History of computer animation: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:29, 15 August 2024

Revision as of 15:55, 12 December 2024

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===Motion-capture, photorealism, and uncanny valley===

The first mainstream cinema film fully made with [[motion-capture]] was the 2001 Japanese-American ''[[Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within]]'' directed by [[Hironobu Sakaguchi]], which was also the first to use photorealistic CGI characters.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20051121073232/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997597,00.html ''Cinema: A Painstaking Fantasy''] Chris Taylor, Time, July 31, 2000 (retrieved August 8, 2012).</ref> The film was not a box-office success.<ref>[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=finalfantasy.htm ''Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within''] at Box Office Mojo (retrieved August 12, 2012).</ref> Some commentators have suggested this may be partly because the lead CGI characters had facial features whichthat fell into the "[[uncanny valley]]".<ref>The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3-D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot's human likeness.</ref> In 2002, Peter Jackson's ''[[The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'' was the first feature film to use a realtime motion-capture system, which allowed the actions of actor [[Andy Serkis]] to be fed direct into the 3-D CGI model of [[Gollum]] as it was being performed.<ref>Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic, a 2003 memoir by British actor Andy Serkis</ref>

Motion capture is seen by many as replacing the skills of the animator, and lacking the animator's ability to create exaggerated movements that are impossible to perform live. The end credits of [[Pixar]]'s film ''[[Ratatouille (film)|Ratatouille]]'' (2007) carry a stamp certifying it as "100% Pure Animation — No Motion Capture!" However, proponents point out that the technique usually includes a good deal of adjustment work by animators as well. Nevertheless, in 2010, the US Film Academy ([[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|AMPAS]]) announced that motion-capture films will no longer be considered eligible for "Best Animated Feature Film" Oscars, stating "Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique."<ref>[http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2010/20100708.html "Rules Approved for 83rd Academy Awards"], AMPAS Press Release, July 8, 2010 (retrieved August 8, 2012)</ref><ref>[https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/10/performance-capture-animation "Tintin and the dead-eyed zombies"], by Prospero, The Economist, October 31, 2011 (retrieved August 8, 2012)</ref>