Computer Animation Presentation by Sean Douglas

1. Analog to Digital
How Technology Changed the World of Animation
A Recap of Alice Crawford’s Animation in the age of information
technologies
By : Sean Douglas

2. The Transition
• Digital animation was more widely received than its analogous
counterpart. Amid the boom of cartoons in the 80’s, television
became the primary means of distribution for animation.
• In the later 80’s computer animation was becoming more
widely accessible. Prior to this time the giants like Disney and
such were the only ones with the finances available to use
these technologies.

3. “Harry” “Ultimatte” “Paintbox”
• These technologies were originally used for commercials.
• “With these technologies, for the first time, animators were
able to mix a variety of forms of animation into a single frame,
layering, or “compositing” images from video, two-dimensional
animation, and film them together, combining
them all into a single image.”

4. Blendo
• This was the subgenre title given to television productions
that blended these forms of animation into experimental
pieces. Liquid TV was the MTV production that served as the
testing grounds. The segments of the show used all forms of
animation as well as live action segments.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXhe4jFzEwU

5. Defining the Differences
• Digital animation incorporates a third dimension, or plane of
action, z. Analog animation works within the boundaries of a
two dimensional world, x and y.
• Digital animation also renders the world within a digital plane,
making the drawing of multiple frames obsolete. The camera
is free to move around the rendered world, which also allows
animation to work in more conventional cinematic methods.
• Digital animation is not drawn or colored, but rendered, and
then fitted with a texture which is also rendered onto the
rendering of objects. However, the ability to do this well is
restrained by processing power not by the ability of the artist.
In the early CGI era the rendering of one frame could take
days.

6. Benchmarking: Reality vs.
Rendered
• The benchmark for realism in animation is 80 million polygons
per second being rendered. A polygon is what rendered
objects are comprised of, and each one refracts light
differently in order to achieve a more realistic rendering.
• “We can no longer go to a film and be sure what we are seeing
ever existed in physical space.”
• When we see CGI now, it has to pass a sort or Turing Test. In
the Computer Science world, the Turing Test is when you place
a computer beside a child to see if a judge is able to tell the
difference between the answer or a human and a computer.
This is in order to test the Artificial Intelligence capabilities of
a computer. We test the rendering of an object against our
perception of reality.

7. Processing Power and New
Technology
• As the processing and computing power increases, the more
realistic of an object we are able to render.
• In more recent years CGI artists have been relying more on
‘inverse kinesthetics’ of sorts. By this I mean the artists outfit
an object (usually a person) with a suit covered in motion
markers. The artists then have the person perform functions
wearing the suit against a green screen. From this point a
more realistic representation of movement can be achieved
through the mapping of these movements and using each
marker as a placeholder to be rendered around.
• The conjoining of animation and technology is even furthered
by video games.

8. New Wave Animation?
• Since the early 90’s computer games have been topping the
gross sales of film.
• Video games are rendered using what is called an engine. The
engine allows developers to take premade effects and objects
and render them with different textures, if they so choose.
These engines are sort of like a signature style, but they also
lead to a sort of redundancy.
• Although it is far more immersive, video games are just
another form of digital animation. The characters are the star
much in the way Woody and Buzz are the stars of Toy Story
even though their voices are those of actual stars.

9. Animation is More Pervasive Than
Ever
• With the advent of CGI, animation is more pervasive than
ever. It’s just far more subtle about being animation. From
cell phones, to radios, to television, animation is everywhere
around us; just not in the conventional forms that we are used
to.
• With that in mind it is easy to see why more immersive
technologies are being developed.

10. Virtual Reality
• Haptic suits and virtual reality headsets are currently being
developed if they aren’t already released; the Oculus Rift is
the most widely known VR headset currently available to buy.
• These technologies are about more fully interacting with the
rendered world. Once again, with these technologies the
distinction between the real and the rendered will become
increasingly blurred if not indistinguishable.

11. Quick and Easy
• Access to animation technologies like Flash and DHTML
allowed for easier independent production for the new and
the experienced animators. However, as mentioned before,
things like rendering engines used in computer games also
makes this far easier.

12. Machinima
• Machinima is the result of using an original gaming software
or rendering engine in order to record video, which is then
edited, and then repurposed into the final product.
• “The greatest thing about Machinima is its democratization of
the medium of animation and film—not democratization of
access, so much, but democratization of content. The new
medium, for the first time, allows hobbyist film-makers to
make not only their own wedding video, but their own ‘Star
Wars’. All for the price of a copy of a computer game.”
• However, Machinima itself provides a link back to analog
animation. Machinima is the transformation of a three
dimensional space into a two dimensional image. The camera
cannot move around the third axis anymore, it is confined to
the vertical and horizontal.

13. Conclusion
• Digital animation provides tools unimaginable to analog
animators. Digital animation has arguably taken over
television screens (cartoons, commercials, video games) and
most screens alike. However, the question is can the
progression keep up with the demand, and at which point is it
demanding too much from a simulation.