tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post4970477134850598470..comments2024-01-23T06:06:59.186-05:00Comments on discontinued go to www.aceandson.com/blog: Animation or Notroconnorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04933040935053560675noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post-66976144644888168602010-02-05T11:21:19.983-05:002010-02-05T11:21:19.983-05:00Pinning a categorical process on the difficulty or...Pinning a categorical process on the difficulty or freedom of the work is a tricky proposition.<br /><br />Ideally, a distinction of crafts can be made by a purely reasoned checklist.<br /><br />Ultimately, the process (live/animation/etc.) has to serve the form (film). In some regards motion capture does that better than animation, especially economically.roconnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04933040935053560675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post-77526511818335502192010-02-04T14:29:22.238-05:002010-02-04T14:29:22.238-05:00Coming now to the matter at hand, the golem of mot...Coming now to the matter at hand, the golem of motion capture. To my caffeine sharpened mind, it seems that one could very profitably apply the same test above and conclude that because the Avatar animators were given high res motion capture data and high def facial close up film reference of the actors' performances AND told to match it exactly, adding nothing in terms of acting choices, i.e., poses, gestures, expressions, blinks, nods -all the usual elements which animators typically manipulate to create a believable animated character -then what the animators were doing is something far less than what is usually connoted by the term animation.<br /><br />I would give the Avatar animators all due praise and credit for bringing their animator's skills to the task of 'mindlessly' replicating their reference material the same way I would value rotoscoping by a good animator as opposed to rotoscoping by a bad animator. When I see rotoscoping by a less skilled animator there is a pervasive lack of understanding in the quality of the line work which is typically weak, spindly and meandering and does not at all accurately communicate the form and volume of the moving source shapes to be rotoscoped. However, if a skilled animator should be so unlucky as to have to take on the damn unrewarding task of rotoscoping, the resulting work benefits from the skilled animator bringing to bear the talent of knowing how to use line to accurately translate the flat film source into credibly rotating forms and masses that convey the illusion of depth.<br /><br />In conclusion, because the Avatar animators were pinned down and forbidden to provide any performance input, their work cannot be considered animation in the most valued sense of the word. They "merely" (in quotes because as conceded above there is absolutely considerable skill involved) translated the actors' choices into the CG builds.<br /><br />One final qualification: obviously the animators that worked on Pandora's fauna were doing full blown animation work in that they had few if any restrictions on their work.A Santarellinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post-4163690469853659402010-02-04T14:25:08.957-05:002010-02-04T14:25:08.957-05:00Not to get all high fallutin' but there is a q...Not to get all high fallutin' but there is a quotation from Goethe which I think is very useful in deciding where in the spectrum of artistic endeavors particular disciplines ought roughly to be placed. Goethe said: "The begining and end of all literary activity is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me by means of the world that is in me, all things being grasped, related, recreated, molded and reconstructed in a personal form and an original manner."<br /><br />If one substitutes "artistic activity" in place of "literary activity" above, one has a very useful tool for evaluating the artistic purity (I'll resist the temptation to use the word merit) of various art forms -including most saliently, the much and fashionably maligned motion capture as practiced in Avatar. <br /><br />Stepping back for a moment, I have always held the notion that while still an absolutely legitimate and potent art form, photography must necessarily be somewhat less artistically pure an artistic endeavor than say painting or drawing, precisely because of its reliance on a predominantly mechanical, i.e. impersonal, image capture system. <br /><br />Both photography and painting seek to create an image in order to communicate something about existence, an artistic truth if you will. By Goethe's definition, the more this image, this "reproduction of the world that surrounds me" is filtered through, informed by and imbued with the putative artist's personality and experience ("by means of the world within me") the more potent the artistic expression. The painter starts with nothing and has to provide every scintilla of input whereas the photographer, while still burdened with some of the same considerations as the painter (framing, lighting, subject matter) is indisputably burdened with providing less as the camera's lense and film automatically create the image at a certain point.<br /><br />Because the painter has to generate and orchestrate far more (ALL) of the elements of the produced image, then said image must be impregnated with a higher quotient of the artist's personality -which is to say the world within him, than that of the photographer's image, which, again, at a certain point in its creation is handed over to the impersonal physics of light and film emulsion... (see subsequent post for second part)A Santarellinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post-60373913907158920952010-02-04T09:52:44.879-05:002010-02-04T09:52:44.879-05:00Flash is a tool, and CGI is shorthand for several ...Flash is a tool, and CGI is shorthand for several tools.<br /><br />Much Flash "animation" is motion graphics. Same is could be said for cgi.<br /><br />It becomes a matter of degree, and that's the question: where is the tipping point? How many created frames does it take to go from motion graphics to animation?<br /><br />That's a tougher question, as the answer is qualitative, not quantitative.<br /><br />The greater rub comes in when value is place on the terms "animation" "live action" and "motion graphics".<br /><br />It only makes sense that animators feel their work is of superior merit, just as a sculptor might think carving in marble is highest artistic expression.<br /><br />I have no problem with motion capture becoming animation. It may happen at some point -but then it ceases to be motion capture and simply becomes motion study. At the moment, that's not what it is. As technology advances, it will move farther and farther from single frame techniques.roconnorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04933040935053560675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3275154027288684412.post-68493949767356767402010-02-04T08:13:19.788-05:002010-02-04T08:13:19.788-05:00And is cgi animation when they primarily draw the ...And is cgi animation when they primarily draw the keyframes then allow the computer to inbetween - rerigging as they go along to get the best effect? Is that truly single frame animation? How does Flash fit in?Michael Spornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02018522723674960270noreply@blogger.com