07 Intro to Computer Animation

COCA 201
A Short History of Computer Animation
Professor Roel Vertegaal, PhD
A Short History of Computer Animation
Advantages over classic animation
The model does not have to be physically built
The camera is virtual, no restrictions on movement whatsoever
Perfectly three dimensional
Animation can be produced from algorithms, rather than by hand
Disadvantages
Lots of technological challenges
Huge long-term investments
Poor user interfaces make tools difficult to access for animators
These people are looking at something we
all see dozens of times a day.
It inspires us, manipulates us. It affects
what we think of others, and even what we
think of ourselves.
It is.. The human body (billboard).
No other images dominates our lives so
completely. Pictures of the body fill the high
streets, magazines, tv screens.
(painting) And then… there is the art world.
The human form has obsessed some of the
worlds greatest artists.
The range of human forms they have
created is breathtaking. And yet, there is
something that all these images have in
common:
Whatever their use, and wherever they
appear, the worlds most influential images
of the human body share this one thing.
They look nothing like us.
Just imagine if the human bodies were like
the images we create of them. Imagine we’d
Early Caricature
(30,000 BC)
Venus of Willendorf
The Venus of Willendorf is one of the
earliest images of the body made by
humankind. It stands just over 4 ½ inches
high and was carved some 25,000 years
ago. It was discovered on the banks of the
Danube River, in Austria, and it was most
likely made by hunter-gatherers who lived in
the area. The environment at that time was
much colder and bleaker then present-day,
a remnant of Europe's last ice age.
The Venus of Willendorf was found by the
Austrian researcher Szombathy in 1908.
Made out of limestone with signs of red
pigmentation, she represents the Earth and
its fertility and continuation of life, the
Mother Goddess, the universal female
principle even if it is in its most primitive
conception. Women were recognized as the
life-givers and sustainers. As small as this figurine is, at barely 5
inches, it is the prize possession of the
museum of natural history in Vienna, worth
an estimated 30 million dollars US.
Exaggeration in the Venuses of Early
Paleolithic Societies
This lady is our first clue as to why the
modern world is so dominated by
unrealistic images of the human body.
Her breasts, stomach, hips and thights are
extremely big. Even her sexual organs are
extremely big.
She may have been an idol of fertility. But
that still doesn’t explain why her arms are
almost non-existent, and why her face isn’t
shown at all.
She was made with great care and skill, and
doesn’t look like this by accident. This was
all deliberate.
For some reason, the people felt compelled
to exaggerate some parts of the body, and
ignore others completely.
This compulsion continued for thousands of
years. The vast majority (over 90%) of
human images from 30,000 to 5,000 B.C.
are female. From the russian steppes to
southern Europe, where ever people made
status of humans, they exagerrated some
How Art Makes Us Human (BBC, 2006)
Early Stop Motion (16,000 BC)
Horses in Lascaux, France
Motion has often been depicted in early cave art. When
the subject (mostly animals) has been that which can
provide movement, we often see it in that state. These
two examples show us the stationary bull or ox
(above) , and what appear to be four horses (left)
perhaps in a race.
The ox, which provides strength, food and clothing, is
motionless. However the horse, as a provider of
transportation, power and agility, is portrayed running.
Early Cartoon Characters (1600-1100 BC)
This is a fresco from the new kingdom
(1600-1100 BC) in Egypt.
Egyptian artists must have been well aware
of the third dimension and that it could be
represented, for they made sculptures in full
relief - however, they seemed to have no
urge to represent it in 2D. Their approach to
drawing was similar to that of modern
commercial artists design logos, icons or
traffic signs: they want the simplest
possible sign, without distraction. Note that
is also one of the guiding principles of
character animation, as we shall later see.
Objects are normally shown in elevation,
direct frontal or side view. Human figures
are assembled from front to side views, with
the body frontal, so that both arms and both
legs are shown, the head is in profile but the
eyes may be shown, both drawn as if seen
from the fron. The largest figure in a
composition may not be the nearest, but
instead is the most important personage.
Egyptians may not have invented linear
perspective just yet, but they sure
Flat Graphics (1200 AD)
illustration from the Old French translation of Guillaume
de Tyr's Histoire d'Outremer, approx 1200-1300 AD.
Proper perspective would have the lines on either side
of the temple, when continued, meet at the same point.
They do not.
First 3D Graphics (1425 AD)
Renaissance Europe
The renaissance brought with it a rebirth of
interest in Greek and Roman classical art.
However, one of the biggest
accomplishments of the era was the
development of linear perspective. Trinity by
Tommaso Masaccio (1425-28 AD) in the
Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
This fresco was one of the first to show one
point perspective, but it wasn’t the first. The first known perspective picture was
made by Brunelleschi in about 1415. His
biographer, Antonio Manetti, described this
famous experiment, in which Brunelleschi
painted the Baptistery in Florence from the
front gate of the unfinished cathedral. The
painted panel was constructed with a hole
at the vanishing point. It was observed from
the unpainted side and the reflection of the
image was viewed in a mirror through the
hole, giving the illusion of depth.
Unfortunately, the painted panel has since
been lost. So that makes this the second
3D graphic ever made.
Exaggeration of the hands in David by
Michelangelo
Now another work that was made at the same
time shows how knowledge of the physics of
the human body, and the world in which it lives,
can benefit animation. Realism became the
goal to strive for. But even in a time of
increased realism, absolute realism was to be
avoided. The David by Michelangelo is a good
example of this.
Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501 to
work on David (1501-1504, Galleria
dell’Accademia, Florence). The subject of this
work is the Old Testament story of David and
Goliath, in which the young David, future king
of Israel, flings a stone from his slingshot to kill
the giant Goliath, thereby saving his nation.
The statue expresses not only the daring of the
young hero, but also of Michelangelo himself,
The Uncanny Valley
So good sculpting requires a mix of
studying realism in nature and the human
physique and subtle exageration of features
that need to stand out.
Animation is all about sculpting realistic
movement. Having an object move like a
human body is the most powerful way to
have your audience suspend their belief that
this is just a drawing. However, precisely
because we look at humans so often, we
know there movement very well. Just as
with human form, approaching realism is a
good thing. But unlike human form, it is
almost impossible to reach perfection. The
close you get to achieving realism, the more
you hit the uncanny valley: that area of
realism where you are so close that things
look really fake. So the caricature suits
human movement as well as it does human
form. Not only does it highlight what we are
trying to communicate, more importantly, it
also hides our current inability to actually
make objects behave exactly like natural
human beings. That’s why so many 3D
computer animated movies are about…
Infrared Computer Vision: Motion Capture
FIFA 2007 Ronaldinho Motion Capture
Session
But there is an easy way to make
animations look more real: you simply film
the human you are trying to model. This
technique was in use as early as Disney’s
Snowwhite, where animators duplicated real
film footage of an actress that looked just
like snowwhite. Or perhaps snow white
looks just like the actress? Either way, here
we see how realism can be achieved in CGI
by use of a Vicon infared computer vision
system for capturing movement of, in this
case, one of the worlds top soccer players:
Ronaldinho of Brasil.
The dots on Ronaldinho’s suit are tracked to
determine realistic movement of the
animated 3D version of him for a sports
game called FIFA 2007. However, it is
interesting to note from this video, that
Ronaldinho is asked to act out a caricature
of himself, rather than simply be himself. No
gamer would accept a Ronaldinho that
doesn’t pull of the best moves. So even in
motion capture, we cannot do without
Rotoscoping
Our Mind Creates the Illusion of Motion
Beta Movement Creates Animation
Animation is all about movement.
Having an object move like a human
body is the most powerful way to have
your audience suspend their belief that
thisth is just a drawing. It wasn’t until the
19 century that artists began
experimenting with movement. For that
to happen, first scientists needed to
realize what, in fact, created movement
to begin with. It wasn’t the physical
world. Like the three striped sticks
presented to seagull, it again is all inside
our mind.
Beta movement is a perceptual illusion
described by Max Wertheimer in his
1912 Experimental Studies on the
Seeing of Motion, whereby two or more
still images are combined by the brain
into a motion image. This is often
Movement, Peripheral Vision and
Optical Illusions
In the image above, the illusion that
some of the wheels are turning occurs
only in your peripheral vision: as soon
as you look straight at one of the
wheels, it holds still, but the wheels that
are peripheral to it keep turning. Though
this illusion has not been fully explained,
we do know that the order in which the
four areas of differing colour and
brightness are placed is decisive.
The above apparent motion only occurs
therefore in your peripheral vision.
Peripheral vision responds different to
movement than does foveal vision. This
is because the monochromatic rods that
make up for most of peripheral vision
are more responsive to light and motion:
in essence, they are more transient.
Peripheral vision also has lower acuity.
This makes it difficult to distinguish the
Early Animation (1828)
True animation cannot be achieved without
first understanding a fundamental principle
of the human eye: the persistance of vison.
This was first demonstrated in 1828 by
Frenchman, Paul Roget, who invented the
thaumatrope (left, click to stop). It was a
disc with a string or peg attached to both
sides. One side of the disc showed a bird,
the other an empty cage. When the disc
was twirled, the bird appeared in the cage.
This proved that the eye retains images
when it is exposed to a series of pictures,
one at a time.
Two other inventions helped to further the
cause of animation. The phenakistoscope,
invented by Joseph Plateau in 1826, was a
circular card with slits around the edge. The
viewer held the card up to a mirror and
peered through the slits as the card whirled.
Through a series of drawings around the
circumference of the card, the viewer saw a
progression of images resulting in a moving
object. The same technique applied to the
zeotrope. In 1860, Pierre Desvignes,
First Animations (1906)
The development of the motion camera
and projector by Thomas A. Edison and
others provided the first real practical
means of making animation. Even still, the
animation was done in the simplest of
means. Stuart Blackton, issued a short film
in 1906 entitled Humourous Phases of
Funny Faces where he drew comical faces
on a blackboard, photographed them, and
the erased it to draw another stage of the
facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect
astonished audiences by making drawings
comes to life.
In the early twenties, the popularity of the
animated cartoon was on the decline, and
movie exhibitors were looking elswhere for
alternative entertainment media. The public
was tired of the old formula of stringing
sight gags together without including a
story line or any character development.
What the art of animation could accomplish
was not yet evident in this period, except
for in the works of Winsor McCay such as
Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914. Mccay's major
Early Cartoon Animations (1914)
The development of the motion camera
and projector by Thomas A. Edison and
others provided the first real practical
means of making animation. Even still, the
animation was done in the simplest of
means. Stuart Blackton, issued a short film
in 1906 entitled Humourous Phases of
Funny Faces where he drew comical faces
on a blackboard, photographed them, and
the erased it to draw another stage of the
facial expression. This "stop-motion" effect
astonished audiences by making drawings
comes to life.
In the early twenties, the popularity of the
animated cartoon was on the decline, and
movie exhibitors were looking elswhere for
alternative entertainment media. The public
was tired of the old formula of stringing
sight gags together without including a
story line or any character development.
What the art of animation could accomplish
was not yet evident in this period, except
for in the works of Winsor McCay such as
Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914. Mccay's major
Disney: Cell Animation (1928)
Steamboat Willie - Disney 1928
Walt Disney created the first cartoon
synchronized with sound entitled
'Steamboat Willie' in 1928. Steamboat Willie and all
subsequent Mickey Mouse animations were
created through a process called cell
animation.
Comparable to a flipbook animation that
you maybe made when you were a kid,
these animations were created by drawing frame after frame and then taking a picture
of each frame, 24 frames per second. The
secret behind cell animation was the use of
transparencies or “cells”, which allowed
backgrounds to remain the same while only
parts of the foreground moved.
Cells also allowed for 3D effects by creating
layering, much like in Photoshop today.
Now you know all disney movies by
heart I’m sure, and you’ve also seen
plenty of tex avery. So I’m going to skip
that part of history, even though some
incredible movies were made with cell
Motion Parallax:
MultiPlane Camera (1937)
The most famous multiplane camera was invented by
William Garity for the Walt Disney Studios to be used in
the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.[3]
The camera was completed in early 1937 and tested in a
Silly Symphony called The Old Mill, which won the 1937
Academy Award for Animated Short Film.[4] Disney's
multiplane camera, which used up to seven layers of
artwork (painted in oils on glass) shot under a vertical
and moveable camera,[3] allowed for more sophisticated
uses than the Iwerks or Fleischer versions, and was used
prominently in Disney films such as Pinocchio, Fantasia,
Bambi, and Peter Pan. The Little Mermaid was the final
Disney film to use a multiplane camera, though the work
was done by an outside facility as Disney's cameras were
not functional at the time.[5] The process was made
obsolete by the implementation of a "digital Multiplane
camera" feature in the digital CAPS process used for
subsequent Disney films and in other computer
animation systems. [5]
Brad Bird on Character Animation
(Director, The Incredibles)
So how did computers come into play, and
how did they become so dominant in
animation within less than a decade?
Keyframe Animation (NRC, Burtnyk, 1971)
Of course it happened right here in Canada,
at the National Council of Research (NRC)
in Ottawa.
In the late 1960s, NRC's Nestor Burtnyk
heard a Disney Studios animator speak
about making cartoons. Less than a year
later, Burtnyk had developed a new
technique that would revolutionize the way
animators create 3D graphics. Nestor
Burtnyk created key-frame animation
software that revolutionized computer
animation. His work in developing "keyframe animation" techniques laid the
groundwork for the sophisticated computer
animation in cinematic feasts like Chronicles
of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry
Potter.
The first experimental computer-animated
film coming out of this new technique was
Metadata in 1971, a collaboration between
NRC, the National Film Board and artist
Peter Foldes. Metadata was followed in
1973 by Hunger (La Faim), a 10-minute
feature about world hunger. The film took a
year and a half to create and in 1974 it
Tron (Disney 1982)
Tron (Disney 1982) First Film
Featuring CGI
The inspiration for Tron occurred in 1976
when Steve Lisberger, then an animator of
drawings with his own studio, looked at a
sample reel from a computer firm called
MAGI and saw Pong for the first time.[1] He
was immediately fascinated by video games
and wanted to do a film incorporating them.
According to Lisberger, "I realized that there
were these techniques that would be very
suitable for bringing video games and
computer visuals to the screen. And that
was the moment that the whole concept
flashed across my mind". He was frustrated
by the clique-ish nature of computers and
video games and wanted to create a film
that would open this world up to everyone.
Lisberger and his business partner Donald
Kushner moved to the West Coast in 1977
Some Computer Animation Techniques
Behavioral Animation (Reynolds et al.)
Here, the animator simulates behavior such as flocking by having a simulated environment with
actors that respond to each other dynamically, according to some parameters.
Scripting Systems (Thalmann et al. 1987)
In scripting systems, programs are used to specify behaviors at a more lower level of
description. They provide some high level language for artists, but no physical environment or
constraints.
Inverse Kinematics
An object made up of connected segments whose motion to each other is somehow restricted.
We are going to use this method along with behavioral animation in our tutorial to make an arm
that flexes.
A large body of tricks and principles from traditional classical animation transfers easily into the
forward kinematics domain (Lasseter et al.)
Tony de Peltrie (Lachapelle et al. 1986)
Tony de Peltrie (Lachapelle et al.
1986)
Tony de Peltrie is a three-dimensional
caricature of a jazz pianist directed by P.
Lachapelle, P. Bergeron and P. Robidoux.
Although his face is highly caricatured
facial expressions show emotion through
kinematics.
Pixar (1986)
Pixar was the computer animation studio of George Lucas. Steve
Jobs bought the company when he left Apple.
Pixar’s Tin Toy is a good example of a high level animation system, where
motion is specified in general terms, rather than in individual parameters
To accomplish this, a three dimensional model of a baby’s body was
digitized from clay figures, and merged with a description of the
skeleton one of the first examples of inverse kinematics
Software fits the body model to the animation of the skeleton, so that the
body moves with the animators directions of the skeleton
Advantages of this approach include the ability to introduce actual laws of
physics to which the skeleton behaves if given a specific mass.
We are going to do the same thing in our animation tutorial
Tin Toy (Pixar 1986) Open in iTunes
Procedural Animation: Adventures of
Andre and Wally B.
Procedural animation means building an
object and then using a procedure to
control or animate some attribute of the
object. A good example of these are
particle systems used to generate smoke
and fire. The Adventures of Andre and
Wally B., (film 1984)) to generate the
three-dimensional background images of
a forest and grass.
Genetic Algorithms & Artificial Life (Terzoupoulos 1995)
Here’s a shark learning how to swim all
by itself through simple stochastic
mutations filtered by some evaluation of
success: speed!
Maya (a Sanskrit word for illusion) is a highMaya
end 3D computer graphics and 3D modeling
software package originally developed by
Alias Systems Corporation, but now owned
by Autodesk.
In 2003, Maya (then owned by Alias|
Wavefront) won an Academy Award "for
scientific and technical achievement", citing
use "on nearly every feature using 3-D
computer-generated images."
Maya is the culmination of three 3D software
lines: Wavefront's The Advanced Visualizer
(in California), Thomson Digital Image (TDI)
Explore (in France) and Alias' Power
Animator (in Canada). In 1993 Wavefront
purchased TDI, and in 1995 Silicon
Graphics Incorporated (SGI) purchased both
Alias and Wavefront (due to pressure from
Terminator 2 (Cameron, 1991)
Most of the 3D Computer Graphic Images (CGI) in
Terminator 2 (1992) were designed and rendered in Alias
Wavefront’s Maya, a Canadian product. It was the first
blockbuster hollywood movie to use realistic computer
graphics for almost all of its special effects, directed by
James Cameron, a Canadian filmmaker.
Toy Story (Pixar 1995)
Toy Story (Pixar, 1995)
Directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom
Hanks and Tim Allen, this movie changed
animation forever. The film was produced by
Pixar Animation Studios. It is the first
feature film in history produced using only
computer animation. The top-grossing film
on its opening weekend,[1] Toy Story went
on to gross over $191 million in the United
States during its initial theatrical release.
John Lasseter's first experience with
computer animation was during his work as
an animator at Disney, when two of his
friends showed him the lightcycle scene
from Tron. It was an eye-opening
experience which awakened Lasseter to the
possibilities offered by the new medium of
computer-generated animation.[9] Lasseter
went on to work at Lucasfilm and later as a
founding member of Pixar.
Pixar's Oscar-winning short film Tin Toy
Toy story was designed using a piece of
software developed at Pixar called
Renderman. Renderman was the real
achievement of Pixar Studios, and it was a
technical achievement built by computer
coders. Open Sound Control (OSC)
Developed by Jerry White and Adrian Freed at Berkeley’s CNMAT
Supplants MIDI as a standard for controlling musical instruments
Open Sound Control is an internet based control interface
Relies on UDP rather than TCP and is thus very low-latency
Uses Universal Resource Locators that are completely open
For example, sending a message would entail knowing the IP address of the
device, and then using a function to send a message as follows:
127.0.0.1/1/fader1
Just like the web, URL depends on the receiving end’s specification
Cannot use your webbrowser for this (that’s TCP) but Max has an object.
Example in Max: Sending OSC Messages
Pack object comes in handy for formatting
Example in Max: Receiving OSC
Example in Max: Receiving OSC
TouchOSC
TouchOSC
Questions?