Computer Animation

Amy Gooch
CS395: Introduction to
Computer Animation
 Animation
• Animate = “to give life to”
• Specify, directly or indirectly, how ‘thing’
moves in time and space
• Tools
 Two main categories
• Computer-assisted animation
– 2D & 2 1/2 D
– Inbetweening
– Inking, virtual camera, managing
data, etc
• Computer generated animation
– Low level techniques
• Precisely specifying motion
– High level techniques
• Describe general motion behavior
 Low level techniques
• Shape interpolation (in-betweening)
• Have to know what you want
 High level techniques
• Generate motion
with set of rules
or constraints
– Physically based
motion

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~job/Projects/SoundGen/video.html
 Abstraction

Animator colors each pixel

to

Tell computer to “make movie about a dog”

 Perception of Animations
• Playback rate
• Sampling or update rate

• TV: 30 images/second
• Sat Morning Cartoons:
– 6 different images per second
– Each image repeated five times
 Heritage of Animation
• Persistence of vision: discovered about
1800s
– Zoetrope or “wheel of life”
– Flip-book
 Heritage of Animation
• Camera to make lifeless things move
– Meleis 1890 using simple tricks
– Emil Cohl (1857-1938, French)
 Heritage of Animation
– J. Stuart Blackton (American)
• Meet Thomas Edison in 1895
– Combine drawing and file: “The Enchanted Drawing”
– Six years later: “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces
• Animated smoke in 1900; First animated cartoon in 1906

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 Heritage of Animation
• First celebrated Animator
– Winsor McCay (American)
• Little nemo
• Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

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 Heritage of Animation
• First major technical development
– John Bray /Earl Hurd (1910)
– Translucent cels (short for celluloid) in
compositing multiple layers
– Use of grey scale (as opposed to B&W)
– Color short in 1920

John Randolph Bray'sColonel Heeza Lair.

 Heritage of Animation
Out of Bray’s studio
• Max Fleischer (Betty Boop,,
Popeye)
– Patented rotoscoping in 1915
– Draing images on cells by
tracing over previously
recorded live action
• Paul Terry (Terrytoons:
Mighty Mouse)
• George Stallings(?)
• Walter Lantz (Woody
Woodpecker)
 Heritage of Animation
• Animation as an art form
– First animated character with personality
• Felix the cat by Otto Messmer (1920s)
• Force to reckoned with
– Sound and Walt Disney
Disney: Animation as an art form
• Innovations
– Story board to review story
– Pencil sketch to review motion
– Multi-plane camera stand
– Color (not first to use color)
– Sound!
• Steamboat Willie (1928)
 Multiplane Camera
• Move scene layers independently of camera

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/9199/Animation/Disney_Multiplane.html
MGM and Warner Brothers, etc.
 Other Media Animation
• Computer animation
is often compared to
stop motion QuickTime™ and a

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– Puppet animation
• Willis O’Brian (King
Kong)
• Ray Harryhausen
(Might joe Yong,
Jason and the
Argonauts)
 Other Media Animation
– Claymation
– Pinhead animation
– Sand animation
• Physical object is manipulated, image
captured, repeat
Hierachy of film/animation
Presentation

Act

Scene

Shot

Frame
 Production of Animation
• Preliminary story
• Story board
• Detailed story
• Key Frames Computer Animation
• Test shot basically follows this
pipeline
• Pencil test
• Inbetweening
• Inking
• Coloring
 Computer Animation as
Animation
• Lasseter translated principles of animation
as articulated by two of Nine Old Men of
Disney to computer animation
– Lasseter is conventionally trained animator
• Worked at Disney before going to Pixar
• Many celebrated animations
• Knick-knack (oscar-winning)
 Short History of Computer
Animation
In Research labs
• NYIT

Still frame from Gumby animation by Hank Grebe and Dick Lundin, 1984.
 In Research Labs
• University of Utah
– Films on walking and talking figure
– Animated hand and animated face (1972)

• University of Pennsylvania
– Human figure animation (Norm Badler)
• Cornell University
– architectural walk-throughs (Don Greenberg)
 History of Computer Animation
• 1974: Hunger by Rene Jodoin and Peter
Foldes
– 2.5D system, object interpolation
 Current activity Centers
• University of Toronto's Computer Science Department
• Simon-Fraser University's Graphics and Mulitmedia Research Lab
• Georgia Tech's Graphics Visualization and Usability Center
• Brown Computer Graphics Group
• Ohio State University's ACCAD
• Ohio State University's Department of Computer and Information Science
• George Washington University Graphics Group
• UC San Diego's Department of Computer Science and Engineering
• University of North Carolina's Computer Science Department
• MIT's Media Lab
• MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science
• University of Wisconsin at Madison
 History of Film & Video
• Companies
– Mathematical Applications Group, Inc. (MAGI)
– Information International Inc. (III, or Triple-I)
– Digital Production
– Digital Effects
– Image West
– Robert Abel and Associates
– Cranston-Csuri.
 Current Companies
• Pixar
• Industrial Light and Magic (ILM)
• Pacific Data Images (PDI)
• Disney
• Xaos
• Rhythm & Hues
• Digital Domain
• Lamb & Company
• Metrolight Studios
• Boss Film Studios
• deGraf/Wahrman
• R/Greenberg Associates
• Blue Sky Productions
• Sony Pictures
• Cinesite
• Imageworks
• Apple…. .
 Animations that paved the way
Pixar
• Luxo Jr. (1986)
– first computer animation to be nominated for an
Academy Award
• Red's Dream (1987)
• Tin Toy (1988)
– first computer animation to win an Academy
Award
• Knick Knack (1989)
 Early CG in film
– Future World (1976)
– Star Wars (1977)
• Lawnmower man (1992, Xaos, Angel Studios)
– Hollywood’s view of VR
– Tron (1982, MAGI)
• Supposed to look like a computer
– The Last Starfighter (1984)
• Use CG in place of models
– Willow (1988, ILM)
• Morphing video
• First digital blue screen matte extraction
– Howard the Duck (1986, ILM)
• First wire removal
– The Abyss (1989, ILM)
 More early CG in film
• Jurassic Park (1993, ILM)
– Forest Gump (1994, Digital Domain)
• Insert CG ping pong ball
– Babe (1995, Rhythm & Hues)
• Move mouths of animals & fill in background
– Toy Story (1995, Pixar & Disney)
• First full length fully CG 3D animation
 Early CG on TV
• Reboot (1995, Limelight
Ltd. BLT Productions)
– Similar intention of “inside
computer”
– First fully 3D Sat. morning
cartoon
• Babylon 5 (1995)
– Routinely used CG models as
regular features
• Simpsons (1995 PDI)
 Resources
• Milestones of the animation industry in the
20th Century
– http://www.awn.com/mag/issue4.10/4.10pages/
cohenmilestones.php3
• http://www.fact-
index.com/a/an/animation.html#History%2
0of%20Animation
• Brief History of NYIT Computer Graphics
Lab http://www-
2.cs.cmu.edu/~ph/nyit/masson/nyit.html
 Resources (con’t.)
• Timeline from Brown Animation class
– http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs229/animTi
meline.html
• In-betweening
– http://alpha.luc.ac.be/~lucp1112/research/CA20
01/results.html
 Credits/Resources
• Rick Parent
– http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~parent/book/Intr.html
– http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~parent/book/outline.html
• America’s Story
– http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/sh/animation/blcktn_2
 Character Animation
• Control motion of articulated limbs
• Skeletal-muscle-skin models
• Facial animation
• Representation and Animation of surface
detail
– Hair
– Clothes
 Utah CG History

• http://silicon-valley.siggraph.org/text/MeetingNotes/Utah.html