Another fact that has started to appear to me as we move
from character and environmental design is the problem of keeping consistency within
2D animation between different members of the team. The clear issue is the fact
that the skill levelsin drawing ability
affects greatly the quality of the material coming out , and that different
styles contradicts each other, making the end product a jumbled mess, not to
mention different amounts of time needed by each member to push out a products
greatly affects the overall efficiency. Therefore, 2D animation ( especially
long running-series) often limits itself to more stylized /simplistic designs
and look that may cause it to look not as “finished” as a fully-rendered 3D productions.
This is something that I , as the director of the group need to be aware and
tackle.
examples from our own project, different interpretations of the chameleon character
As an illustrator, I tend to have a
bias toward 2D as a better way of creating aesthetic and style for my
animation. But what it strives in aesthetic and character, it lacks in efficiency.
It is a known fact that 2D animation is incredibly time consuming and repetitive,
and even divided among the 3 people that is in our group, there’s still quite a
workload for everyone, considering the fact that the environment is planned to
be rendered in 2D too, as well as all the weather effects, among which is the
water which would require extra attention to get the physics correct. Right now
in the industry, there are a lot of animation studios ( especially in Japan )
using a combination of 3D and 2D in the shows, with 3D handling scenes that has
many characters or wide shots, but it tends to look very obvious or uncanny so
for our piece, we’ll keep to 2D for the entire animation.
Some quick examples from my own experience, going from making sketch to lineart to coloring the animation process is basically doing a full picture 163 times which is a ridiculous amount of work for a piece of animation that is less than 2 seconds. Hopefully , with our team we can divide load more efficiently
Throughout its existence, animation ,like many other media, serves multiple purpose. What comes to mind first is entertainment, obviously, as that is the form that most of us relate to the most . It is true that entertain could be consider the main pillar of animation, with other roots branching from it, but that is not to say it is the only one. Much like the radio, animation is communication , more importantly ,it is visual communication , which is the most powerful type, and hence it can serves and it can change the way we think in the world.
Breaking it down , one can view the purposes of animation like this :
sell – increase sales, readership, membership or number of page hits
persuade – get viewers to take action e.g. donate money, vote, join a protest (like the 'call to action' implicit in every advert)
inform - tell visitors about an event, news item, new product, service or campaign
educate – explain something complex e.g. a scientific, geological or technical process
entertain – amuse or tell a story
create a brand image – give the product or service a positive commercial identity
raise awareness – publicise a charity campaign, political or ecological issue
illustrate or decorate – provide 'eye-candy' for a page
attract attention - to get the product or service noticed and talked about
impress – to give the product a cutting- edge image as the latest must-have fashion or technology
This is what I've found to be a very appropriate and relatively sufficient list that you can equate the purposes of animation to. Within those, in my opinion , the most prominent are : to sell, to entertain , to inform and impress.
To sell should be an easy thing to imagine, as nothing in this current economy is not for sell, since we wouldn't have an industry if there is. However, one do have to look back to the past, were the first animations tools of profit? To that extent , I would say no , profit was like a bonus that came with the invention of animating tools, and if you were an inventor of said tools at that time, you obviously wouldn't just sell it off, the main objective was to attract attention and create fame for the inventor mostly. And how would you do that ? . You entertain them.
Moving on to the silent era, we began to see the rise of animation entertainment, most if not all forms of development to the art of animation were in one way or another to create a method to entertain the public, who if probably attracted would continue to donate and fund the development of more techniques and research. Animation started to diverged from just being a rotating wheel of images, to having music, a proper plot and characters, then drama, comedy ,horror etc. The target of entertainment has also diversified. Gone is the age of mass animation, you now have to think about specific age groups ( from kids to teens ) , Genre , culture and location ( Say anime and western cartoons is very different in the setting that they are played in ) to properly entertain audience form each area, even considering the quirky market like sex. We see this diversification of animation very clearly through out the decades, from the era of Disney Snow white and Aladdin musicals that tells a a happy-ending story and teaching kids morality to the dark themes of violence of anime to the meaningful anti-war and nature-loving characteristic of Miyazakis, animation as a tool of entertainment has reach a new level of complexity. Of course taking advantage of this popularity, advertising would take advantage of it as thing to sell their product, and so we have TV ads, moving signs, billboards, all born from animation's ability to communicate and entertain visually.
That is to say, advertisement is not the only thing that notice it. Political ideas can also be communicate through the form, such as propaganda or controversial matters. Take the work of Disney during WWII for example, using the beloved and popularized characters like Donald Duck to perform a satire comedy about the Nazi way of life, or just straight out criticised through exaggerated plots all serves to diminished the public's view of the Nazis and support the war.
Shows like the Boondocks use satire comedy to criticise social issues which are deem controversial like racism, terrorism. Even looking back to the past , old animation are brought up as topics of political correctness as, at the time of its creation , society was vastly different , and not for the better and it reflects in the animation produced at the time : black being described as jet black short people with big lips , or women being over sexualised and always in position of distress , waiting to be rescue. The current animation industries certainly have taken not of this, seeing how we beginning to see more strong heroine characters starring in the currents big title animations.
And finally , to impress, which I think is the very definition CGI animation , particularly in video games. When you have a wide audience with vastly different taste in artistic aesthetic, you rely on what generally everyone enjoys in seeing CGI : realism. Game designers , Artist and Programs in the gaming industries, pushes to create the best graphics possible in order the current hard-pressed audience- the more they see , the harder to impress them and the harder the artists has to push. Animation coming from big studio , now not only relies on there stories, but their visual quality, either that is the impressive CGI of Pixar, or the beautiful spaces and colour of Your Name or Spirited Away, Impression matters, else you're not gonna attract audience no more. It is dangerous however, because some individual would take this into consideration too much that the core of the animation : ie the storytelling and the pot lacks behind, or animation and effects takes to much importance in a production , such as the hotly debated CGI vs Practical effects of the movie industries and movie like Transformer being destroyed by critics and fans, even though the animation is very impressive. So it is up to the animator to find the delicate balance between them,as well as the rest of the different purposes of animation , in order to create an animation that is effective. With that said, it is only getting harder to be an animator...
As technologies advance , so will the process of producing animation. The begin of the digital age start with the invention of the computer and then the commercialisation of it paved way for many experiments to be carried with 3D graphics. The result of that process was CGI : Computer generated Images. Pioneered by John Whitley with motion control photography , CGI research spread out into multiple labs and universities. By the 1970s, the emphasis was to create a more realistic 3D image base for PCs and the interest rose even more in the 80s, when realistic 3D rendering began appearing in cinemas and by the mid 90s , CGI animation has developed to a point of being ready for a full-featured film.
A computer animated hand - 1972 : one of the earliest examples of CGI in mainstream media, used in the 1976 movie ,Futureworld
One of the biggest names in CGI animated films are Pixar - an award-winning animation studio. began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became the majority shareholder.[1] Disney purchased Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion, a transaction that resulted in Jobs becoming Disney's largest single shareholder at the time. Pixar is best known for CGI-animated feature films created with RenderMan, Pixar's own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image- rendering application program interface, used to generate high-quality images. Pixar has produced 17 feature films, beginning with Toy Story (1995)—which was the first-ever computer-animated feature film. Other giants would be , Disney and Dreamworks, both of whom has a substantial portfolio in 3D animated films, with Disney's Frozen being one of the highest grossing animation ever. Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion techniques used in traditional animation with 3D models and frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. Computer-generated animations are more controllable than other more physically based processes, constructing miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes, and because it allows the creation of images that would not be feasible using any other technology. It can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props. Also, with the demand in realism , particularly in the gaming industry, CGI development had grown significantly in that feel, hence, the most complexed and impressive CGI examples nowadays are often display within video games, rather than animation.
CGI can be simplified down as the digitized version of stop motion
Saya- a 3D CGI model highlight the technological power of modern day graphics
In most 3D computer animation systems, an animator creates a simplified representation of a character's anatomy, which is analogous to a skeleton or stick figure. The position of each segment of the skeletal model is defined by animation variables, or Avars for short. In human and animal characters, many parts of the skeletal model correspond to the actual bones, but skeletal animation is also used to animate other things, with facial features. 3D animation can diverge in many ways, some taking inspiration in Traditional form of animation from before, using keyframes, and then letting the computer do the motion in between. Some however , take advantage of new techniques like motion capture to use movement by real actors and then transfer it into a skeleton which the character be placed one. Both results in very smooth action, with the former being able to perform more exaggerated actions, and the latter portray more subtle movements to create a sense of realism. With that said of course, CGI isnt fully limited to being realistic , as many of the current animation studios like Pixar, Disney and dreams takes advantage of that realism to put in to use in a very cartoonised world. Aspects like realistic lighting , physics, and dynamic background serves to build the world and enhance the aesthetic value of it :
Zootopia
It has to be said however this only clear after several failed attempts of studios trying to create realistic portrayal for animated features in the mid 2000s like The Polar express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol, with most of them being criticized as being creepy as they were trying to make characters look realistic, yet reached only around 2/3 of the way.
CGI of course isnt only refering to the 3D animation alone but can applied to the whole digitization process of traditional animations. Papers, pegs and brushes are now replaced with wacom tablets and animation software that enhance the animator's ability drastically , thanks to its edit ability and accurate measurement. Also , VFX can now be applied freely to enhance the animation to a different level, which is very prominent now in modern anime
particles effects added post animation production
blurring function creating depth to the scenes
Overall the invention of CGI has drastically enhanced the process of animation , both technically and visually , creating a faster more efficient way to animate all the while producing better results. But one can argue that much like with any other form of technologies, the process has made animation lose some of it artistic, hand-made aspects. However, hidden gems like studio Ghibli still persists and proves to us that while CGI will probably dominate everything , animation at is core still lies in the creative mind of the animator and the tip of the pencil. With that said. you do have to appreciate it, and Ghibli of course has dip their feet in a little
In princess Mononoke , the monster is CGI while the background is hand-painted
