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.
5

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

10

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

19

Animating the face by

Motion capture data
Using musculoskeletal models

21

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.

22

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

27

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

28

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

37

Tradigital and cel-shaded

Realistic Human Modeling

39

40

41

Adding Texture and Color

42

Final

43

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.

48

Keyframing
Traditional animation technique
Dependent on artist to generate key frames
Additional, inbetween frames are drawn automatically by computer

49

Keyframing

How are we going to interpolate?

50

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

51

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
2

Keyframes

Animation

52

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

53

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

54

Frame-by-Frame Animationcont
Inbetween facial drawings

Keyframe examples
2 frames drawn by user

Inbetween frames generated by computer

56

Final Animation

57

58

Linear Interpolation

Simple, but discontinuous velocity

59

Nonlinear Interpolation

Smooth ball trajectory and continuous velocity, but loss of timing

60

Easing
Ease-In

Ease-Out

Adjust the timing of the inbetween frames. Can be automated

by adjusting the stepsize of parameter, t.

61

Style or
Accuracy?
Interpolating time
captures accuracy
of velocity
Squash and stretch
replaces motion
blur stimuli and
adds life-like
intent

62

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

63
Thomas and Johnson

More squash and stretch

64

Anticipation
and Staging
Dont surprise the
audience
Direct their
attention to whats
important

65

staging

Follow Through
Audience likes to see resolution of action
Discontinuities are unsettling

67

Combined

68

Secondary Motion
Characters should exist in a real environment
Extra movements should not detract

69

70

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)

71

72

Motion Capture Example

73

74

Examples
Sports video games
Madden Football

Many movie characters

Phantom Menace

Cartoons

75

Motion Capture Strengths

Exactly captures the motions of the actor
Michael Jordans video game character will capture his style

Easy to capture data

76

Motion Capture Weaknesses

Noise, noise, noise!
Magnetic system inteference
Visual system occlusions
Mechanical system mass
Tethered (wireless is available now)

77

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

78

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

79

Movies
Animating Aliens
Retargeting Motion

80

81

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

82

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

83

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

84

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

86

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

87

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

88

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

89

The final scene

90

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

91

Questions?

92

THANK YOU!

93