Process and Production - A brief History of ... Digital Fluidity, specifically HAIR!
One thing of 3D Digital animation was that its fluidity, initially was very stiff and lifeless, borderline robotic, not only in the animation but also in its character design. A prominent example i feel was the 'Jimmy Neutron' cartoon series. It was an 3D animated series airing in the noughts on Nickelodeon, about a boy genius and the misadventures he got up to with his friends and inventions. i found the characters movements and designs at this early stage of animation very jarring, as the characters looked neither appealing or human with very dodgy body motions. The most frustrating thing i look back on is probably the fact that the hair looks and acted like it had been dipped into hair gel then blow dried so that it would move in a rigid fashion or not move at all. It looked so unnatural with out secondary and overlapping actions happening they remind me very much of dolls, very creepy dolls because the shading process was very off as well with dramatic and dark shadows which added to the creepy feel.This is something that has been thoroughly worked on in more recent animations. An early attempt to remedy the problem was Pixars short 'Geri's Game'. This animation was actually before Jimmy Neutron but worked towards the practice of fluid life like movements in the cloth and clothes of Geri the old man.
Obviously these practices were not taken on by Nickelodeon resulting in the very rigid story. But what i want to draw more attention to about the evolution of hair and cloth is the character animation in films such as Tangled and Brave by Disney. Both films were 3D animation and featured to girls with very interesting hair physics. Rapunzel from Tangled had lucious long locks that had a glisten making her feel alive with her hair shifting and moving into different shapes and the weight of the hair being portrayed quite prominently. The lighting as well, was warm and soft to fit the scene with more subtle shadows in comparison to the harsh ones presented above, all of this makes the character and the world feel more real and less violently cartoony with primary colours taken out for a wider variety of soft shades and hues. I also want to mention Brave because of Meridas hair, which was animated using thousands of individual models of hair strands over the course of three years resulting in the most flowing and wild hair that moved with the actions of Merida very reminiscent of the old traditional animations.
One thing of 3D Digital animation was that its fluidity, initially was very stiff and lifeless, borderline robotic, not only in the animation but also in its character design. A prominent example i feel was the 'Jimmy Neutron' cartoon series. It was an 3D animated series airing in the noughts on Nickelodeon, about a boy genius and the misadventures he got up to with his friends and inventions. i found the characters movements and designs at this early stage of animation very jarring, as the characters looked neither appealing or human with very dodgy body motions. The most frustrating thing i look back on is probably the fact that the hair looks and acted like it had been dipped into hair gel then blow dried so that it would move in a rigid fashion or not move at all. It looked so unnatural with out secondary and overlapping actions happening they remind me very much of dolls, very creepy dolls because the shading process was very off as well with dramatic and dark shadows which added to the creepy feel.This is something that has been thoroughly worked on in more recent animations. An early attempt to remedy the problem was Pixars short 'Geri's Game'. This animation was actually before Jimmy Neutron but worked towards the practice of fluid life like movements in the cloth and clothes of Geri the old man.
Obviously these practices were not taken on by Nickelodeon resulting in the very rigid story. But what i want to draw more attention to about the evolution of hair and cloth is the character animation in films such as Tangled and Brave by Disney. Both films were 3D animation and featured to girls with very interesting hair physics. Rapunzel from Tangled had lucious long locks that had a glisten making her feel alive with her hair shifting and moving into different shapes and the weight of the hair being portrayed quite prominently. The lighting as well, was warm and soft to fit the scene with more subtle shadows in comparison to the harsh ones presented above, all of this makes the character and the world feel more real and less violently cartoony with primary colours taken out for a wider variety of soft shades and hues. I also want to mention Brave because of Meridas hair, which was animated using thousands of individual models of hair strands over the course of three years resulting in the most flowing and wild hair that moved with the actions of Merida very reminiscent of the old traditional animations.
No comments:
Post a Comment