MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY
COMPUTER ANIMATION
Dr. Zeeshan Bhatti
BSIT-III
Chapter 6
BY: DR. ZEESHAN BHATTI
Animation is about bringing things to life
Moving something which can't move itself
a sequence of images that, when played one
after the other, make things move
Lets start.
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Luxo Jr. (1986) is the first threedimensional computer animated film
to be nominated for an Academy Award
examples
Which one do you prefer?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then
animation has got to be worth ten thousand
words or more
Animation Issues
When evaluating an animation technique, then
mostly the following things are considered:
How fast can the images be generated?
How easy is it to control the appearance of the animation?
How much human expertise is required to generate the animation?
Note:
Different applications have
different requirements:
Feature film animation is different from
interactive gaming animation
History of Animation
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Earlier 19th century
Phenakistiscope was invented by Joseph Plateau.
Earlier 19th centurycont
Zeotrope was invented by William George Homer.
The drawings were placed inside the spinning drum.
Earlier 19th centurycont
Eadweard Muybridge captured the sequences of
human and animal movement by setting up a bank
of cameras.
Earlier 19th centurycont
Bullet time scene in The Matrix used 120 still cameras.
Earlier 19th centurycont
Flip book was first patented by John Barnes Linnet. A set of
sequential pictures flipped at a high speed creates the motion effect.
Earlier 19th centurycont
Emile Reynaud was created a technology Praxinoscope
to project animated film that last for 15 minutes.
Types of Animation
Controlling characters
humans / cartoon characters / animals
Using real human movements
Manually creating the movements
Motion Capture
Manual Key-Frame
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Animating the face by
Motion capture data
Using musculoskeletal models
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Most of what sells the intended emotion in
the face is the eyes. Youre probably familiar
with the expression, the eyes are the windows
to the soul. In animation, this is true, as well.
A poorly animated set of eyes can kill the
illusion of life in a character.
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Simulating the pedestrians in the streets
How does one's movement affect those of the
others
Simulating the movements of clothes
when the body moves
i.e How the wind affects the shape of
cloth
How the hair moves when the wind blows
Need to take into account
the physical properties of the hair,
Collisions between the hair
The lighting effects
Simulating liquid, mud, fire, bubbles
How to efficiently simulate the motion of the
fluids
How to control the fluids so that the
animator can get what s/he wants
Animation Techniques
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Basic Animation Techniques
Animation techniques are processes or
procedures which are used to bringing things to
life
There are different techniques used by the
animator
Cell Animation
Keyframe animation
Motion capture animation
Procedural animation
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Traditional animation
Cel Animation
Keyframe animation McCay (1914) created Gertie the Dinosour
cartoon animation and showed at theatre.
Celluloid sheets Earl Hurd used the sheets to hold certain elements
while animating the characters on another layers. Easier to capture
onion skinning.
Keyframe animation
Celluloid sheets
TRADITIONAL ANIMATIONCONT
Walt Disney first released a short cartoon film with audio entitled
Steamboat Willie. The most popular character are Mickey Mouse,
Donald Duck, Goofy and Minnie Mouse.
TRADITIONAL ANIMATIONCONT
Warner Bros. Studios invented cartoon characters with different
aesthetic look like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck.
Present animation
Rostrum camera used to shot simple 2D animation. Suitable
use to make collage or cutout.
The camera equipped with an adjustable camera mount fixed
to a base board with a lighting source.
Present animationcont
Software/computers animation used to develop 2D and 3D
animation.
The drawings were scanned or drew into the computer and filled
with digital paint instead of being transferred to cels and then
coloured by hand.
With computer animation, many animation techniques rises; 3D CGI
animation, tradigital animation, cel-shaded animation.
2d and 3d animation
3D to 2D
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Tradigital and cel-shaded
Realistic Human Modeling
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Adding Texture and Color
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Final
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Present animationcont
Rotoscoping developed by Max Fleischer. The animation is traced
over the actual film footage of actors and scenery.
From the AVI movies, you can import into a frame stack, digitally
draw or paint each frame.
Future animation
Computer software like Autodesk MAYA
which have developed in Avatar where it
designs the characters and environments,
shoot the virtual production elements, and
create the stunning visuals that appeared
on the screen.
Future animationcont
Stereoscopic 3-D (S3D) production. S3D is a technique for creating or
enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset
images separately to the left and right eye of the
viewer. these 2D offset images are then combined in the brain to
give the perception of 3D depth.
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Keyframing
Traditional animation technique
Dependent on artist to generate key frames
Additional, inbetween frames are drawn automatically by computer
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Keyframing
How are we going to interpolate?
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Keyframe animation
The original way to animate, and still the most common
form for animation
It is the process of generating images between selected
key frames
Before, animation is done by sketching the different
images on paper
Now done with computers
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Interpolation
Interpolation is the process of computing
intermediate values between known values e.g.
between two frames
The in-between frames are interpolated from the
keyframes
Interpolating splines are smooth curves that
interpolate their control points
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Keyframes
Animation
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Interpolation
Many parameters can be interpolated to generate animation
Simple interpolation techniques can only generate simple
inbetweens
More complicated inbetweening will require a more
complicated model of animated object and simulation
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Interpolation
Strengths
Animator has exacting control (Woodys face)
Weaknesses
Interpolation hooks must be simple and direct
Time consuming and skill intensive
Difficult to reuse and adjust
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Frame-by-Frame Animationcont
Inbetween facial drawings
Keyframe examples
2 frames drawn by user
Inbetween frames generated by computer
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Final Animation
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Linear Interpolation
Simple, but discontinuous velocity
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Nonlinear Interpolation
Smooth ball trajectory and continuous velocity, but loss of timing
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Easing
Ease-In
Ease-Out
Adjust the timing of the inbetween frames. Can be automated
by adjusting the stepsize of parameter, t.
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Style or
Accuracy?
Interpolating time
captures accuracy
of velocity
Squash and stretch
replaces motion
blur stimuli and
adds life-like
intent
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Traditional
Motivation
Ease-in and
ease-out is like
squash and
stretch
Can we
automate the
inbetweens for
these?
The Illusion of Life, Disney Animation
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Thomas and Johnson
More squash and stretch
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Anticipation
and Staging
Dont surprise the
audience
Direct their
attention to whats
important
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staging
Follow Through
Audience likes to see resolution of action
Discontinuities are unsettling
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Combined
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Secondary Motion
Characters should exist in a real environment
Extra movements should not detract
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Motion Capture Animation
Extract data from real-world people acting out a
scene
Many techniques for getting the data:
Optical take video and extract motion
Magnetic/Radio attach magnets, transponders and use sensors to get
location
Mechanical methods of extracting motion (for small motions)
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Motion Capture Example
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Examples
Sports video games
Madden Football
Many movie characters
Phantom Menace
Cartoons
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Motion Capture Strengths
Exactly captures the motions of the actor
Michael Jordans video game character will capture his style
Easy to capture data
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Motion Capture Weaknesses
Noise, noise, noise!
Magnetic system inteference
Visual system occlusions
Mechanical system mass
Tethered (wireless is available now)
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Motion Capture Weaknesses
Aligning motion data with CG character
Limb lengths
Idealized perfect joints
Reusing motion data
Difficult to scale in size (must also scale in time)
Changing one part of motion
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Motion Capture Weaknesses
Blending segments
Motion clips are short (due to range and tethers)
Dynamic motion generation requires blending at run time
Difficult to manage smooth transition
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Movies
Animating Aliens
Retargeting Motion
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Examples
Inanimate video game objects
GT Racer cars
Soapbox about why this is so cool
Special effects
Explosions, water, secondary motion
Phantom Menace CG droids after they were cut in half
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Procedural Animation
Very general term for a technique that puts more complex algorithms
behind the scenes
Technique attempts to consolidate artistic efforts in algorithms and
heuristics
Allows for optimization and physical simulation
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Procedural Animation
Animation is generated by writing a program
that outputs the position/shape/whatever of the
scene over time
Generally:
Program some rules for how the system will behave
Choose some initial conditions for the world
Run the program, maybe with user input to guide what happens
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Procedural Animation
by Zeeshan Bhatti (PhD)
Oscillation Outside the Phase of contact
Oscillation Inside the Phase of contact
Advantage: Once you have the program, you
can get lots of motion
Disadvantage: The animation is generally hard
to control, which makes it hard to tell a story
with purely procedural means
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Procedural Animation Strengths
Animation can be generated on the fly
Dynamic response to user
Write-once, use-often
Algorithms provide accuracy and exhaustive search that animators
cannot
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Procedural Animation Weaknesses
Were not great at boiling human skill down to algorithms
How do we move when juggling?
Difficult to generate
Expensive to compute
Difficult to force system to generate a particular solution
Bicycles will fall down
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All these animation techniques are great,
but when they are most useful is when they
are all used together
all green box
combined single shots
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The final scene
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Comparison b/w animation techniques
Technique
Control
Time to Create
Computation Cost
Key-Frame
Excellent
Poor
Low
Motion
Capture
Good at time
of creation,
after that poor
Medium
Medium
Poor
Poor to create
program
High
Procedural
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Questions?
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THANK YOU!
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