Computer animation

An example of computer animation which is produced in the "motion capture" technique

Computer animation, or CGI animation, is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer-generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to the moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics, although 2D computer graphics are still used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time renderings. Sometimes, the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes, it is another medium, such as film.

Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion techniques used in traditional animation with 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. Computer-generated animations are more controllable than other more physically based processes, constructing miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes, and because it allows the creation of images that would not be feasible using any other technology. It can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props. To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly replaced by a new image that is similar to it, but advanced slightly in time (usually at a rate of 24 or 30 frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures.

For 3D animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a virtual skeleton. For 2D figure animations, separate objects (illustrations) and separate transparent layers are used with or without that virtual skeleton. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the figure are moved by the animator on key frames. The differences in appearance between key frames are automatically calculated by the computer in a process known as tweening or morphing. Finally, the animation is rendered.

For 3D animations, all frames must be rendered after the modeling is complete. For 2D vector animations, the rendering process is the key frame illustration process, while tweened frames are rendered as needed. For pre-recorded presentations, the rendered frames are transferred to a different format or medium, like digital video. The frames may also be rendered in real time as they are presented to the end-user audience. Low bandwidth animations transmitted via the internet (e.g. Adobe Flash, X3D) often use software on the end-users computer to render in real time as an alternative to streaming or pre-loaded high bandwidth animations.

Explanation

To trick the eye and the brain into thinking they are seeing a smoothly moving object, the pictures should be drawn at around 12 frames per second or faster. (A frame is one complete image.) With rates above 75-120 frames per second, no improvement in realism or smoothness is perceivable due to the way the eye and the brain both process images. At rates below 12 frames per second, most people can detect jerkiness associated with the drawing of new images that detracts from the illusion of realistic movement. Conventional hand-drawn cartoon animation often uses 15 frames per second in order to save on the number of drawings needed, but this is usually accepted because of the stylized nature of cartoons. To produces more realistic imagery, computer animation demands higher frame rates.

Films seen in theaters in the United States run at 24 frames per second, which is sufficient to create the illusion of continuous movement. For high resolution, adapters are used.

History

Early digital computer animation was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1960s by Edward E. Zajac, Frank W. Sinden, Kenneth C. Knowlton, and A. Michael Noll. Other digital animation was also practiced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[1]

An early step in the history of computer animation was the sequel to the 1973 film Westworld, a science-fiction film about a society in which robots live and work among humans.[2] The sequel, Futureworld (1976), used the 3D wire-frame imagery, which featured a computer-animated hand and face both created by University of Utah graduates Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. This imagery originally appeared in their student film A Computer Animated Hand, which they completed in 1971.[3][4]

Developments in CGI technologies are reported each year at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that is attended by thousands of computer professionals each year.[5] Developers of computer games and 3D video cards strive to achieve the same visual quality on personal computers in real-time as is possible for CGI films and animation. With the rapid advancement of real-time rendering quality, artists began to use game engines to render non-interactive movies, which led to the art form Machinima.

The first feature-length computer animated film was Toy Story (1995), which was made by Pixar.[6][7] It followed an adventure centered around toys and their owners. This groundbreaking film was also the first of many fully computer-animated movies.[6]

Computer animation helped to create blockbuster films, such as Toy Story 3 (2010), Avatar (2009), Shrek 2 (2004), Cars 2 (2011), Life of Pi (2012), Frozen (2013), and Inside Out (2015).

Animation methods

In this .gif of a 2D Flash animation, each 'stick' of the figure is keyframed over time to create motion.

In most 3D computer animation systems, an animator creates a simplified representation of a character's anatomy, which is analogous to a skeleton or stick figure.[8] The position of each segment of the skeletal model is defined by animation variables, or Avars for short. In human and animal characters, many parts of the skeletal model correspond to the actual bones, but skeletal animation is also used to animate other things, with facial features (though other methods for facial animation exist).[9] The character "Woody" in Toy Story, for example, uses 700 Avars (100 in the face alone). The computer doesn't usually render the skeletal model directly (it is invisible), but it does use the skeletal model to compute the exact position and orientation of that certain character, which is eventually rendered into an image. Thus by changing the values of Avars over time, the animator creates motion by making the character move from frame to frame.

There are several methods for generating the Avar values to obtain realistic motion. Traditionally, animators manipulate the Avars directly. Rather than set Avars for every frame, they usually set Avars at strategic points (frames) in time and let the computer interpolate or tween between them in a process called keyframing. Keyframing puts control in the hands of the animator and has roots in hand-drawn traditional animation.

In contrast, a newer method called motion capture makes use of live action footage.[10] When computer animation is driven by motion capture, a real performer acts out the scene as if they were the character to be animated. His/her motion is recorded to a computer using video cameras and markers and that performance is then applied to the animated character.

Each method has its advantages and as of 2007, games and films are using either or both of these methods in productions. Keyframe animation can produce motions that would be difficult or impossible to act out, while motion capture can reproduce the subtleties of a particular actor.[11] For example, in the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Bill Nighy provided the performance for the character Davy Jones. Even though Nighy doesn't appear in the movie himself, the movie benefited from his performance by recording the nuances of his body language, posture, facial expressions, etc. Thus motion capture is appropriate in situations where believable, realistic behavior and action is required, but the types of characters required exceed what can be done throughout the conventional costuming.

Modeling

3D computer animation combines 3D models of objects and programmed or hand "keyframed" movement. These models are constructed out of geometrical vertices, faces, and edges in a 3D coordinate system. Objects are sculpted much like real clay or plaster, working from general forms to specific details with various sculpting tools. Unless a 3D model is intended to be a solid color, it must be painted with "textures" for realism. A bone/joint animation system is set up to deform the CGI model (e.g., to make a humanoid model walk). In a process known as rigging, the virtual marionette is given various controllers and handles for controlling movement. Animation data can be created using motion capture, or keyframing by a human animator, or a combination of the two.

3D models rigged for animation may contain thousands of control points — for example, "Woody" from Toy Story uses 700 specialized animation controllers. Rhythm and Hues Studios labored for two years to create Aslan in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which had about 1,851 controllers (742 in the face alone). In the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow, designers had to design forces of extreme weather with the help of video references and accurate meteorological facts. For the 2005 remake of King Kong, actor Andy Serkis was used to help designers pinpoint the gorilla's prime location in the shots and used his expressions to model "human" characteristics onto the creature. Serkis had earlier provided the voice and performance for Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Equipment

A ray-traced 3-D model of a jack inside a cube, and the jack alone below.

Computer animation can be created with a computer and an animation software. Some impressive animation can be achieved even with basic programs; however, the rendering can take a lot of time on an ordinary home computer. Because of this, video game animators tend to use low resolution and low polygon count renders so that the graphics can be rendered in real time on a home computer. Photorealistic animation would be impractical in this context.

Professional animators of movies, television, and video sequences on computer games make photorealistic animation with high detail. This level of quality for movie animation would take hundreds of years to create on a home computer. Instead, many powerful workstation computers are used. Graphics workstation computers use two to four processors, and they are a lot more powerful than an actual home computer and are specialized for rendering. A large number of workstations (known as a "render farm") are networked together to effectively act as a giant computer. The result is a computer-animated movie that can be completed in about one to five years (however, this process is not composed solely of rendering). A workstation typically costs $2,000-16,000 with the more expensive stations being able to render much faster due to the more technologically-advanced hardware that they contain. Professionals also use digital movie cameras, motion/performance capture, bluescreens, film editing software, props, and other tools used for movie animation.

Facial animation

The realistic modeling of human facial features is both one of the most challenging and sought after elements in computer-generated imagery. Computer facial animation is a highly complex field where models typically include a very large number of animation variables. Historically speaking, the first SIGGRAPH tutorials on State of the art in Facial Animation in 1989 and 1990 proved to be a turning point in the field by bringing together and consolidating multiple research elements and sparked interest among a number of researchers.[12]

The Facial Action Coding System (with 46 "action units", such as "lip bite" or "squint"), which had been developed in 1976, became a popular basis for many systems.[13] As early as 2001, MPEG-4 included 68 Face Animation Parameters (FAPs) for lips, jaws, etc., and the field has made significant progress since then and the use of facial microexpression has increased.[13][14]

In some cases, an affective space, the PAD emotional state model, can be used to assign specific emotions to the faces of avatars. In this approach, the PAD model is used as a high level emotional space and the lower level space is the MPEG-4 Facial Animation Parameters (FAP). A mid-level Partial Expression Parameters (PEP) space is then used to in a two-level structure – the PAD-PEP mapping and the PEP-FAP translation model.[15]

Realism

Realism in computer animation can mean making each frame look photorealistic, in the sense that the scene is rendered to resemble a photograph or make the characters' animation believable and lifelike.[16] Computer animation can also be realistic with or without the photorealistic rendering.

One of the greatest challenges in computer animation has been creating human characters that look and move with the highest degree of realism. Many animated films instead feature characters who are anthropomorphic animals (Finding Nemo, Ice Age, Bolt, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Rio, Kung Fu Panda, Alpha and Omega), machines (Cars, WALL-E, Robots), insects (Antz, A Bug's Life, The Ant Bully, Bee Movie), fantasy creatures and characters (Monsters, Inc., Shrek, TMNT, Brave, Epic), or humans with non-realistic, cartoon-like proportions (Despicable Me, Up, Megamind, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, Planet 51, Hotel Transylvania, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs). Part of the difficulty in making pleasing, realistic human characters is the uncanny valley, the concept where the human audience (up to a point) tends to have an increasingly negative, emotional response as a human replica looks and acts more and more human. Also, some materials that commonly appear in a scene (such as cloth, foliage, fluids, and hair) have proven more difficult to faithfully recreate and animate than others. Consequently, special software and techniques have been developed to better simulate these specific elements.

In theory, realistic computer animation can reach a point where it is indistinguishable from real action captured on film. When computer animation achieves this level of realism, it may have major repercussions for the film industry.

The goal of computer animation is not always to emulate live action as closely as possible. For example, animation was used in the Nautilus Productions documentary "Mystery Mardi Gras Shipwreck" to model a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) and the Mardi Gras archaeological site in 4,000 feet (1,200 m) of water in the Gulf of Mexico.[17] Computer animation can also be tailored to mimic or substitute for other kinds of animation, such as traditional stop-motion animation (as shown in Flushed Away or The Lego Movie). Some of the long-standing basic principles of animation, like squash & stretch, call for movement that is not strictly realistic, and such principles still see widespread application in computer animation.

Notable examples

Films

CGI film made using Machinima

CGI short films have been produced as independent animation since 1976, although the popularity of computer animation (especially in the field of special effects) skyrocketed during the modern era of U.S. animation. The first completely computer-animated television series was ReBoot in 1994, and the first completely computer-animated movie was Toy Story (1995).

Animation studios

Amateur animation

The popularity of websites that allow members to upload their own movies for others to view has created a growing community of amateur computer animators. With utilities and programs often included free with modern operating systems, many users can make their own animated movies and shorts. Several free and open source animation software applications exist as well. A popular amateur approach to animation is via the animated GIF format, which can be uploaded and seen on the web easily.

Detailed examples and pseudocode

In 2D computer animation, moving objects are often referred to as "sprites." A sprite is an image that has a location associated with it. The location of the sprite is changed slightly, between each displayed frame, to make the sprite appear to move. The following pseudocode makes a sprite move from left to right:

var int x := 0, y := screenHeight / 2;
while x < screenWidth
drawBackground()
drawSpriteAtXY (x, y) // draw on top of the background
x := x + 5 // move to the right

Computer animation uses different techniques to produce animations. Most frequently, sophisticated mathematics is used to manipulate complex three-dimensional polygons, apply "textures", lighting and other effects to the polygons and finally rendering the complete image. A sophisticated graphical user interface may be used to create the animation and arrange its choreography. Another technique called constructive solid geometry defines objects by conducting boolean operations on regular shapes, and has the advantage that animations may be accurately produced at any resolution.

Computer-assisted vs computer-generated

To animate means "to give life to" and there are two basic ways that animators commonly do this.

Computer-assisted animation is usually classed as two-dimensional (2D) animation. Creators drawings either hand drawn (pencil to paper) or interactively drawn(drawn on the computer) using different assisting appliances and are positioned into specific software packages. Within the software package the creator will place drawings into different key frames which fundamentally create an outline of the most important movements. The computer will then fill in all the " in-between frames", commonly known as Tweening. Computer-assisted animation is basically using new technologies to cut down the time scale that traditional animation could take, but still having the elements of traditional drawings of characters or objects.[18]

Two examples of films using computer-assisted animation are Beauty and the Beast and Antz.

Computer-generated animation is known as 3-dimensional (3D) animation. Creators will design an object or character with an X,Y and Z axis. Unlike the traditional way of animation no pencil to paper drawings create the way computer generated animation works. The object or character created will then be taken into a software, key framing and tweening are also carried out in computer generated animation but are also a lot of techniques used that do not relate to traditional animation. Animators can break physical laws by using mathematical algorithms to cheat, mass, force and gravity rulings. Fundamentally, time scale and quality could be said to be a preferred way to produce animation as they are two major things that are enhanced by using computer generated animation. Another great aspect of CGA is the fact you can create a flock of creatures to act independently when created as a group. An animal's fur can be programmed to wave in the wind and lie flat when it rains instead of programming each strand of hair separately.[18]

A few examples of computer-generated animation movies are Toy Story, Frozen, Inside Out, Shrek, and Finding Nemo.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Sito 2013, p. 69
  2. ↑ Masson 1999, p. 404
  3. ↑ Sito 2013, p. 64
  4. ↑ "Pixar founder’s Utah-made Hand added to National Film Registry". The Salt Lake Tribune. December 28, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
  5. ↑ Sito 2013, pp. 95-97
  6. 1 2 Masson 1999, p. 302
  7. ↑ "Our Story", Pixar, 1986-2013. Retrieved on 2013-02-15. "The Pixar Timeline, 1979 to Present.". Pixar.
  8. ↑ Parent 2012, pp. 193-196
  9. ↑ Parent 2012, pp. 324-326
  10. ↑ Masson 1999, p. 118
  11. ↑ Masson 1999, p. 204
  12. ↑ Parke & Waters 2008, p. xi
  13. 1 2 Magnenat Thalmann & Thalmann 2004, p. 122
  14. ↑ Pereira & Ebrahimi 2002, p. 404
  15. ↑ S. Zhang et al. Facial Expression Synthesis using PAD Emotional Parameters for a Chinese Expressive Avatar in "Affective computing and intelligent interaction" edited by Ana Paiva, Rui Prada, Rosalind W. Picard 2007 ISBN 3-540-74888-1 pages 24-33
  16. ↑ Masson 1999, pp. 160-161
  17. ↑ "Mystery Mardi Gras Shipwreck". Nautilus Productions.
  18. 1 2 Roos, Dave. "How Computer Animation Works", HowStuffWorks, Inc, 1998 - 2013. Retrieved on 2013-02-15. "How Computer Animation Works". HowStuffWorks.

Further reading

  • Magnenat Thalmann, Nadia; Thalmann, Daniel (2004). Handbook of Virtual Humans. Wiley Publishing. ISBN 0-470-02316-3. 
  • Masson, Terrence (1999). CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference. Digital Fauxtography Inc. p. 500. ISBN 0-7357-0046-X. 
  • Parent, Rick (2012). Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques. Ohio: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-12-415842-9. 
  • Sito, Tom (2013). Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation. Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01909-5. 
  • Pereira, Fernando C. N.; Ebrahimi, Touradj (2002). The MPEG-4 Book. New Jersey: IMSC Press. ISBN 0-13-061621-4. 
  • Parke, Frederic I.; Waters, Keith (2008). Computer Facial Animation (2nd ed.). Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, Ltd. ISBN 1-56881-448-8. 

External links

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