Lecture 3: Animation, realism, 3D CG animation technology 1

Announcement

Group project: a same project with an individual paper, including/ focusing own contribution to the projectZ-Brush demo installed: open-click on the last option for activation code as in 'later, under grace period' (every time you open)Adobe Premier installed for editing, put sound togetherAudacity for sound recording and editingPlease send file formats that I asked for. (no docx files, please)Meeting with each students to discuss concepts

Articulation

Difference between Animation media, film, motion, & technology: ex) Motion capture is an animation technology which can create a

good animated motion.

They are rather independent components in critical writing: A good animated motion deos not mean a good animated film, etc.

Need for differentiate 'value' of animation

Critical writing exercise on animation media:

Today's topic

What was good/wrong with the film 'Final Fantasy'?: Introduction to animation media, realism and 3D CG

animation technology

Mona Lisa (1503-06) by Leonardo Da Vinci

L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) by Marcel Duchamp

Value of Art

Originality Hand made (human made): manual

manipulation is considered fundamental for creative production

Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp

From these Fine Art tradition of point of view some animation Animation technologies are considered lacking artistic value

Rotoscope: copying motions from projected Live action footage: 'dirty little secret of Disney'

(Movie clip: Snow White)

Trouble with CG technology

Motion capture: importing Live action motion directly to computer

Anyone who has technological knowledge can reproduce it same

Relatively easy to do: degree of 'copying'

Value of animation as art (motion)

Originality Hand made quality Socially agreed/ acknowledged conventions &

consciousness in value Free Radical by Len Lye

Value of animation as art (motion)

A good character animation has higher value as animation art than a rolling title

Ideal character animation in Hollywood would be expressing personality through motion

Over exaggerated value on hand-made motion (myth of difficulty of producing animation: costly, lengthy production etc.)

Ratatouille (2007) by Brad Bird & Jan Pinkava

Value of animation as art (motion)

3D CG animation technology offers a relief and challenges regarding animation production different from the traditional analogue technology, and need to be re-evaluate its artistic value system in animation media.

Animation media and realism

'Reality' effects in computer animation by Lev Manovich p.5-15

'Bazin draws the idea of realism from mythological utopian thinking. For him, realism is found in the space between reality and a transcendental spectator.'

- 'Bazin builds his argument by comparing the changing quality of the cinematic image with the phenomenological impression of visual reality'.

Animation media and realism

'Comolli sees it as an effect, produced between the image and the historical viewer and continuously sustained through the ideologically determined additions and substitutions of cinematic technologies and techniques'.

'Comolli's analysis suggests a different strategy: to think of the history of computer graphics technologies and the changing stylistic conventions as a chain of substitutions functioning to sustain the reality effect for audiences.'

Animation media and realism

'Bordwell and Staiger locate realism within the institutional discourses of film industries, implying that it is a rational and pragmatic tool in industrial competition.

... to analyze the relationship between the character of realism in computer animation and the particular industrial organization of the computer graphics industry. (For instance, we can ask how this character is affected by the cost difference between hardware and software development.) "admonitions about the range and nature of permissible innovations"'

Animation media and realism

“Showmanship,” realism, invisibility: such cannons guided the SMPE

[Society of Motion Picture Engineers] members toward understanding

the acceptable and unacceptable choices in technical innovations,

and these too became teleological. In another industry, the engineer's

goal might be an unbreakable glass or a lighter alloy. In the film

industry, the goals were not only increased efficiency, economy, and

flexibility but also spectacle, concealment of artifice, and what

Goldsmith [1934 president of SMPE]called “the production of an acceptance semblance of reality.”

3D CG technology

3D CGI can be perfect: perfectly clean surface, perfectly focused, 100 % black, etc.

Converting 3D CG look to more conventional visuals that audiences are familiar with: blur, contrast, unfocused vision, etc.

Present CG technology is on 'have done' stage: visual Photo-realism has been achieved

Motion capture: expressiveness of animated motion

Animation media is a set of intentions to create/ communicate /visualize ideas in realm of animation. Have property of time, motion, and artificiality. By nature, it tends to be 'reflective' and characteristics of 'abstraction of information'.

Movie clip: Final Fantasy: Spirits Within (2001) by Hironobu Sakaguchi & Moto Sakakibara

Final Fantasy v Beowulf

Immersible experience is hindered Lack of expressiveness, bad dialogs, bad

script, etc. Beowulf is released for 3D stereo viewing (3D

IMAX) Hard resistance from conservative ideals Japanese anime sensitivity

Visualization

Immersible experience contract between creator and viewer How much 'photo-realism' would you like to

have? Is it good to have photo-realism?

'The Epic of Gilgamesh' by the Quay brothers

Tekkon kinkreet

Hand in

Concepts Ex1_Ballman

Hierachy

Parent-child

IK handle should not be in the same level of hierachy with it's joint

3DS MAX has built in biped skeleton

Joints are not only for characters: it can be used for any animation: swinging of brunch, opening of window, etc.

Layers

3DS Max