The Use Of Computers in Animation
COMPUTERS IN ANIMATION SHERBERT JAMES BRIDGES 04-24-2000 THE USE OF COMPUTERS INANIMATION The use of motion capture for computer character animation is relatively new, having begun in the late 1970's,and only now beginning to become widespread. Motion capture is the recording of human body movement (or othermovement) for immediate or delayed analysis and playback. The information captured can be as general as the simple positionof the body in space or as complex as the deformations of the face and muscle masses. Motion capture for computer characteranimation involves the mapping of human motion onto the motion of a computer character. The mapping can be direct, such ashuman arm motion controlling a character's arm motion, or indirect, such as human hand and finger patterns controlling acharacter's skin color or emotional state. The idea of copying human motion for animated characters is, of course, not new. To
Having seen the possibility of animating characters by performance techniques inWaldo C. In addition, animation software vendors, such asSoftImage, have integrated these systems into their product creating "off-the-shelf" performance animation systems. Two puppeteers control the facial expressions, lip-synch, and special effectssuch as shape transformations for Mat the Ghost, or bubbles from the mouth of a fish, and an actor mimes the upper bodymotions while wearing a suit with electromagnetic trackers on the torso, arms, and head. Typically, several puppeteers oractors working in concert control each character. In the late1970's, when it began to be feasible to animate characters by computer, animators adapted traditional techniques, includingrotoscoping. Since there was no post-rendering, animation sequences were generated in the time it took theperformers to achieve a good take. This method, called rotoscoping, has been successfully used for human characters ever since. Using DataGloves, joysticks,Polhemus trackers, and MIDI drum pedals, puppeteers interactively performed Mat, chroma-keyed with the previously-shotvideo of the live actors. Seven minutes of animation (one week's worth) were normally completed in a day and ahalf of performance. As such, rotoscoping can be thought of as a primitive form or precursor to motion capture, wherethe motion is "captured" painstakingly by hand. In the past few years, Ascension, Polhemus, SuperFluo, and othershave released commercial motion tracking systems for computer animation. Mat appeared on Canaille Peluche every day for over three and a half years. Video systems, now knownas Medialab, has continued to develop the performance system to the point where it is a reliable production tool, havingproduced several hours of production animation in total, for more than a dozen characters. man characters in Snow White; Disney studios traced animation over film footage of live actorsplaying out the scenes. As the technology develops, there is no doubt that motion capture in computers willbecome one of the basic tools of the animator's craft.
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