David Brogan

• Learn more about graphics and animation
– Read and present SIGGRAPH papers
• Be aware of state of the art research
– Cover much of Parent’s animation text
• Understand fundamental techniques
– Learn by doing – programming assignments

• Introduction to computer graphics
– Knowledge of textbook fundamentals
• OpenGL programming
– Use the computer as a tool to quickly build graphical applications
• Curiosity
– Class participation is required and the assignments will be dynamic

• teach how to use canned software
– We won’t learn Maya or Photoshop
• require artistic skills
• focus on film making or animated cartoons
– Though we occasionally turn to these fields for insight and motivation

• Virtual cameras
– Transformations
– Perspective
• Photorealism
– Decent lighting models
– Polygonal rendering
• Geometry algorithms
– Line/Plane equations
– Intersection computations

Among the studies of natural causes and laws, it is light that most delights its students.
Among all the great branches of mathematics, the certainty of its demonstrations pre-eminently elevates the minds of its investigators. Perspective, therefore, should be preferred above all man’s discourses and disciplines. In this subject the visual rays are elucidated by means and demonstrations which derive their glory nor only from mathematics but also from physics; the one is adorned equally with the flowers of the other.
Leonardo da Vinci (1400’s) quoting John Pecham (1200’s)

• There are some who look at the things produced by nature through glass, or other surfaces or transparent veils. They trace outlines on the surface of the transparent medium… But such an invention is to be condemned in those who do not know how to portray things without it, no how to reason about nature with their minds… They are always poor and mean in every invention and in the composition of narratives, which is the final aim of this science
Leonardo da Vinci

• More realistic modeling and lighting
• Non photorealistic rendering
• Animation
• Optimization
• Perception

• What do you think this course should be about?

• Ideas from
• Video games
• Movie special effects
• Computer animated films
• Office of the future
• Video screens everywhere
• Ubiquitous computing

• Curves
• Morphing/Warping
• Kinematics/Inverse kinematics
• Physical simulation
• Particle systems
• Implicit surfaces

• Natural phenomena (plants, water, gas)
• Modeling and animating articulated characters
– Facial animation
– Motion capture

• Evolving Virtual Creatures
• Clouds
• Spacetime Constraints
• Artificial Fishes
• Tour Into the Picture
• Virtual Cinematographer
• Virtual Reality
• Others…

• Movie special effects
– The “Making Of” movies
• Traditional film making
• Traditional animation

• Build a curve editor / surface modeler
• Motion capture blending

• Plant modeling

• Particle system
• Physical simulation control systems

• Inverse kinematics of reaching arm
• Implement SIGGRAPH paper
– Tour Into the Picture
– Cloud Modeling

• Rick Parent – Computer Animation
• Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson - Disney
Animation: The Illusion of Life
• Alan Watt and Mark Watt - Advanced Animation and Rendering Techniques
• Edward Dmytryk - On Film Editing
• Martin Kemp – Science of Art
• Donald Bourg – Physics for Game Developers

Projects
Midterm
Final
Presentations
Critiques
Class Participation
40%
15%
15%
10%
10%
10%

• Modeling perception really matters for computer animation
– We can’t rely on four-hundred years of perception research by artists
– The best we have is eighty years of Disney
• In 1550, after 100 years of refining the art of perspective drawing, artists were shocked to think that the geometric purity of their modeled world didn’t map to recent discoveries of the human eye. They couldn’t even imagine how cognition affected what one “saw.” 200 more years would pass.

• Positive afterimage (persistence of vision)
– the visual stimulus that remains after illumination has changed or been removed
• Motion blur
– Persistence of vision causes an object to appear to be multiple places at once

• Virtual camera in computer graphics usually shoots with infinitely small shutter speed
– No motion blur results
• Without motion blur, 30 fps results in fast moving objects that look like they are strobing , or hopping
– Would CG instantaneous snapshots produce motion blur if played at 300 fps?

• Playback rate
– The number of samples displayed per second
• Sample rate
– The number of different images per second
TV Cartoon
TV Sitcom
CG Lipsync on film
Playback
Rate
30
30
24
Sample Rate
6
30 (on fields)
12

• First Animation
– 1896, Georges Melies, moving tables
– 1900, J. Stuart Blackton, added smoke
• First celebrated cartoonist
– Winsor McCay
– Little Nemo (1911)
– Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

• 1910, Bray and Hurd
– Patented translucent cels (formerly celluloid was used, but acetate is used now) used in layers for compositing
– Patented gray-scale drawings (cool!)
– Patented using pegs for registration
(alignment) of overlays
– Patented the use of large background drawings and panning camera

• Max Fleischer – Betty Boop
• Paul Terry – Terrytoons
• George Stallings – Tom and Jerry
• Walter Lantz – Woody Woodpecker
• 1915, Fleischer patented rotoscoping
– Drawing images on cells by tracing over previously recorded live action (MoCap)
• 1920, color cartoons

• Advanced animation more than anyone else
– First to have sound in 1928, Steamboat
Willie
– First to use storyboards
– First to attempt realism
– Invented multiplane camera

• Camera is mounted above multiple planes
• Each plane holds an animation cel
• Each plane can translate freely on 3 axes
• What is this good for?
Zooming, moving foreground characters off camera, parallax, prolonged shutter allows blurring some layers
(motion blur)

• Willis O’Brien – King Kong
• Ray Harryhausen – Mighty Joe Young
• Nick Park – Wallace and Grommit
• Tim Burton – Nightmare Before
Christmas