Final
Portfolio
Kip Atkinson
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Table of Contents
Reflection Essay ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Animation: 2D vs. 3D..................................................................................................................................... 4
A Brothers Love ........................................................................................................................................... 11
Fluffy White Foe .......................................................................................................................................... 16
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Reflection Essay
By Kip Atkinson
Professor Dursema
English 1010
1-May-2011
Reflection Essay
I have always struggled with English because of spelling and sentence structure. I have
always had a hard time understanding the rules to writing. Many of the different parts just never
seemed to sink in. Because of this, I avoided writing. To me it was a punishment unfittingly
dished out by mean-spirited teachers to poor, innocent kids that had not really done anything
wrong. When there was an option to give an oral report or do a project instead, I would always
jump at the chance. I would do anything to avoid the dreaded written report. Because of this
early perception, I never really sat down and tried to write. I feared that all I would receive back
was criticism on the spelling and the punctuation, and that whoever was reading would not be
able to enjoy the story I was trying to convey.
I have had an increased need for writing as I have been attending college: research papers
for the most part. This was not fun, and it always seemed to take me longer than others to write
the same papers, because there was a lot of editing that had to be done. When I put in the extra
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effort I found that I ended up with some very good papers. In turn, I also received good grades
on these papers.
Now I had to take an English class that would be all about writing papers. Now, “What
had I done to deserve this,” I thought to myself. After putting it off semester after semester,
finally I “bit the bullet,” as they say, and signed up for my first college English class. Well,
putting it off turned out to be unnecessary. English 1010 turned out to be a hard and grueling, yet
very rewarding experience. The fires of adversity, to me, could just as easily be called “The
Analysis paper.” This class, in the end, has been a learning experience: go figure, a class being a
learning experience.
I thought that this would be a creative writing class, and I would not have to do much but
make up some stories, and call it a day. Then we were given assignments like the analysis paper.
It was hard coming up with another point of view on a paper after reading Shaunte Huff’s
analysis of the same paper. “Was it a difficult- near impossible- task,” you may ask. “Yes, yes it
was,” and I don’t think that I was the only one that felt this way, but we all got through it and
have learned something about analysis and ourselves. That is, that we all don’t like doing
analysis papers.
Well, lessons were learned, and we have come out as better writers in the end. We are
armed with knowledge to take with us to our future careers. So, when we are asked to write a
report analyzing one thing or another, or research and write a report, we have no need to fear or
fret. We will know what we are doing and can say with confidence, “are you sure you don’t want
that guy to do it.”
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Research paper
Kip Atkinson
Professor Dursema
English 1010
28-April-2011
Animation: 2D vs. 3D
In animation there is a lot of discussion about whether 2D or 3D animation is the best. A
lot of this discussion is based on subjective arguments, like deciding which color is the best, or if
the animation style is aesthetically pleasing. This will be a look at some objective arguments.
After a review of animation history and how animation is made, this paper will compare how the
cost per second, time invested in a project, and economic impact differ in 3D and 2D animation,
therefore, determining which is the better style.
Animation is an ancient art. Man has been seeking motion in art since cave drawings. In
Williams’ book, The Animator’s Survival Kit, it says that “In 1600 BC the Egyptian Pharaoh
Ramses II built a temple to the goddess Isis which had 110 columns. Ingeniously, each column
has a painted figure of the goddess in a progressively changing position”(12). The world around
us is in motion, so why not our art? Thomas Edison was the first to truly achieve this. Edison
photographed progressive drawings and first showed these to the public in 1906; in one of these
animations “a man puffed on a cigar and blew smoke rings at his girlfriend, she rolled her
eyes…” (Williams 15).
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There are essential differences and similarities in how 2D and 3D animation are created
that need to be addressed in order to assess the cost, time expended, and economic impact of
each style. One thing they have in common is that they start with the idea that is built upon by
writers, directors, stylists, music conductors, and many more. While the writers are creating the
story, the animators are coming up with a style. In the book, The Illusion of Life, it says: “Each
story seemed to call for something new in the way of style and design,” so the artists have to be
very creative in visualizing the style of the animation before it can start to come to life (191).
The animators refine the style, and the storywriters go through many revisions until everything is
approved by the director and executive producer. So, teams of artists are being paid before there
is a single frame to show for it, and no profit is guaranteed. In this part of the process the costs
vary, but are similar in cost for either animation style.
After this initial process, the two styles start to diverge. In 3D animation, the characters
that have been approved are given to Modelers instead of animators. The term Modeler dates
back to the first days of Disney when they would make “beautiful, clay figures of each
character” (Thomas and Johnston 210). Now, instead of creating tangible models, the 3D
Modelers create the character in a virtual 3D environment based on the concept art created by the
concept artists. Modelers do this by using things called NURBS, Nodes, Deformation, and
Inverse Kinematics (Guindon. 20, 27, 30, 31). The modelers hand off the virtual models to
painters who lay the skins and clothes flat and paint colors and textures on the skin and clothing.
They then hand the models off to Riggers. The Riggers’ job is to create the bones and handles to
control the movements of the characters. This always leads to problems and glitches in the
program and requires the expertise of programmers. Once this is done the animators can get their
hands on the characters. This is where the computers make the process a lot faster. Once the
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animator creates key frames, the computer can automatically create frames in between the key
frames. Scenes are then lit by lighting specialists. Once this is done, large super computers are
needed to render out the finished animation.
In 3D animation, in-betweening, inking, and painting are done by programs and
computers, but the cost is still high because they use complex programs. One of the most popular
complex programs in use, for example, is Autodesk’s Maya, which costs “$3,495” for each
computer. This does not include the rendering software and paint programs. There is also to be
taken into consideration the cost of advanced super computers that are needed to render the highquality frames. There is also the added cost of people to program and maintain the computers.
These programmers and maintenance workers’ salaries are kept confidential, but it is known that
these employees have to be highly educated to perform their job and need to be added to the cost
of operation.
So, the cons of 3D animation are that the cost is higher and the cost of a medium-quality
animation is close to that of a high-quality animation. Also, 3D companies employ fewer people,
not stimulating the economy as much.
But one major advantage of 3D animation is what they call a morgue file. After a
modeler creates a character, they cut the character apart, removing the hands, feet, face, hair,
torso, and clothing. The modeler then places these in what is call a morgue file. These are then
pulled out and placed together onto different characters or parts from different characters used to
create an altogether new character. Another plus to 3D animation is that to get a very high
quality product much of the work is done in modeling and lighting. Once this is done the
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animation is the same for a medium-quality project or a high-quality project. 3D animation can
be produced faster than 2D, which drives down the cost of 3D animation.
One con of 2D is that it takes longer to produce a finished animation. For the same
quality animation, 2D animations will take up to and a quarter longer than 3D animation. That is
to say, if a 2D company takes four months, then a 3D Company will take about three months.
Both 2D and 3D major motion pictures are shot at 32 frames per second or 1,920 frames per
minute, and the average 90-minute movie contains 172,800 frames. In 2D animation each of
these frames is hand drawn in at least three different layers bringing the total number of drawings
to a minimum of 518,400. Then, they are hand-inked and painted. Even with the computers 2D
animators use, the frames can only be scanned into the computer and digitally inked and painted
one at a time. This makes the 2D animation process lengthy and tedious.
But one major pro of 2D animation is that it is less costly per second of animation. Since
there are almost three employees at 2D animation companies to every one employee at a 3D
animation company, it may seem that 3D animation would be less expensive. In fact the opposite
is true. When five 2D animation companies and five 3D animation companies were polled, it
was found that for a high quality product, the cost of a 2D animation is averaged at $270 per
second whereas the average cost of a 3D animation is $307 per second. So, on average, a 3D
animation is more expensive to produce than a 2D animation. The difference in this cost is
mainly due to the differing education levels required of the average employees and thus, the
higher salaries expended on an employ of a 3D company. In a 3D animation company the
average employee has three years of higher education, whereas in a 2D animation company the
average employee has only one year of higher education. This difference in the average is caused
by a majority of the in-betweening, ink, and paint work being sent overseas to companies that
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employ workers with little to no education. Directors and employees of animation companies
say that most, if not all, of this in-betweening, ink, and paint work is on contract with companies
that are based out of Mexico, India, China, and Japan, and other countries. These workers are
given a short training on what they are expected to do and then employed with extremely low
salaries. Still, the major cost of 2D animation is the labor force because of the quantity of
workers.
To be completely honest, the executives in animation companies are ultimately driven by
their bottom line, so, in the end, the deciding factor is price. So if 2D animation is less expensive,
then why are so many productions moving to 3D? The truth of this lies in the bottom line:
namely, box office returns. People have been flocking to 3D films. This can be traced to the
major success of Pixar films first major motion picture, Toy Story, which had a box-office gross
of $361,948,825. Pixar had made the first major motion picture done entirely in 3D. I say
entirely because Disney had been using 3D in major motion pictures since as early as 1992 in
Beauty and the Beast. With the success of the new 3D style, many companies were quick to
jump on the bandwagon. Having seen the box-office results of Toy Story, they wanted a part of
the success that this new style had brought to Pixar. Many of these companies that switched over
to 3D did not see the results that they had hoped to see. Shrek was the first non-Pixar film to
make a large box-office impact.
Now, most major animation studios have converted fully to 3D and are not looking back.
Susan Wloszczyna states in her article in USA Today “As a result, mouse pads are replacing
drawing pads as long-time animators are retrained on computers.” This change was best put by
Martin Goodman in his Animation World Network magazine article, “Above the streets,
passersby shout, duck and cover as animation desks are heaved out the windows; splintering
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crashes resound down the streets and alleyways of Hollywood, Burbank and Sherman Oaks.
Legions of grim-faced 2D animators (or the dozen or so still employed) snap their pencils in two
and forswear ink-and-paint forevermore,” also as computers get faster and programs become
more advanced and intuitive, 3D animation will become less and less expensive, leaving 2D
animation even further behind.
Is it too late for 2D? Have all the battles been fought and the outcome decided? Is 3D the
winner by K.O.? Or is it the effort what makes it truly worthwhile? Does an animator breathe life
into his creation? If so, 3D takes the life and the art out of animation. You no longer need artists
to create animation. All you need is someone moving a mouse and pressing keys on a keyboard.
There is something indescribable about watching art come to life on a movie screen. 3D can be
related to a bulldozer, whereas 2D is more like a builder. The bulldozer pushes through anything
that stands in its way; it is just there to get the job done. A builder takes time, thought, and tons
of effort. Builders create beauty out of raw materials. All is not lost; there is a glimmer of hope
on the horizon for 2D animation. That glimmer comes in the form of John Lasseter and his new
appointment as creative officer of Disney studios. Solomon says in his 2006 The New York Times
article that “Mr. Lasseter and other Pixar artists are known for their enthusiasm for the classic
Disney films.” Although John Lassester played a key part in the rise of 3D animation, he is now
the creative officer of Disney studios and is known for his enthusiasm for 2D animation; so, it
would be fitting for this influential man to be the savior of 2D animation.
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Works Cited:
“Box Office History for Digital Animation Movies” The Numbers, Nash Information Services,
LLC. Web. 26 April 2011
Goodman, Martin “Death of 2D: Rush to Judgment” Animation World Network. Animation
World Network, 13 October 2003, Web 13 October 2003
Guindon, Marc-Aundre. “Official Alias Training Guide: Learning Maya 7” Autodesk. Alias
Systems Corp, 2005.
“http://store.autodesk.com” Autodesk , Autodesk. Web. 27 April 2011
Johnston, Ollie. Thomas, Frank. “The Illusion of Life, Disney Animation” Disney Editions.
Walt Disney Productions, 1981.
Williams, Richard. "The Animator’s Survival Kit” Faber and Faber. Faber and Faber
Incorporated, 2001.
SOLOMON, CHARLES. “Pixar Creative Chief to Seek to Restore the Disney Magic” The New
York Times, The New York Times. 25 January 2006
Wloszczyna, Susan. “Looks like a bear market for 2-D animation” USA TODAY. USA
TODAY, 29 October 2003. Web 29 October 2003.
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Reflection Paper
By Kip Atkinson
Professor Dursema
English 1010
29-Jan-2011
A Brothers Love
I am quietly standing outside the room; the tears will not stop. I wipe them angrily from
my face, furious at my weakness. He would not want to see me cry; he never wanted to see me
crying.
I am thrown back to another time I was crying: I had slipped on the stairs in our home
and had fallen and knocked out my tooth on the table. Blood was running from my mouth and
tears ran down my face. Powerful arms scooped me up and carried me into the bathroom. Using
a towel to soak up the blood and tears, I looked up to see my brother’s face smiling down at me.
He stroked my hair and said “look; now; you are okay, nothing to cry about.” I was going up the
stairs to play my favorite game with him: the game where he ties me up and I try to escape. He
told me that I should learn how to escape in case I am ever taken captive and tied up. This may
sound kind of mean, but I enjoyed it, though it may have been his way to occupy an annoying
little brother while he was trying to draw in his room. He would tie my hands behind my back
and then tie my feet to my hands; he would continue drawing as I struggled to untie myself.
When I would finally get free I would jump up victoriously!
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The screams of pain bring me back to the present. I cannot take it; I turn away, walking
slowly down the hall.
I stand next to the large windows, looking down on the cars passing by. A muscle car
motor rumbles so loudly the glass vibrates.
My brother had a muscle car. It was the car that he would drive to the hospital to get his
chemo treatments when he was a teenager. After his first surgery on his arm when he was
sixteen, they removed a tumor the size of a baseball. Chemotherapy is painful and makes a
person very tired for days after the treatment. My brother never showed that he was tired:
never telling his littlest brother that he was too tired to play or telling me to go away. He always
made time for his youngest brother.
I rode with my brother in that muscle car to see his girlfriend. He bought me soda and
taught me how to belch (an important life lesson). This may seem like a strange way to bond,
but any time with a big brother is the best.
My sister places her hand on my shoulder; I look into her face and give her a hug. It
brings some comfort in this time of hardship when emotions are stretched so thin. Hugs like
this are rare; they are not like normal hugs; they come only in times when you feel as if you can
no longer stand on your own.
The last time I hugged my brother like that he was leaving on an LDS Mission. Seeing him
at the airport in a new suit, he looked ten feet tall. He was such a heroic figure to me: standing
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tall, hands on hips, shoulders back, chin up, tie flapping in the breeze, sunray illuminating him in
just such a way. I could not wait until I had the chance to serve a mission.
Letting my sister go, we walk back to join the others in the waiting room.
The janitor comes past with his mop and bucket filled with the antiseptic cleaner that is
used in hospitals. I can’t stand that smell: the disinfected laminate flooring, or the flat wash of
the florescent lights with that annoying buzzing noise. A noise that slowly creeps down into
your soul then starts grating on the very center of you. It’s a noise you can only hear when
everyone in the room is quiet, praying for some kind of miracle, when there is nothing left to do
but pray.
The children color in small books with bright colors that my brother loves. My brother;
the artist, teaching me to draw stick figure soldiers wail we sat trying to keep quiet during
church.
My brother would dip the tip of a brush into colors on a pallet, then sweep it across the
canvas, creating beautiful paintings. Occasionally, he stopped to ask if he was using the right
color because he was colorblind. He drew animals that appeared as if they could leap off of the
page and into your home.
My mother walks over to me, bending down to look into my eyes, “your brother wants
to see you.”
I walk down the hall, thinking about all the other times I have done this: all the trips to other
hospitals. I know deep down in my heart that this time is different from the others.
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A voice over an intercom called my sister and I to the school office. “Your parents are
coming to pick you up.” The road slipped past the window on yet another trip to the hospital to
see my brother after yet another surgery. I had never seen so many tubes and hoses coming out
of a person. How could this happen to my brother? He was so strong; now he was left to lay on
a bed struggling to breathe, not able to sit up on his own? He recovered, but lost some of the
feeling in his hand from nerves that had been damaged in the surgeries.
This time he decided that he would fight it with holistic treatment. He met with a holistic
healer, but no matter how he stuck to her regiment and followed her instructions, including no
painkillers of any kind, he continued to get weaker.
I blink my eyes, pulling my self back to the present. I struggle to hold back tears. With
each step I tell myself “He’s going to be okay. He’s strong. He is going to be okay,” It was like a
mantra. “HE WAS GOING TO BE OKAY”… Or maybe not…
The surgeons had removed his arm, the arm where this all started, hoping that this
would give his body a chance to fight the cancer that is attacking his body like the little stick
soldiers he taught me to draw.
The final realization comes when I see him in the center of a sterile white room. My
brother, my hero, no longer writhing in a bed, with only a stump of an arm.
The painkillers have done their job. He waves me over to him. The tears rolling down my
face. “Why are you crying?” He asks “It’s going to be okay.” I cannot give an answer. My body
is trembling and the words will not come. He looks deep into my eyes “You are a strong kid.
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Take care of your friends. Make sure you set a good example for them. Stay away from bad
things. Everything is going to be okay. We believe that family can be together after this life. I
will always love you no matter what.”
The next couple of days are a blur. My head is in a fog that not much seems to
penetrate.
My hero lies in bed so medicated that he just stares into space. Suddenly he moves,
trying to get out of the bed. He is struggling as my father holds him down. My father is asking
him, “What is it? What do you need?” he roles his head to the side, and looking over at my
mother he says, “He wants me to come with him! I need to go!” she says “It’s okay, but you
can’t take your body with you.” He lets out a breath. It makes a slight noise almost as if you can
hear his spirit escaping his body: escaping from the cancer, from the illness that plagued him
most of his life. His loved ones are left behind to try to find some way to cope with the loss.
With the sadness of losing a son, a brother, a friend, a hero.
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Reflection paper
By Kip Atkinson
Professor Dursema
English 1010
04-Jan-2011
Fluffy White Foe
A single flake falls slowly from the sky, moving downwards,
fluttering gently back and forth, one flake, soft and light.
Then another following in its own unique path, so different from
the first, with the same lazy method: back and forth, small
concentric circles.
A silver- haired man looks out the window, furrowing his brow, at the two
flakes. He starts cursing under his breath at this personal attack on his kingdom. These two
small flakes are just the scouts preparing to making a full assault on his fortress.
More flakes come as the sun sets over the tops of the mountains. A brilliant pink hue
dances across the
bottoms of the clouds, the
heat of the sun
giving way to the onslaught of
millions of tiny
sharp dangers of the storm.
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He tightens his perimeter and turns up the internal defenses with one last longing look
out at the hopeless night as the attackers strike at the fragile glass in front of his nose. He
makes one last scathing remark under his breath before he turns off the light and retreats to
the safety of his bed.
The silver-haired man wore black warm-up paints with two white pin stripes on
each side tucked into thick winter socks one red the other blue. His boots hang loosely around
his legs. Brown leather with black rubber molded to the toes. What used to be white faux fur
lining was now grey from grease stains. Some areas look as if they have been burned by the hot
embers of a fire.
He wears an old blue plaid coat that is tattered at the wrists and torn at the elbows with
little pieces of white stuffing hanging from the holes. Splinters and saw dust litter the outer
lining of the jacket. Each hole in his coat is blackened with little balls of steel embedded deep in
the stuffing. Each a little stow away peaking from its hole, observing the battle to come.
The tendons roll under the thin, almost translucent, skin on the back of his hands as he
rubs them together preparing for the work they are about to do. Pulling a knit hat down over
his silvery hair, he grips his weapon of choice: a large red plastic shovel tipped with a sharp
steel edge and a wooden handle caped with a molded grip to fit precisely in the hand of the
warrior.
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Bravely walking out to meet the enemy, he quietly uses only the choicest of phrases saved for
these times of war.
The flakes throw themselves with all there might at the
man. The flakes combine to cover his silver hair and jacket.
Even with the flakes combined effort there is little effect on
the silver haired man.
He inhales deeply through his nose and blows the breath out of his mouth, the air
freezing into rolling clouds of smoke like the exhaust of a powerful and complex machine. His
hand reaches down. The time has come to push back the insolent intruders and show
them their rightful place in his kingdom. He grabs the shovel, hunches over, and puts power
behind the handle, scratching the metal edge against the concrete. He scoops up large piles of
snow throwing them over his shoulder. The snow flying through the air landing with muted
thudding noises. Scoop after scoop the snow flies through the air. With each scope the piles
growing larger. Each is put in their place. None of the intruders are to remain upon the
selected areas.
Finally, the battle fought, the intruder has been beaten back; nothing is left but to stare out
upon the battlefield victoriously.
The grey-haired man looks up at the sky in defiance, seeing an ominous darkening above
the mountains the forbearing of another snow storm. Reinforcements are on their way.