Computer animation
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Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating
Computer animation is the digital successor to
Explanation
To trick the visual system into seeing a smoothly moving object, the pictures should be drawn at around 12 frames per second or faster.[1] (A frame is one complete image.) With rates above 75 to 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.[2] 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 produce 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.
3D computer animation
For 3D animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a 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 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 the software on the end user's computer to render in real-time as an alternative to streaming or pre-loaded high bandwidth animations.
Computer-generated animation
To animate means, figuratively, to "give life to". There are two basic methods that animators commonly use to accomplish this.
Computer-generated animation is known as three-dimensional (
A few examples of computer-generated animation movies are Toy Story, Antz, Ice Age, Happy Feet, Despicable Me, Frozen, and Shrek.
2D computer animation
Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to stop motion techniques, but using 3D models, and traditional animation techniques using frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations.
For 2D figure animations, separate objects (illustrations) and separate transparent layers are used with or without that virtual skeleton.
2D sprites 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.[4] 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-assisted animation
Computer-assisted animation is usually classed as two-dimensional (2D) animation. Drawings are either hand drawn (pencil to paper) or interactively drawn (on the computer) using different assisting appliances and are positioned into specific software packages. Within the software package, the creator places drawings into different key frames which fundamentally create an outline of the most important movements.[5] The computer then fills in the "in-between frames", a process commonly known as Tweening.[6] Computer-assisted animation employs new technologies to produce content faster than is possible with traditional animation, while still retaining the stylistic elements of traditionally drawn characters or objects.[3]
Examples of films produced using computer-assisted animation are The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, Anastasia, Titan A.E., The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.
Text-to-video
A text-to-video model is a machine learning model which takes as input a natural language description and produces a video matching that description.[7]
Video prediction on making objects realistic in a stable background is performed by using recurrent neural network for a sequence to sequence model with a connector convolutional neural network encoding and decoding each frame pixel by pixel,[8] creating video using deep learning.[9]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.[10] Other digital animation was also practiced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[11]
In 1967, a computer animation named "Hummingbird" was created by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer.[12] In 1968, a computer animation called "Kitty" was created with BESM-4 by Nikolai Konstantinov, depicting a cat moving around.[13] In 1971, a computer animation called "Metadata" was created, showing various shapes.[14]
An early step in the history of computer animation was the sequel to the 1973 film
Developments in CGI technologies are reported each year at SIGGRAPH,[19] an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that is attended by thousands of computer professionals each year.[20] 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.
Film and television
CGI short films have been produced as independent animation since 1976.[21] Early examples of feature films incorporating CGI animation include the live-action films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Tron (both 1982),[22] and the Japanese anime film Golgo 13: The Professional (1983).[23] VeggieTales is the first American fully 3D computer-animated series sold directly (made in 1993); its success inspired other animation series, such as ReBoot (1994) and Transformers: Beast Wars (1996) to adopt a fully computer-generated style.
The first full length computer-animated television series was
The popularity of computer animation (especially in the field of special effects) skyrocketed during the modern era of U.S. animation.[29] Films like Avatar (2009) and The Jungle Book (2016) use CGI for the majority of the movie runtime, but still incorporate human actors into the mix.[30] Computer animation in this era has achieved photorealism, to the point that computer-animated films such as The Lion King (2019) are able to be marketed as if they were live-action.[31][32]
Animation methods
In most 3D computer animation systems, an animator creates a simplified representation of a character's anatomy, which is analogous to a
, for example, uses 712 Avars (212 in the face alone). The computer does not 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.
In contrast, a newer method called motion capture makes use of live action footage.[37] When computer animation is driven by motion capture, a real performer acts out the scene as if they were the character to be animated.[38] Their motion is recorded to a computer using video cameras and markers and that performance is then applied to the animated character.[39]
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.
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
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
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 require much time on an ordinary home computer.
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.[48] 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.[49]
The Facial Action Coding System (with 46 "action units", "lip bite" or "squint"), which had been developed in 1976, became a popular basis for many systems.[50] 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.[50][51]
In some cases, an affective space, the PAD emotional state model, can be used to assign specific emotions to the faces of avatars.[52] 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.[53]
Realism
Realism in computer animation can mean making each frame look
One trend in computer animation has been the effort to create human characters that look and move with the highest degree of realism. A possible outcome when attempting to make 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. Films that have attempted photorealistic human characters, such as The Polar Express,[56][57][58] Beowulf,[59] and A Christmas Carol[60][61] have been criticized as "disconcerting" and "creepy".
The goal of computer animation is not always to emulate live action as closely as possible, so many animated films instead feature characters who are
Web animations
The popularity of
The oldest (most backward compatible) web-based animations are in the animated
By this time,
The latest alternatives are
Detailed examples
Computer animation uses different techniques to produce animations. Most frequently, sophisticated
Animation studios
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (May 2018) |
Some notable producers of computer-animated feature films include:
- Animal Logic – Films include Happy Feet (2006), Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), Walking with Dinosaurs (2013), and The Lego Movie (2014)
- Aardman Animations – Films include Flushed Away (2006) and Arthur Christmas (2011)
- Big Idea Entertainment – Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002) and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008)
- Bron Animation – Films include The Addams Family (2019) and The Willoughbys (2020)
- Blue Sky Studios – Films include Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Rio (2011), Epic (2013), and The Peanuts Movie (2015)
- DNA Productions – Films include Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), Santa vs. the Snowman 3D (2002), and The Ant Bully (2006)
- DNEG - Films include Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
- DreamWorks Animation – Films include Shrek (2001), Shark Tale (2004), Madagascar (2005), Over the Hedge (2006), Bee Movie (2007), Kung Fu Panda (2008), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Croods (2013), Trolls (2016), The Boss Baby (2017), Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017), The Bad Guys (2022), and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
- ImageMovers – Films include The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), Beowulf (2007), A Christmas Carol (2009), and Mars Needs Moms (2011)
- Imagi Animation Studios – Films include TMNT (2007) and Astro Boy (2009)
- Ilion Animation Studios — Films include Planet 51 (2009), Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible (2014), and Wonder Park(2019)
- Illumination — Films include Despicable Me (2010), The Lorax (2012), Minions (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Sing (2016), The Grinch (2018), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie(2023)
- Industrial Light & Magic – Films include Rango (2011) and Strange Magic (2015)
- Omation Animation Studios – Films include Barnyard (2006)
- Mr. Peabody and Sherman(2014)
- Paramount Animation – Films include The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), Monster Trucks (2017), Sherlock Gnomes (2018), Wonder Park (2019), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), and Under the Boardwalk (2023)
- Pixar Animation Studios – Films include Toy Story (1995), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015), Coco (2017), Soul (2020), and Luca (2021)
- Rainmaker Studios – Films include Escape from Planet Earth (2013) and Ratchet & Clank (2016)
- Reel FX Animation Studios – Films include Free Birds (2013) and The Book of Life(2014)
- Wizart Animation – Films include The Snow Queen (2012) and Sheep and Wolves(2016)
- Shirogumi – Films include Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki (2011), Stand by Me Doraemon (2014), and Dragon Quest: Your Story (2019)
- Skydance Animation – Films include Luck (2022) and Spellbound (2024)
- Square Pictures - Films include Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
- Sony Pictures Animation – Films include Open Season (2006), Surf's Up (2007), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009), Hotel Transylvania (2012), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), and The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)
- Sony Pictures Imageworks – Films include The Angry Birds Movie (2016) and Over the Moon (2020)
- Zambezia (2013) and Khumba(2014)
- Vanguard Animation - Films include Valiant (2005), Space Chimps (2008), and Gnome Alone (2017)
- Tangled (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016), and Encanto(2021)
- Warner Bros. Pictures Animation – Films include The Lego Movie (2014), Storks (2016), The Lego Batman Movie (2017), Smallfoot (2018), and Scoob! (2020)
- Weta Digital – Films include The Adventures of Tintin(2011)
See also
- Animation
- Animation database
- Autodesk
- Avar (animation variable)
- Computer facial animation
- Computer-generated imagery (CGI)
- New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab
- Computer representation of surfaces
- Hand-Over
- Humanoid animation
- List of animation studios
- List of computer-animated films
- List of computer-animated television series
- Medical animation
- Morph target animation
- Machinima (recording video from games and virtual worlds)
- Motion capture
- Procedural animation
- Ray tracing
- Rich Representation Language
- Skeletal animation
- Stop motion
- Traditional animation
- Timeline of computer animation in film and television
- Virtual artifact
- Wire-frame model
- Twelve basic principles of animation
References
Citations
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 148.
- ^ Parent 2012, pp. 100–101, 255.
- ^ a b Roos, Dave (2013). "How Computer Animation Works". HowStuffWorks. Retrieved 2013-02-15.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 123.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 115.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 284.
- ^ Artificial Intelligence Index Report 2023 (PDF) (Report). Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. p. 98.
Multiple high quality text-to-video models, AI systems that can generate video clips from prompted text, were released in 2022.
- ^ "Leading India" (PDF).
- ^ Narain, Rohit (2021-12-29). "Smart Video Generation from Text Using Deep Neural Networks". Retrieved 2022-10-12.
- ^ Masson 1999, pp. 390–394.
- ^ Sito 2013, pp. 69–75.
- ^ "Charles Csuri, Fragmentation Animations, 1967 – 1970: Hummingbird (1967)". YouTube.
- ^ ""Kitten" 1968 computer animation". YouTube.
- ^ "Metadata 1971". YouTube.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 404.
- ^ Masson 1999, pp. 282–288.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 64.
- ^ Means 2011.
- ^ Sito 2013, pp. 97–98.
- ^ Sito 2013, pp. 95–97.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 58.
- ^ "The Making of Tron". Video Games Player. Vol. 1, no. 1. Carnegie Publications. September 1982. pp. 50–5.
- ISBN 1569762228.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 188.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 430.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 432.
- ^ a b Masson 1999, p. 302.
- ^ "Our Story", Pixar, 1986–2013. Retrieved on 2013-02-15. "The Pixar Timeline, 1979 to Present". Pixar. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 52.
- ^ Thompson, Anne (2010-01-01). "How James Cameron's Innovative New 3D Tech Created Avatar". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2019-04-24.
- ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (October 13, 2016). "Disney's Live-Action 'Lion King' Taps Jeff Nathanson As Writer". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 15, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
- ^ Rottenberg, Josh (July 19, 2019). "'The Lion King': Is it animated or live-action? It's complicated". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 13, 2021.
- ^ Parent 2012, pp. 193–196.
- ^ Parent 2012, pp. 324–326.
- ^ Parent 2012, pp. 111–118.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 132.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 118.
- ^ Masson 1999, pp. 94–98.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 226.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 204.
- ^ Parent 2012, p. 289.
- ^ animationmentor.com Why a Great Rigger is an Animator's Best Friend, By: Ozgur Aydogdu
- ^ Beane 2012, p. 2-15.
- ^ Masson 1999, p. 158.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 144.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 195.
- ^ "blender.org – Home of the Blender project – Free and Open 3D Creation Software". blender.org.
- ^ Masson 1999, pp. 110–116.
- ^ Parke & Waters 2008, p. xi.
- ^ a b Magnenat Thalmann & Thalmann 2004, p. 122.
- ^ Pereira & Ebrahimi 2002, p. 404.
- ^ Pereira & Ebrahimi 2002, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Paiva, Prada & Picard 2007, pp. 24–33.
- ^ Masson 1999, pp. 160–161.
- ^ Parent 2012, pp. 14–17.
- Salon. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
- ^ Herman, Barbara (2013-10-30). "The 10 Scariest Movies and Why They Creep Us Out". Newsweek. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
- ^ Clinton, Paul (2004-11-10). "Review: 'Polar Express' a creepy ride". CNN. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
- ^ Digital Actors in 'Beowulf' Are Just Uncanny Archived 2011-08-27 at the Wayback Machine – New York Times, November 14, 2007
- New York Daily News. Archived from the originalon July 10, 2018. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
- ^ Williams, Mary Elizabeth (November 5, 2009). "Disney's 'A Christmas Carol': Bah, humbug!". Salon.com. Archived from the original on January 11, 2010. Retrieved October 10, 2015.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 7.
- ^ Sito 2013, p. 59.
- ^ Sito 2013, pp. 82, 89.
- ^ Kuperberg 2002, pp. 112–113.
Works cited
- Beane, Andy (2012). 3D Animation Essentials. Indianapolis, Indiana: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-118-14748-1.
- Kuperberg, Marcia (2002). A Guide to Computer Animation: For TV, Games, Multimedia and Web. Focal Press. ISBN 0-240-51671-0.
- ISBN 0-470-02316-3.
- Masson, Terrence (1999). CG 101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference. Digital Fauxtography Inc. ISBN 0-7357-0046-X.
- Means, Sean P. (December 28, 2011). "Pixar founder's Utah-made Hand added to National Film Registry". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved January 8, 2012.
- Paiva, Ana; Prada, Rui; Picard, Rosalind W. (2007). "Facial Expression Synthesis using PAD Emotional Parameters for a Chinese Expressive Avatar". Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 4738. Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 978-3-540-74888-5.
- Parent, Rick (2012). Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques. Ohio: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-12-415842-9.
- 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 978-1-56881-448-3.
- Sito, Tom (2013). Moving Innovation: A History of Computer Animation. Massachusetts: ISBN 978-0-262-01909-5.
External links
- Media related to Computer animations at Wikimedia Commons