3D Animation - Not Exactly The Offspring Of 2D
It is often assumed that 3D animation is a natural direct progression from 2D animation, but this is not strictly true. It is true that they are both forms of animation, but 3D animation has as much in common with what is referred to as 'stop motion' animation techniques as it does with hand drawn 2d animation. The stop motion film techniques were quite memorably used in the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts by Ray Harryhausen, but have actually been around since the very early days of film in the late 19th century.
Other famous films such as King Kong, made in 1933, made extensive use of the method. Stop motion is achieved by taking a model and filming one frame at a time, then making slight changes and filming it again. By building up frame after frame and playing it back at between 12 and 70 frames per second, the film looks like continuous movement. 3D animation uses a similar method but it is created using computers, with all the coordinates for the models being controlled by the computer.
In every 3D animation model, each feature which may move or change is called an animation variable or avar. Some characters can have almost 200 individual avars, which all need to be adjusted for each frame. The more avars a model of character has, the more lifelike it can seem. While usually restricted to cartoon characters, monsters or cartoon style humans, recently 3D animators have been striving to make lifelike human characters, and it probably won’t be too long before a full length feature film will consist solely of realistic looking and moving 'human' 3d animated actors.
The software used to create 3d animations needs to be very powerful, due to the fact that each frame needs to be rendered after it has been created. Rendering is the key to making 3d models and animations look realistic, and the difference between a good film and a great animated film usually comes down to how successfully the models have been rendered. Rendering is the process by which a simple model is brought to life by adding light and shade along with color and tones. On a 3d animation coloring is applied to each individual pixel, rather than a whole area. While this is happening, the computer needs to add depth of field and reflections, as well as take into account the effects of physics on the object. All this takes time and is extremely CPU intensive, as you might expect. Every time there is an advance in computer processing, there is a concurrent advance in 3d animation.
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