Commentary 11 Aug 2008 08:27 am
From soup to nuts
- To me, the most valuable posts of the last week or so came from Hans Perk on his blog, A Film LA. There he displayed some amazing artifacts showing patent papers and many photographs of Disney’s Vertical Multiplane Camera stand.
Ever since first seeing the drawings and photographs of the multiplane camera in Bob Thomas’ 1958 edition of The Art of Animation. I searched all the Disney films after that looking for where the camera was used. I scouted for information about the camera. Once I started filming my artwork (in 8mm) my brother-in-law and father teamed to construct one for me. It employed 12 levels of glass and about 6000 watts of light. Each level was about 24″ x 36″. I used this for many many film bits done between ages 14 and 17. (I still have it in storage, though I assume all the glass is broken and the lights are gone.)
In the last week, there has been more hard information here on the subject than I think I’ve seen in my lifetime, and believe me I’ve looked. I can only thank Hans for taking the time to offer this selection of material. If you haven’t seen the seven part series, go.
- Taking a 180° turn, I found this article in the Hollywood Reporter over the weekend. It is about new developments in Performance Capture. You can’t access the article without a subscription to the magazine, so I’ve reprinted the first few paragraphs.
- Man-to-man discussion
Creating CG actors on agenda at Siggraph
By Carolyn Giardina
A computer-generated face has replaced the real face on this live-action body.
LOS ANGELES – Advancements in creating photoreal CG “human” characters and the related subject of motion capture will be key topics at Siggraph 2008, the international conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques that opens Monday at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“We are now at a point where we can create photoreal characters, but it is hugely labor-intensive and it is really expensive ” said Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Michael Fink (“The Golden Compass”), who recently was named president of VFX worldwide at Frantic Films VFX and Prime Focus Group.
“Can we do an absolutely, totally realistic Elvis Presley? Probably not. But that is because he is so well known,” he said. “But if we had to create a character that nobody had ever seen before ? That might be possible at this point. And in a few years it will be possible to do EMs. Alot of people think it is possible now. I don’t.”
Motion capture, also called performance capture, is the process of digitally recording an actor’s movement. It is not new, but the technology involved is advancing, making the process faster, more accurate and more flexible for VFX/animation houses to incorporate into their CG character creation.
This summer, Industrial Light + Magic used the technique to capture Robert Downey Jr.’s performance for their CG Iron Man. And Digital Domain similarly captured performances for its CG terra cotta army and foundation army in “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.”
“It went from a reference tool to a body-animation tool. Now we are getting to facial motion capture — and all with less and less constricting systems,” Digital Domain CEO Mark Miller said.
As I’ve stated in the past, I’m not sure how long 2D animation will exist, but things are certainly changing quickly. Pixar keeps getting more and more realistic in their approach; obviously they know something.
And yes I am being provocative – for a reason.
– The beautiful new ads for United Airlines are worth viewing. They’re quite stunning. Thanks to Amid on Cartoon Brew for directing me there. It’s a strong collection of mixed media pieces – from cgi to 2D to 3D/puppet. They’re quite the finest work in animated commercials.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 9:17 am 1.Stephen Macquignon said …
The ads are beautiful. WOW!!
on 11 Aug 2008 at 1:04 pm 2.Tom Minton said …
Have you visited the lobby of Disney’s Frank G. Wells Building during the past few years, Michael? There the original multiplane proudly stands on permanent display, rigged with working red and green pin lights and mystifying most non-animation people walking past. Though obviously no longer used in filmmaking, at least the thing is out of storage, where it gathered dust for decades.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 1:09 pm 3.Michael said …
Unfortunately, I haven’t been to LA in the last couple of years. I’ll have to keep it at the top of my “to do” things when I next head West.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 2:24 pm 4.David Nethery said …
“As I’ve stated in the past, I’m not sure how long 2D animation will exist, but things are certainly changing quickly. Pixar keeps getting more and more realistic in their approach; obviously they know something.”
And yet the Pixarians are pushing to keep 2D animation happening , both at Disney (various shorts now in production and the feature “The Princess & The Frog’ ) and at Pixar – the 2D credit sequences for Ratatouille and Wall -E (and also the earlier Title sequence for Monsters Inc.” so I don’t see Pixar as contributing to the death or ghettoizing of 2D animation. I’ve heard that more 2D shorts are in the planning stages at Pixar , and of course , even at Dreamworks they just completed a 25 minute “featurette” special that will be on the Kung Fu Panda DVD release. The short film is done in the same 2D style as the opening dream sequence done by James Baxter’s studio. (Baxter is back at Dreamworks and rumored to be working on a new 2D project … maybe the 25 minute featurette for the KFP dvd was that project ? or maybe there’s something else coming down the pipeline ? )
I’m trying to remain optimistic about the future of hand-drawn and 2D , although it can be difficult at times. What’s definitely changing is the push to paperless production. I do question if animation done on paper and cels will be around at all in a few years. Mark Kausler is finishing up another short film (similar to his “It’s The Cat” ) which is actually hand-inked and painted on cels. I think there may be a few other people still using cels . At least there are many people still drawing on paper , then scanning in to the computer for digital ink & paint. Disney considered doing The Princess & The Frog on Cintiqs with ToonBoom Harmony, but apparently the animators and clean-up artists didn’t care for the feel of it overall (based on testing done for the Goofy short “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater” which was partially animated on Cintiq) so the word is that The Princess & the Frog is being animated and cleaned-up traditionally on paper , although the ink & paint will of course be computer assisted, as it has been since 1990 starting on The Rescuer’s Down Under.
(a few shots in The Little Mermaid were digitally inked & painted by the then new CAPS system . I remember that well. Oh, geez, now I’m starting to sound like a real “old-timer” aren’t I ? Well, let me tell you about the olden days kids … )
on 11 Aug 2008 at 2:31 pm 5.David Nethery said …
Oops. In my comments about 2D animation at Pixar I left out the mention of the (mostly) 2D short “Your Friend The Rat” as an Extra on the Ratatouille DVD.
Check out director Jim Capobianco’s blog for some behind-the-scenes on making Your Friend The Rat –
http://leoanimation.blogspot.com/2007/11/yftr-production-photos.html
on 11 Aug 2008 at 5:13 pm 6.Michael said …
Thanks for the positive news, David. I’ve already given up cels, but I still like animation and cleanup on paper, though I have to admit I’m amazed at your facility with the cintiq and TV Paint.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 7:06 pm 7.Hans Perk said …
Mike, thanks for the nice words!
Tom, that’s the camera crane I show photos of.
David, when we worked on Goofy: Home Theater, I very quickly noted that working on paper felt more “right” as long as the way of working on the Cintiq wasn’t as intuitive as the paper. I suggested several ways to do this that I had thought out years earlier, but we were stuck with an older version that crashed a lot. Some of the folks drawing also had a hard time with the smoothness of the Cintiq. The nicest part of using Cintiq-drawn animation in I&P was, though, the fact that single lines were layered and could more easily be assigned colors. Oh – and of course the UNDO. I did like Harmony – after a while. I’d have liked to help develop it more…
on 11 Aug 2008 at 8:22 pm 8.Joh said …
I’ve got an undo function in my hand-drawn animation too; it’s called an eraser… (sorry; couldn’t resist…)
on 11 Aug 2008 at 8:29 pm 9.Hans Perk said …
Joh – I was talking about an undo function in I&P, not (only) drawing… How fast can you re-ink or scrape the paint off a cell? Ok, then… Really, I am all for hand-drawn animation!
on 11 Aug 2008 at 9:05 pm 10.Thomas said …
I’m just a reader of this site and in no way am a professional, but can some one tell me what is the point with motion capture? It seems like the 21st century equivalent of Rotoscope; time consuming, expensive, and artistically worthless.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 9:36 pm 11.Tom Minton said …
Hans, that is indeed the one on display over at Disney’s. One minor glitch with the multiplane that apparently no one licked was the occasional optical distortion caused by heat rising from its many lamps. This heat wave distortion is briefly visible in certain shots in “Bambi” and during a truck in “Ben and Me”, off the top of my head, and not even cutting edge digital restoration can correct for it. Someone must develop a CGI program to replicate this in computer animation. I am kidding. And, yes, I also built a three level multiplane when I was a teenager, to shoot super 8 animation with a semblance of depth. The multiplane is not unlike Devil’s Tower, Wyoming in “Close Encounters” when it comes to inspiring hordes of individuals all over the world.
on 11 Aug 2008 at 11:07 pm 12.Joh said …
Hi Hans;
For the record, one of my first jobs, at Broadcast Arts, did involve scraping and re-inking/repainting cels; now I do most of my production digitally, and still, again, my undo function of choice is an eraser. Nothing like the detritus of pink eraser crumbs and the ultimate control of an actual (non-digital) line to keep one grounded…
Joh(n Schnall)
on 12 Aug 2008 at 6:12 am 13.slowtiger said …
Every time I read about “the death of 2D animation” I think “you don’t seem to come around much”. At least this kind of discussion seems to be restricted to feature length Hollywood blockbusters, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks – that’s all.
But there’s a whole world of filmmaking and animation outside of MoCap and Disney Classic Style, and it’s more productive than ever. Categories like paper/paperless or handdrawn/procedural become obsolete in this era of computing power for nearly everyone. And I really hope for more and longer films featuring other styles than what Disney stands for.
on 12 Aug 2008 at 7:04 am 14.Hans Perk said …
Joh – did you also, like myself, “erase” something on a Cintiq with the back of the stylus, and then try to wipe the crosshairs away with your hand? Some things become conditioned reflexes…
on 12 Aug 2008 at 10:22 am 15.David Nethery said …
“erase†something on a Cintiq with the back of the stylus, and then try
to wipe the crosshairs away with your hand?”
Ha-ha. Yes ! I have done that too .
Maybe someone could write a little script that would create virtual eraser crumbs when erasing something with the end of the stylus on the Cintiq, then when we brush the back of our hand against the screen the eraser crumbs go away . Silly, but that would be kind of fun and freaky.
on 12 Aug 2008 at 2:50 pm 16.Bill Perkins said …
I have to agree with Tim. The multiplane camera is like Devil’s Tower, Wyoming in “Close Encountersâ€. When I first saw pictures of it I was blown right out of the water.. spent weeks building my own rig. I did see the original in L.A a few years back and spent the better part of an hour just taking it in. There was no place like Disney’s in the thirties to be sure.
on 12 Aug 2008 at 8:55 pm 17.Tom Minton said …
Uh, it’s Tom, not Tim. You aren’t Lou Scheimer, are you?