Friday, June 23, 2006
Unit 4 Essay
Artist's Statement
The path of digital art has been paved by the history of science and the history of art running on parallel tracks. This fusion of art and technology, and more precisely the field of non-photorealistic representation of CGI animation is the focus of my current work.
Trying to put my work in context, I have looked at the works of different artists and computer scientists like Daniel Teece, Sabine Hitier, Bruce and Amy Gooch, Barbara Meier and Fredo Durand. The variety of techniques with which each one of them approaches the subject of NPR, helps me define and contextualize my own work. Sabine Hitier especially, has been a great influence to me because she achieves a simple, innocent look in children’s animation through a technique that seems effortless; in reality, its simplicity lies only in its visual style, not in what went on behind the scenes.
Daniel Teece noted:
the goal of NPR (Non Photorealistic Rendering) is to combine the strengths of established computer graphics techniques with expressive clarity and simplicity of strokes on a piece of paper (Teece. 2003b:p5).
This is in fact the most intriguing aspect of NPR: the computer as a digital tool, whose main purpose has been to generate photorealistic imagery, can now mimic paint or pastel strokes in an animated sequence. Having this in mind, I am challenging the very medium of CG, trying to break free from its photorealistic history.
This idea could be explained with the following simple analogy: paints by nature do not recreate the effect of a photograph. They are meant to go beyond the obvious. However, the realist painters used this non-photorealistic material to create works that looked stunningly realistic, thus building a very valuable and respected skill. Through NPR I try to do exactly the opposite, but with the same motivation: to confront the fundamentals of CG, pushing the computer to perform on a level it wasn’t originally programmed to operate on.
Having worked in the field of animation, I have come to the conclusion that non-photorealistic rendering leads digital animation to a path of more convincing communication. This is because NPR images are not judged by how closely they mimic reality, the way photorealistic renders are evaluated. On the contrary,
NPR images are judged by how effectively they communicate. When using images to communicate the essence of a scene, simulating reality is not as important as creating the illusion of reality (Gooch & Gooch. 2001:p1).
I used to consider digital technology as a simple tool. Through my experience of using the various digital tools though, I have matured as an artist and I now treat the computer as a medium for creating, storing and presenting art in the digital format. ‘The work exclusively uses the digital platform from production to presentation and it exhibits and explores that platform’s inherent possibilities’ (Paul. 2003:p67). It is therefore exciting and challenging for me to express my artistic ideas through digital technology, creating at the same time images that look like the computer was a little if not at all involved in the creative process.
I have used this NPR technique to reach an animated, more illustrative look that would be almost impossible to achieve through the use of traditional media and at the same time impossible to achieve with a solely CG approach. I do not rely on the digital medium to automatically make artistic decisions for me though; I make them for myself and then try to tame the CG beast.
Reflection of Project
One of the primary objectives of this project was to examine how animation relates to children’s advertising. At the same time secondary issues, such as the impact of digital technology on animation and on children, the characteristics and distinguishing features of animation as a digital art form and new methods of conveying messages to viewers were identified.
My work explores the issues of stylization and communication in computer animation, toying at the same time with the idea of challenging a photorealistic medium. Traditional techniques can now be applied to computer graphics and lay emphasis on certain parts, while revealing specific subtleties in the pictures generated. Kids’ animated shows don’t require high level detail in the imagery. Their attention just needs to be directed to the desired parts.
Through the course of the two years, my research and exploration took me on an amazing journey. It all started out with journals on children’s advertising and how animated spokes characters are appealing to children and parents and what is the most effective way to present them. Calcott and Alvey suggest:
animated spokes-characters are both popular with the audiences and effective in advertising because they may serve as objects of nostalgia. People enjoy watching cartoons and associate positive feelings with them (Calcott, Alvey. 1991)
I felt I was on the right path. I had consciously chosen character animation as my medium and I could back my decision with valid arguments. Then, my interest shifted from the advertising aspect of the animation as such, to the social message that could define my project. My primary concern was the successful delivery of this message, using digital animation in a contemporary way that would appeal to children.
Subsequently, I focused on to Non Photorealistic Rendering and its impact on the animation industry. Through articles, online journals, and images studied, I was convinced that this technique was the most suitable one for my project, since NPR images are judged by how effectively they communicate the spirit of a scene and create an illusion of reality; not by how well they mimic reality. NPR frees up digital animators from the ties of the polished, 3D look. It serves both the striving to the creation of convincing character performances and also an expressive look, through an original human and computer interaction.
The outcome of this work is a short animated film with three constituent elements: A story for children, interaction between animated characters, and a new distinctive 2.5D look. The research carried out, dictated each one of these elements. I am satisfied with the way the project turned out, because the research steps are there to support it; nothing was created by luck.
It’s my intension to continue with this NPR technique, in order to reach an animated visual style that would be a true hybrid between CGI and hand drawn/painted images. I would like to research more the animated paint strokes on the 3D models, as well as learn more about the toon outline effects. I might try some scripting as well, since it really contributes to the creation of unique styles. I also plan to introduce more hand crafted elements in the mix. What if all the CG frames are printed on paper, paint brushes are applied on them with real natural media and then scanned back in the computer? The sky is the limit really. When the viewers wonder whether the animation was done by hand or digitally, then I will be satisfied!
Bibliography
Books:
-Gooch, B., Gooch, A. (2001), Non-Photorealistic Rendering, Natick, AK Peters Ltd
-Laybourne, K. (1979), The Animation Book, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks
-Sibley, B. (2000), Chicken Run: Hatching the Movie, New York: Harry N. Abrams
-Paul, C. (2003), Digital Art, London, Thames & Hudson Ltd
-Solomon, C. (1994), The History of Animation: Enchanted Drawings, 2nd ed. China: Wing Books
-Thomas, F., Johnston, O. (1981), The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, New York: Hyperion
-Vaz, M C. (2004), The art of the Incredibles , China: Chronicle Books
Articles:
- Callcott, M., Alvey, P. (1991), Toons sell… and sometimes they don’t: an advertising spokes-character typology exploratory study, Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising annual conference, Rebecca Holman
- Besen, E. (2004a), The Drive to Realism: From Disney to Harryhausen to Landreth - Part 1, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 5 August, pp53-55, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Besen, E. (2004b), The Drive to Realism-Part2: CG Takes the Wheel, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 7 October, pp52-55, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Besen, E. (2004c), Make it real-Part 1: Off the Beaten Path, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 9 December, pp47-51, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Besen, E. (2005a), Make it real-Part 2: Marks in the Sand, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 11 February, pp60-63, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Besen, E. (2005b), Make it real-Part 3: 2D, Anyone?, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 10 Part 1 April, pp39-43, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Besen, E. (2005c), Make it real-Part 4: The Missing Factor, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 10 Part 3 June, pp47-49, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
· Desowitz, B. (2004a), A Talk with Disney Legend Joe Grant, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 1 April, pp36-39, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Desowitz, B. (2004b), Lorenzo: A Moving Painting with a Wild Tail, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 8 Part 12 March, pp28-31, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Goodman, M. (2003), Death of 2D: Rush to Judgment, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 8 Part 7 October, pp29-32, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- MacLennan Murch, S. (1997), 2D and 3D: Together for the Better, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 2 Part 5 August, pp27-28, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Moins, P. (2005), Annecy 2005: Animation Coming of Age?, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 10 Part 4 July, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Oedekerk, S. (2002), A New Dimension In Animation, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 7 Part 9 December, pp9-11, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Patterson, J., Willis, P. (1994), Computer Assisted Animation: 2D or not 2D?, Computer Journal, Vol. 37 Part 10, pp829-839, Oxford University Press
- Singer, G. (2004), From Pencils to Pixels: Making the Transition, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 9 Part 2 May, pp4-9, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
- Winder, C., Dowlatabadi, Z. (2002), Producing Animation: The 3D CGI Production Process, Animation World Magazine, Vol. 6 Part 10 January, pp32-34, Los Angeles: Animation World Network Publication
Conferences:
- Computer Animation, 2001. Seoul, S. Korea, (2001) Automatic In-betweening in Computer Assisted Animation by Exploiting 2.5D Modelling Techniques, Di Fiore, F. et al.
NPAR, 2002. Annecy, France, (2002) An Invitation to Discuss Computer Depiction, Durand, F., New York: ACM Press
- Graphite, 2003. Melbourne, Australia, (2003) Mimicing 3D transformations of emotional stylised animation with minimal 2D input, Di Fiore, F., Van Reeth, F., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 2003. San Diego, USA, (2003a) Sable: A Painterly Renderer for Film Animation,
Teece, D., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 2003. San Diego, USA, (2003) Sketchy Drawings-A Hardware Accelerated Approach for Real-Time Non-Photorealistic Rendering, Nienhaus, M., Dollner, J., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 2003. San Diego, USA, (2003) Polygon-based Pastel-like Renderign for Animation, Murakami, K., Tsuruno, R., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 2003. San Diego, USA, (2003) Real-Time 3D Sumi-e Painting, Kang, SJ., Kim, CH., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 2002. San Antonio, USA, (2002) WYSIWYG NPR: Drawing Strokes Directly on 3D Models, Kalnins, R. et al., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 1999. Los Angeles, USA, (1999) Non-Photorealistic Rendering: Computers for Artists Who Work Alone, Meier, B., New York: ACM Press
- Siggraph, 1996. New Orleans, USA, (1996) Painterly Rendering for Animation, Meier, B., New York: ACM Press
- WSCG-International Conferences in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision, 1995. Pilsen, Czech Republic, (1995), Computer Animation and Human Animators, Willis, P.
Films:
- Petit a petit, (2005), Directed by Sabine Hitier, Independent production, 2 min.
- Finding Nemo, (2003), Directed by Andrew Stanton, Pixar Animation Studios, 100 min.
- The Incredibles, (2004), Directed by Brad Bird, Pixar Animation Studios, 120 min.
- Ryan, (2004), Directed by Chris Landreth, National Film board of Canada, 14 min.
- Lorenzo, (2004), Directed by Mike Gabriel, Walt Disney, 5 min.
World Wide Web:
- Butz, A. (1998), CIS270: Animation, (Internet), Columbia University, Available from: http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~butz/publications.html
- The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts (2004), Lorenzo, (Internet), Available from: http://disneyshorts.toonzone.net/years/2004/lorenzo.html
- Barbagallo, R. (2004), Lorenzo, (Internet), Available from: http://www.animationartconservation.com/lorenzo.html
- Durand, F. (2000), The Art and Science of Depiction, (Internet), MIT, Available from: http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredo/
- Patterson, J. (1998), ‘Creative Pull’ of Style and Technology Together in An Animation Project, (Internet), Glasgow University, Available from: http://circus.hku.nl/demo/layout/documents/content001.pdf
- Patterson, J. (1999), In-betweening, (Internet), Glasgow University, Available from: http://circus.hku.nl/demo/layout/documents/content011.pdf
- Patterson, J. (2001), The Exploitation of Vertical Markets to Support Entertainment Products, (Internet), Department of Computing Science, Glasgow University, Available from: http://circus.hku.nl/demo/layout/documents/content041.pdf
- Teece, D. (2003b), NPR-2D to 3D, painting and rendering, (Internet), Course Notes for Siggraph 2003, Available at: http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~mario/npr/projects/sigg03/
# posted by Maria Pavlou @ 12:18 PM 
