the digital presence in production has increased at a fast rate.  Digital imaging has increased the output rate of 2D and 3D animations.

Disney harnessed the power of computers to quickly draw and paint in the new feature films. Later on Disney begins to utilize the power of 3D animation software for beauty and the beast to easily have a camera flow during the ballroom dance scene.

Lucasfilm begins to start building a technology team in 1979 to create computer based images for feature films. This section of Lucasfilm was used to create creatures for "The Abyss", "Terminator 2", and "Jurassic Park".  This group of people later started their own company, Pixar in 1986.

Pixar used their 3D software to help create digital images for many feature films before they were able to create the first full length feature film, "Toy Story". After "Toy Story" had great success in the box office, the door was open for digitally created films.

There is a documentary about the start of pixar going into the beginnings of computer image processes as we know them today called "The Pixar Story." This film is full of interviews from the industry leaders.

At this time I would like to apologize to my readers for forgetting to add authors and publish dates for the references to my previous post. I will be updating the references on the previous post.

References:
1.New York Times "Animation goes Digital"  Published Feb. 10th 2010. Written by Laura M. Holson
2.History of Pixar Author Unknown
3.The Pixar Story  Director: Leslie Iwerks Released: 2007

The 9 Old Men of Animation

Beginnings of animation as we know it today were the collaborative genius of what are known as "The Nine Old Men." These members were the core animators for Disney.  Walt Disney called this group of animators the nine old men after President Roosevelt's name for the nine supreme court justices at the time.  All of the "Nine Old Men" are now deceased but there techniques to animation are still supreme even into this digital era. As of 2008 the last of the nine old men passed away. Although they are all deceased, the techniques created by them are used to this day to create believable motion.

The nine old men are:

• Eric Larson - Known for animal characters such as Peg from "Lady and the Tramp" 
• Frank Thomas - Created characters such as Captain Hook.
• John Lounsbery - Refined the style for loose organic material such as the belly dancing alligator
• Les Clark - Mickey's Original Artist
• Marc Davis - Artist for Bambi, Thumper, and Cruella De Vil
• Milt Kahl - Made many characters for "The Jungle Book" and "The Rescuers"
• Ollie Johnston - Developed the character Mr. Smee, along with Cinderella's step sisters
• Ward Kimball - Known for the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland"
• Wolfgang Reitherman - took over the director spot after Walt Disney's death.

These nine old men created the twelve basic principles of animation:

• Squash and Stretch 
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose
• Follow Through and Overlapping Action
• Slow in and Slow out
• Arcs
• Secondary Action
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid Drawing
• Appeal

References:
Disney Resource Unknown Author, Published April 2008.
Image credit "My So-called Animated Life" in March 2012

Lets Get Started

    Welcome to Keyframes in Focus, a blog that explains the evolution of the animation process due to the advances in technology. 

    This blog will be an overview of the animation process and its changes throughout the span of 1980's through the present, along with, minor touches on early animations before the 1980s.  The information will be an informative way to find more info in one place instead of making the viewer attempt to find each change on his or her own. The people who will find this information useful will be anyone looking into how animation has got the way it is today. By realizing the history and the effects in the past they can gain an idea on how it will be in the future and gain a better understanding of the techniques used.

    This blog will be a series of posts that will conclude after the first week of December 2012.  There will be a total of twelve posts covering the topic. The first post will be over traditional animation using paper and pencil. As the posts continue there will be gradual advances in which technologies became available and how the process changed due to them along with how the social media influenced changes. The ending articles will be about how animation is being done now days with motion capture lenses and leaving the readers with an educated guess on how the animations will change in the future. 

   My qualifications to write about history of animation comes from my personal interest in researching the subject. As a student of the art, I attended the Van Arts Masters Class on animation during June of 2011. There I gained more interest in the history of animation, such as where Walt Disney and other members of the "9 old men" got the ideas for the animation principles.  Once that happened I started learning more 2D techniques to use with 3D animation. 

It is my hope that you will all enjoy the posts to come. Feel free to posts comments and ask questions at any time.

-T.O-