Role Of 3d Animators In Motion Capture Film Studies Essay

Role Of 3d Animators In interrogative gravel Film Studies EssayIn the world of upcoming technologies and innovations it has beseem hard for traditional techniques to withstand. Same is the case here in legal injury of 3d life history which is become an integral part of the carry industry here for a long time and the exertion bring forth which is upcoming and is here to stay. relocation capture being the favourite of every full of life body process scene director is gaining attention in the film industry.In producing entire birth films with Computer animation, the industry is currently split between studio apartment apartments that use apparent motion Capture, and studios that do not. Out of the three nominees for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, ii of the nominees (Monster House and the winner Happy Feet) apply Motion Capture, and only Pixars Cars was animated with bulge out Motion Capture. In the ending credits of Pixars latest film Ratatouille, a stamp appears labelling the film as 100% Pure Animation No Motion CaptureFor 3D animations, objects be built on the estimator monitor and 3D figures atomic number 18 rigged with a virtual skeleton. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc.of the figure atomic number 18 travel by the animator on key entraps. The differences in appearance between key frames be automatically calculated by the computing device. To gain more assert of the interpolation, a parameter curve editor is available in the majority of the 3D animation packages. The parameter curve editor shows a graphical theatrical performance of the variation of a parameters value over time (the animation curve). Altering the shape of the curve results into a change in interpolation and in that locationfore into a change in the speed of deed. By changing the interpolation it is possible to avoid surface interpenetration (such as fingers intersecting all(prenominal) other) when transitioning from one perish shape to the next. The reliableism of keyframe animations depends largely on the animators ability to set believe keyframe ( existent hand shapes) and on his ability to control the interpolation between the keyframe i.e., the speed and liquidity of social deceasement. Rendering takes place in the animation finally.History of 3D animationIn the course of study 1824 Peter Roget presented his paper The persistence of vision with regard to mournful objects to the British Society. In 1831 Dr.Joseph Antoine Plateau (a Belgian scientist) and Dr.Simon Rittrer constructed a machine called a phenakistoscope. This machine produced an illusion of the movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows behind the windows was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images micturated an animated effect. Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic meeting place of anim als in motion. Zoetrope (series of sequential images in a revolving drum) when the drum is revolved the slits in the drum urinates the illusion of motion and becomes maiden movie- similarly film creates this illusion by having one image then black then image then black again. Thaumatrope twirl it and the two images superimpose on apiece other. Two frame animation.In 1887 Thomas Edison started his research work into motion pictures. He announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft aloofness of film in approximately 13 seconds. Emile Renynaud in 1892 combining his earlier creations of the praxinoscope with a projector opens the Theatre Optique in the Musee Grevin. It displays an animation of images painted on long strips of celluloid. Louis and Augustine Lumiere issued a tangible for a device called motion-picture photography capable of projecting moving pictures. Thomas Armat designed the vitascope which projected the films of Thomas Edison. This machine had a major influence on all sub-sequent projectors. J.Stuart Blackton made the kickoff animated film which he called Humorous phases of Funny faces in 1906. His method was to draw cockeyedal faces on a blackboard and film them. He would close off the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face. The stopmotion provided a starting effect as the facial expressions changed before the viewers eyes. Emile Cohl makes En Route the first cut-out animation. This technique saves time by not having to redraw each new cell, only reposition the paper. Winsor McCay produced an animation sequence using his comic strip caliber Little Nemo. John R Bray applies for a patent on numerous techniques for animation. One of the most revolutionary is the process of stamp the backgrounds of the animation. In 1914 Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called Gertie. The trained Dinosaur which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings.In 1914 Earl Hurd applies for a patent for the techniq ue of drawing the animated portion of an animation on a clear celluloid sheet and afterwards photographing it with its matching background (Cell animation).Cell and Paper Animation TechniqueBy the mid-1910s animation production in US already dominated by the techniques of cell and paper. Cell animation was more popularized in the States than in Europe because ofAssembly line Taylorism that had interpreted America by storm. Cell Animation was most appropriate to the assembly-line style of manufacturing because it took a whole line of persons working on very specific and simple repetitious duties. On the other hand, in Europe where the assembly-line style of work was not encouraged, clay animation and other forms of animation that required only a a few(prenominal) individuals working on the set at a time was more popularized. Because the actual set could only afford a limited amount of individuals working at one time unitedly and no more this style and other alternative forms of animation became more widely accepted. Disney-cell animation draw each image one at a time using onion-skinning technique.Traditional cell animation drawings created one by one animators create the keyframe and assistances create in-betweens onion skinning process use to make easier the reference drawing of each additional image.The international feature Syndicate realised many titles including Silk Hat Harry, Bringing up Father and Krazy Kat. In 1923 the first feature-length animated film called El Apostol is created in Argentina. 1923 saw the discovery of Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by Walt and Roy Disney. Walt Disney extended Max Fleischers technique of combining live action with cartoon characters in the film Alices Wonderland. Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer which introduced combined sound and images. Ken Knowlton working at Bell Laboratories started ontogeny computer techniques for producing animated movies. University of Utah, Ed Catmull develops an animation scripting language and creates an animation of a smooth shaded hand. Ref E.Catmull,A system for computer generated movies, Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. Beier and Neely, at SGI and PDI on an individual basis smother an algorithm where line correspondences guide morphing between 2d images.Demo is Michael Jacksons video Black and White.Ref T.Beier and S.Neely,Feature-Based image metamorphosis. Computer Graphics July 1992.Chen and Williams at the apple publish a paper on view interpolation for 3d walkthoughs.Ref S.E.Chen and L.Williams,View Interpolation for image Systhensis. Computer Graphics Proceeding, Annual Conference Series1993. Jurassic Park uses CG for realistic living creatures. The stars of this movie directed by Steven Spielberg were the realistic looking and moving 3d-dinosaurs, created by Industrial Light and Magic. With each new step into the next propagation of computer graphics comes new and more believable CGI characters such as those found in D inosaur. In Dinosaur the creation and implementation of realistic digital sensory hair on the lemurs is included. After seeing it, George Lucas, director of the Star War series, concluded the time was there to start working on his new Star Wars movies. In his opinion 3d-animation was now advanced enough to believably create the alien worlds and characters he already wanted to make since the early late seventies.In the socio-economic class 1995 Toy Story the first full length 3D CG feature film. The first CGI feature-length animation and Pixars first feature film. The primary characters are toys in the direction of this six- course of instruction-old boy Andy, and is mostly told from their point of view. On entrance of computers and 3d compulsive software feature length films of high polish usher out be created just about in 3d. Toy Story is considered to be a first animated feature ever generated completely on computers. Disney and Pixar partnered up to create this film. Star Wars, most every shot of this movie is enhancing with 3d-animation. It features very realistic 3d-aliens and environment. Lord of the Rings Two Towers was the first Photorealistic motion captured character for a film Gollum was similarly the first digital musician to win an award (BFCA), category created for Best Digital Acting Performance.MOTION CAPTUREMotion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of arranging movement and translating that movement onto a digital model. For medical practical applications and for validation of computer vision and robotics, and it is used in military, entertainment, sports too. To recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2d and 3d computer animation is how it is termed in film making. Performance capture is referred when it includes face, fingers and captures subtle expressions. Movements of one or more actors are sampled many times per second, altho ugh with most techniques motion capture records only the movements of the actor, not his/her visual appearance, in motion capture sessions. This animation data is mapped to a 3d model so that the model performs the resembling actions as the actor.Although there are many different systems for capturing motion capture data, they tend to fall broadly into two different categoriesOne contains optical systems, which employ photogrammetry to establish the position of an object on 3D musculus quadriceps femoris establish on its observed location deep down the 2d fields of a number of tv cameras. Data is produced by these systems within 3 degrees freedom from each marker, and rotational information must be inferred from the relative orientation of the sensors with respect to a transmitter. Collecting of motion data from an image without using photogrammetry or magnetised equipment is referred to as motion tracking.In The Lord of the Rings in 1978, animated film where the visual appear ance of the motion of an actor was filmed, then the film used a guide for the frame by frame motion of a hand-drawn animated character the technique is comparable to the older technique of rotoscope. The camera movements can also be motion captured so that a virtual camera in the scene lead pan, tilt, or dolly around the stage driven by a camera operator, while the actor is performing and the motion capture the camera and props as well as the actors performance. By doing this, it allows the computer generated characters, images and sets, to have the same perspective as the video images and sets, to have the same perspective as the video images from the camera. The actors movements are displayed through the computer process, providing the desired camera positions terms of the objects in the set. Match moving or camera tracking is referred to retroactively obtaining camera movement data from the captured footage.History of MocapThe mocap technology of the modern twenty-four hours ha s been developed by the led in the medical recognition, army, and computer generated imagery (CGI) where it is used for a wide variety of purposes. Mocap had successful attempts long before the computer technology had become available.Early attemptsThe invention of zoopraxiscope was because a of a bet of $25,000 on whether all four feet of a horse leave the ground simultaneously or not. Endeared Muybridge (1830-1904) who invented the zoopraxiscope was born in England and became a popular landscape photographer in San Francisco. Muybridge proved the fact that all four feet of a trotting horse simultaneously get off the ground. He did so by capturing a horses movement in a sequence of photographs taken with a set of one xii cameras trigged by the horses feet. The earlier motion capture devices are considered to be zoopraxiscope. This technology was perfected by Muybridge himself. His books, Animals in motion (1899) and The Human Figures in Motion (1901) are still used by many artist s, such as animators, cartoonists, illustrators, painters as valuable references. Muybridge is a pioneer of a mocap and motion pictures.In the same course of instruction a physiologist and the inventor of a portable sphygmograph was born in France and his name is Etienne Jules Marey. Sphygmograph is an instrument that records the pulse and blood pressure graphically. Modified versions of his instruments are still used today.Marey met Muybridge in Paris in the year 1882 and is the following year he invented the chronophotographic gun to record animal locomotion but quickly abandoned it, this invention was inspired by Muybridges work. He invented a chronophotographic fixed-plate camera with a timed shutter that allowed him to expose multiple images on a plate in the same year. The camera initially captured images on a glass plate but later he replaced glass plates with film paper, by this mien film strips where introduced to the motion picture. Mareys subject wearing his mocap suit shows striking resemblances to skeletal mocap data in the photographs. Research subjects of Marey included cardiology, experimental physiology, instruments in physiology, and locomotion of humans, animals, birds, and insects. Marey used one camera in motion capture comparing to Muybridge who used multiple cameras.After the year in which Muybridge and Marey passed away Harold Edgerton was born in Nebraska. In the early mid-twenties Edgreton developed his photographic skills as a student while he studied at the University of Nebraska. While working on his masters degree galvanizing engineering at the Massachusetts in 1926 at the Institute of Technology(MIT), he realized that he couldnt observe the a part of his force back which is rotating as if the motor were turned off by matching the frequency of the strobes flashes to the speed of the motors rotation. Stroboscope was developed to freeze fast moving objects and capture them on film by Edgerton in 1913. Edgreton became a pioneer in high-speed photography.The first successful underwater camera in 1937 was designed by Edgreton and made many trips foreign the research vessel Calypso with French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau. The design and building of deep sea flash electronic equipment in 1954 was done by him. Edgreton passes away in 1990 where his long career as an educator and researcher at MIT.RotoscopingMax Fleisher and art editor for Popular Science Montly who was born in Vienna in 1883 who moved to the U.S with his family, he came up with an idea of producing animation by tracing live action film frame by frame. Fleisher filmed David his brother, in the year 1915 in a clown costume and they spent almost a year making their first animation using rotoscope. He obtained a patent for rotoscope in 1917.In the year 1918 when World War I ended he produced the first animation in the Out of the Inkwell series and he also established Out of the Inkwell,Inc.,which was later renamed as Fleischer Studio. In this series the animation and the live action was mixed and Fleischer himself interacted with animation characters, Koko the clown and Fitz the dog. Before Disneys Steamboat Willie, in the year 1924 thats 4 years before he had a synchronised soundtrack. Characters such as Popeye and Superman were all animated characters from Fleischers studio. Betty Boop first appeared in Fleischers animation and later became a comic strip character. In 30s early animations were filled with sexual humour, ethnic jokes, and gags. When the Hays Production Code (censorship) laws became effective in 1934 it affected Fleischer studio more than other studios. Betty Boop lost her garters and sex appeal as a result.After almost after 4 years of production Walt Disney presented the first feature length animation, Snow White and Seven Dwarfs. Snow White was a huge success. The distributer of Fleischers animation preponderating pressured Max and David Fleischer to produce feature length animations. The two feature films Gullivers Travel (1939) and Mr. Bugs Goes to Town (1941) were produced by the money borrowed from Paramount. Both of the films were a disaster in the box office. The failure of Mr. Bug made Paramount fire the Fleischer brothers and changed the studios name from Famous Studios. Max Fleischer sued Paramount over the distribution of his animations. He signed a Betty Boop merchandising deal for King Features, a whole of the Hearst Corporation before he died in the year 1972.The use of Rotoscoping can be seen in the Disney animations, starting with Snow White. Later Disney animations characters were highly stylized and Rotoscoping became a method for studying human and animal motions. Comparison between film footages and the corresponding scenes in the animations reveals skilful and selective use of Rotoscoping by Disney animators. They went above and beyond Rotoscoping. Snow Whites can be attributed to Walt Disneys detailed attention to the plot, character development and artistr y.Both Max Fleischer and Walt Disney were highly innovative individuals however, it is said true that Disneys memory belongs to the existence Maxs to those who remember him by choice (Herald son, 1975).Beginning of Digital MocapIn the 1970s the research and development of digital mocap technology started in pursuit of medical and military applications. In 1980s CGI industry discovered the technologys potentials. In the 1980s there were floppy disks that were actually floppy and most computers were equipped with monochrome monitors some with calligraphical displays. To view color images, for example reelected animation frames, images had to be sent to a frame buffer, which was often shared by multiple users due to its cost. Large computers were housed in ice cold server rooms. Offices were files with the noise of dot matrix printers. In the 1980s ray tracing and radiocity algorithms were published. Based on these algorithms renderers required a supercomputer or workstations to ren der animations frames in a reasonable amount of time. Personnel computers werent powerful enough. CPUs, memories, storage devices, and applications were more expensive than today. Wavefront technologies developed and marketed the first commercial of the shelf 3D computer animation software in 1985. At that time only a handful of animation production companies existed. Most of the animations that they produced were flying boy for TV commercials or TV programmes opening sequences. The pieces were 15 to 30 seconds long. In the 1980s the readers who saw Brilliance probably still remember the astonishment of seeing a computer generated character, a smart female robot, moving like a real human being.Brilliance being the first successful application of mocap technology in CGI,Total Recall was the first failed attempt to use mocap in a feature film. The post production companies contracted to produce effects for the 1990 science fiction film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Ston e, Metrolight Studio being one of them. Metrolight decided to use mocap to create an animation sequence of moving skeletons for the scene in which Schwarzeneggers character goes through a large airport security X-ray machine, along with other people and a dog. Operator from an optical mocap equipment participation was sent out to a location with mocap system. A team from metrolight followed the operators instruction while capturing performances by Schwarzenegger and other performers. They went home believing that the capture session had gone well and the mocap company would deliver the mocap data after cleaning and processing. What so ever metrolight never received usable data and had to give up using mocap for the scene.Metrolights unfortunate pay back teaches us one lesson that we should hire only a service provider with a good track record and references.In 1995 FX Fighters released its first real-time rubbish with 3D characters in 3D environments. Its also one of the first vi deo seconds that used mocap technology to give realism to 3D characters movements. By the user remark using a set of motion captured actions, game characters are animated in real time. The pieces of actions are played in such a way that the player does not notice the transition from one action to another giving an impression that the player is fully in control of a game characters movement. Seeing the success of the game, other game companies were encouraged to use mocap in their games.In the 1980s and 1990s these pioneering efforts have shown remarkable development and achievement in digital mocap. In the recent years, in addition to medicine, and entertainment, mocap applications have been found in many other fields. Mocap is used by various sports to analyze and raise the athletes performances and prevent injuries. Designers use mocap to understand users movements, constrains, and interactions with environments and to design better products. Mocap is used by engineers to analy ze human movements and design robots that walk like us. Mocap is also used by art historians and educators to archive and study performances by dancers and actors. For instance, in 1991 an intricate performance by legendary French mime Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) was captured at the Ohio State University to refer his arts for future generations.3D ANIMATION PRODUCTION PIPELINESales pitchConvincing the big jobs to work on the story.Story plot substantiality summaryWhat the films about, what happens in it and extra variations that may or may not appear in the final product.StoryboardsBasic sketches of the scenes.(Time usually taken = 6 months) percentage recordingAt first the artists themselves do the voice acting to put a connection from the story board to the script to give an idea of the film, later on celebrities are paid to be the character voices.Storyboard reelPictures in a timescale with voice recordings playing in conjunction, basically a really basic film.Concept artArtist s try to create the look and feel of the scenery and the characters from the scripts, voice talent and the basic drawings, the artists get first crack at how inflammation sets the mood tooModellingThe characters, props and landscape have started to be created in 3d hinges have been added to them to give them movement. Everything is still in frame form, no textures have been added yet (think skeletons).DressingThe models and props are skinned according to the mood and feel the team wants for the film to portray.Shot layoutThe Basically skinned objects and characters are set into positions to work out camera angles and movement, nothing is truly animated or skinned yet, the recordings of these final cuts are passed onto the animation team.(Time Usually taken = 4 weeks)AnimationThe models are animated, everything such as the skeleton is already there so they are basically choreographers (think puppeteers). They move the mouth and ligaments according to the sounds and the scripts.(Time usually taken 4 weeks)Shadingshading changes surfaces according to the lighting on it, it affects the models colour depending on the lighting situation e.g. light bouncing off a shiny metal surface is successfully done thanks to a shader. Shaders are added to the landscapes, models and props.LightingLighting is added to the scenes, Lighting is what actually makes everything look great. Lighting is based on the mood scripts.(Time usually taken = 8 weeks)RenderingThe final product is rendered this can take a hell of a lot of time to render one frame depending on the quality of the graphics put into.Touch-upsThings such as music scores, special effects and sound effects are added, the film is also recorded to an appropriate format.MOTION CAPTURE PRODUCTION PIPELINEPre-ProductionStoryboard development Shot analysisIt is important to work out exactly what action is needed at this stage, plus any restrictions which may impede the actor. There are several factors which need to be address edDoes the actors size correspond to that of the character.Should the actor have any props, or costume (for example having the actor where horns for your demon character in your mocap session, will prevent the arms going through the horns at the implementing stage) The spatial surrounding should be a factor.Will the motion need to be blended (e.g. A running motion, as the motion capture studio will only capture a fragment of the run).Character RiggingDevelop a character rig, which involves the followingMatching the actors size as overmuch as possible.Constraining the joints.Problems may include exporting out of your animation package into the correct format (e.g. .xsi into fbx) Several different export formats should be tested to realize which suites best with the character rig (e.g. .bvh, .fbx, etc).Actual Motion CapturedThis can be viewed on a rig in real time. There are several different forms of Motion Capture devices. The most commonly used areMechanical, Optical, and Electrom agnetic (magnetic)Cleaning DataThis involves several data manipulators being apply to the motion capture data. In optical motion capture systems, for example, after you capture the movements of your actors, the data is stored as raw 2D data. Reconstruction process will convert it into continuous 3D trajectories. Label process will label all the trajectories and so on. Additional processing may be needed when there are data gaps, jitters and other data-noises.Implementing dataThis is simply the process of applying your data to your skeleton rig provided at the initial stages. There can be several problems at this stage depending on the formats and animation package chosen. For example there is an issue with UVs, materials, scaling etc. It is suggested you follow each package furrow to minimize these issues.APPLICATIONS OF MOTION CAPTUREThe process of recording movement and translating that movement onto a digital model is called as motion capture, motion tracking or mocap. Its appl ications are used in the military, entertainment, sports, medical applications and for validation of computer vision and robotics etc.GamesThe largest market for motion capture is game development. Games are drawing as much revenue as movies it is easy to see why game development often calls for enormous quantities of motion capture. There are basically two types of 3d character animation used in games real time playback vs. Cinmeatics. Real-time allows the game player to choose from pre-created moves, by controlling the characters moves in real-time. Cinmeatics are the fully rendered movies used for the intros and cut-scenes. Often the last part of game production, or a process that is sub-contracted to a separate studio,cinematics are generally not indispensable to game-play, but do add a lot of appeal to the game, and champion immensely with story development and mood generation.Video and TVPerformance animationIn live television broadcasts real-time motion is becoming popular. Using motion capture we can place a virtual character within a real scene, or to place live actors within a virtual scene with virtual actors, or virtual characters with a virtual scene.For real time broadcasting mocap requires mocap-up of any non-standard physiology to keep the performers motion from causing the characters limbs to interpenetrate its body. Joints limits on the shoulders and knees also help maintain believability of the character. A real-time edition feature such as motion builders real-time motion mapping is essential when the character body is very different from the actors body. While combining live elements with virtual elements the real and virtual cameras must share the same properties otherwise the illusion looks strange.Daily featuresProducing daily 3d animated features becomes easy with use of the phasespace optical motion capture system combined with motionbuilder.,allowing TV stations to keep their content fresh and exiciting,and giving viewers yet anot her reason not to touch that dial.Post-Production for ongoing seriesusing motion capture for ongoing series is gaining popularity. The result of creatinga weekly show without motion capture perpetually causes shows to be late or production studios to go bankrupt. Having an efficient motion capture pipeline is essential to the success of an ongoing character animation based series.FilmThe use of motion capture in the films is increasing day by day. For creating character based animation motion capture is essential that move realistically, in situations that would be impractical or too dangerous for real actors.eg. Titanic were characters falling down off the ship. Motion capture was used extensively in Titanic for filler characters. Many of these shots would have been difficult or impossible to do with real cameras and a real ship, or real models, so virtual models, actors, and cameras were used. Some film characters require the use of motion capture, otherwise their animation seems fake. More and more independent companies are starting to put together desktop studios-the idea of two or three people creating an entire movie are not far off, if motion capture is used correctly. Motion capture animation can be done very quickly and inexpensively, without scheduling expensive motion capture sessions in a studio.WebMotion capture is ideal for the meshing, whether used to create virtual hosts or greeting cards. Motion capture brings a human element to the web as the web becomes more sophisticated and bandwidth increases, in the form of characters that viewers can relate to interact with.Live eventsMotion capture generated performance animation can be thought of as Improvisation meets Computer Graphics (CG). A good improviser acting through a CG character in real-time can create a very intriguing lass sting experience for the viewer at trade shows, meetings or press conferences. Integrating with live actors father helps create a fascinating experience.Scientific re searchWhile doing perceptual research motion capture is useful. By presenting test subjects with abstract movements, distilled from motion capture data, quotable experiments can be developed that provide insights into human perception.Biomechanical analysisMotion capture is relied by biomechanical analysis for rehabilitation purposes. Motion capture can be used to measure the extent of a clients disability as well as a clients progress with rehabilitation. Motion capture can also help in effective design of prosthetic devices.EngineeringFor producing ergonomically practical product designs motion capture is essential, as well as designs for physical products that are favourable and appealing. When it comes to working in an enclosed space, the gypsy has tremendous advantages over optical or magnetic systems, such as a car inter