Talk:Computer animation
This page really needs some examples of animation, such as via some simple animated GIFs. A POV-Ray rendering of the room/pyramid thing would be useful too. Of course, I should contribute some of this stuff. But if anyone else feels so inclined... —Frecklefoot 13:46, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Should mention animated GIFs. --Daniel C. Boyer 22:09, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- And Macromedia Flash. violet/riga 17:10, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Needs a lot of work
I reckon this article needs quite a bit of work. Major enhancements and film breakthroughs should be mentioned - Toy Story, Bullet-time and the technique used for armies in the LOTR trilogy, for example. I'll try and see if I can do something soon. violet/riga 17:10, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- We should definely have something more flash than the sliding goat animation. I suppose it's a good minimalistic example of the definition of computer animation, but something more up to date should be added. The demiurge June 29, 2005 04:25 (UTC)
- Well, I suppose it is an improvement over the red circle I initially had there. :-) I'd support a better example, but it has to remain somewhat simple. It has to get the point across without being distracting. — Frecklefoot | Talk June 29, 2005 13:48 (UTC)
- That example should stay, but how about having a loop from something that looks modern too, like a movie or video game. The demiurge June 29, 2005 20:16 (UTC)
2D Computer Animation
A discussion about how computers have affected 2D animation production seems appropriate. ie: Digital cell painting, Primitive Vector-Based animation Macromedia Flash, and more advanced 2D animation systems.
I personally developed one of these systems, called Synfig. I'll actually be Giving a talk about Synfig next month, so I could adapt some of the material from that for a discusson on more cutting-edge 2D animation systems.
"Computer animation is faster than..."
I changed this:
- Computer animation is faster than traditional drawn or stop motion animation, because the animated figure is only created ('drawn') once on the computer monitor. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the 3D figure are moved by the animator. Finally, the animation is rendered.
...because it's not true. The method isn't inherently "faster" than traditional animation, although it is possibly faster than stop motion (though not always). --FuriousFreddy 8 July 2005 21:37 (UTC)
The first computer animation
I found this on the net (some call him Zajac, others call him Zajak. Some say 1961, some say 1963. 1963 i probably correct):
1) "E. E. Zajac, a scientist at Bell Telephone Laboratory (BTL), created a film called "Simulation of a two-giro gravity attitude control system" in 1963. In this computer generated film, Zajac showed how the attitude of a satellite could be altered as it orbits the Earth. He created the animation on an IBM 7090 mainframe computer. Also at BTL, Ken Knowlton, Frank Sindon and Michael Noll started working in the computer graphics field. Sindon created a film called Force, Mass and Motion illustrating Newton's laws of motion in operation. Around the same time, other scientists were creating computer graphics to illustrate their research. At Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Nelson Max created the films, "Flow of a Viscous Fluid" and "Propagation of Shock Waves in a Solid Form." Boeing Aircraft created a film called "Vibration of an Aircraft." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/ph/www/nyit/morrison/1960s.txt ( http://hem.passagen.se/des/hocg/hocg_1970.htm for those who wants to read further)
2) "The cheapness of film production on the Stromberg-Carlson recorder suggested the use of movies. Accordingly, Robert M. McClure made a classified movie of a cloud of incoming enemy missiles and decoys, and Joseph B. Kruskal made a movie to display the iterations of his algorithm for multidimensional scaling. Then Edward E. Zajac conveyed the results of his computer simulation of satellite motion as a movie of a gyrating and tumbling box. A. Michael Noll made a stereographic three-dimensional movie, and Frank W. Sinden illustrated the educational potential of computer movies in his article "Synthetic Cinematography." At about the same time, Knowlton introduced a special movie-making language called BEFLIX, with which several award-winning scientific and artistic films have since been produced." http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr/cstr99.html
3) 1963 1st (?) computer generated film by Edward Zajac (Bell Labs)http://dam.org/history/ http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/timeline.html
4) "Computer-generated images (CGI) in motion pictures is an obvious and relevant example of the magic of digitization. Edward Zajac of Bell Laboratories in 1963 began the field with his simulated trip around the globe based on satellite still photographs. Hollywood caught on several years later." http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/digital_literacy.html
5) "1963 - 1st (suspected) computer generated film by Edward Zajac (Bell Labs)" http://www.geography.wisc.edu/~harrower/Geog575/animation.html
6) "Edward Zajac produced one of the first computer generated films at Bell Labs in 1961, which demonstrated that a satellite could be stabilized to always have a side facing the earth as it orbited. This film was titled A two gyro gravity gradient altitude control system. Ken Knowlton developed the Beflix (Bell Flicks) animation system in 1963, which was used to produce dozens of artistic films by artists Stan VanDerBeek, Noll, Knowlton and Lillian Schwartz. Ken Knowlton and Leon Harmon experimented with human pattern perception and art by perfecting a technique that scanned, fragmented and reconstructed a picture using patterns of dots (such as symbols or printer characters.) Ruth Weiss created in 1964 (published in 1966) some of the first algorithms for converting equations of surfaces to orthographic views on an output device." http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/tree/bell.html
7) "First computer animated film (Two-Gyro Gravity-Gradient Attitude Control System, by Edward Zajak, Bell Labs) (1961)." http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~matt/courses/cs563/talks/history.html
You get the picture. Speaking of picture, you can see picture of it here: http://www.cs.montana.edu/~charon/graphics/presentation2.html Just click on "1960's" on the left. It can also be seen here: http://accad.osu.edu/~waynec/history/lesson4.html
I wonder if it is still around. And if not, what is the earliest computer animation still available? There is some early stuff from the late 60's on the Scanimate DVD, which is maybe not the oldest, but still pretty old since we are talking about CGI here.
And then we have John Whitney Sr., who created some visual effects with a computer in 1971 in the movie The Andromeda Strain.
But at imdb, it says he also created some animation back in 1943, called Film Exercise #1. What kind of animation could it be?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1124970/
Peter Foldes made the animated shorts Metadata (1971) and Hunger (1974), but this was 2D CGI (or more precise; computer assisted animation, computers assisting a 2D artist).
When the first 3D animation was created, I don't know.
There was some CGI in this series, made by this guy (Lee Harrison III): http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2071811/ on an analoge computer. But if some of it was 3D, I can't tell.
I know The Adventures of André and Wally B. from 1984 was made by Pixar, but was it made similar 3D CGI shorts before that?
The first electronic animation (electronic animation as in animation created ny using a machine as the tool, transforming electric signals into animation that can be seen on a screen) may not have been real computers, so what's the main difference between real computer animation and electronic animation in general? The fact that computers are digital? Can non-computer electronic animation still offer something that CGI can't? Slit-scanning and Lear-Siegler video processors and such seems interesting since they are so little known in todays digital world.
Something more interesting at the end:
1957 John Whitney used 17 Bodine motors, 8 Selsyns, 9 different gear units and 5 ball integrators to create analogue computer graphics.
1961 John Whitney used differential gear mechanisms to create film and television title sequences.
1964 Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.
Hierarchy needed? - the 'Root page' suggestion
This is only one of many good articles on aspects of Animation, all of which tend to be suffering from omissions and duplications, as well as misconceptions over what constitutes CGI for example, as opposed to, computer animation, and whether CGI is a 'film technique'.
I've solved a similar dilemma on other topics by introducing the concept of a 'Root page', in this case Animation, and a hierarchy. I suggest that CGI is computer animation, is animation. If anything, CGI is 'hi-end' computer animation, meaning probably hi-res 3D rather than 2D, but the distinction is disappearing. CGI cannot be a 'film technique' as fully animatied 'movies' like Toy Story are now about to be delivered to cinemas digitally without ever seeing 'film' even as 'videotape'. Avatars and games come 'highest' in the hierarchy, as they involve real-time CGI.
The newcomer to CGI, or to Computer animation, may need to have animation explained, hence the need for hierarchy, with the 'Root page' listed at the top of 'see also' and described as such. The Root page should list all key associated pages in the hierarchy first. --Lindosland 18:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
The Future
I'm removing this block of text because it isn't really appropriate for an encyclopedia article.
The future of animation is unimaginable, there is no way we can know what will be released next. Every day a new program, a new rendering technique enters the market, flipping everything around. Some are so good that the prices for the new capability can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.