ANIMATION, SIMULATION AND AUTOMATION, The cognitive convergence 1

By Gbenga Omodigbo

 (GO Guy)

Someone may ask, “What does the trio have in common?” well simply put, “Motion! Action! Or just Movements!” This article focuses on how Technological Convergence has continued to help the Creative Artists, the Scientists, the Engineers and not forgetting to quickly mention some few professionals in other fields, to effectively collaborate with one another. 

ANIMATION:

Traditionally, ANIMATION is a form of art. It is an image transformation technique where STILL Images or Objects are made to change at constant successions; in other to create the illusion of movements. The time interval between changing one frame to the next is called the Sample or Frame rate, and often referred to by the unit, frames per second (fps). The higher the value, the faster it is. Some animation can make use of 12 fps, 15fps, 24 fps, 30 fps or even more, depending on its Type: (Traditional, 2 or 3D), its Use: (Video, Game, or Presentation) and the processing power of the computer itself.  

A QUICK HISTORY

Earlier in the history of man, people look for ways to have fun and pass information from one generation to the next. Although Books, camera and the computer were not invented yet, people

   Picture of some Horse riders drawn on an ancient Scroll

Drawing of a fast moving Bison found in a cave wall

entertain and vividly bring out their stories or ideas in the minds of their audiences. Some resolved to Fork tales, Songs, Sculptures, Images and Drawings usually engraved on stones and cave walls. The Egyptians developed the hieroglyphics; a form of drawing that was used to tell a story, the Greece and the Romans too were not left out. Each culture all over the centuries looks for ways to entertain and pass on knowledge to their children.

The Wheel of  Life

The portrayal of action has always been a fascinating part of story telling. This was evident in some of the earliest painting found on cave walls; an example is that of a Bison depicted has having four pair of legs to portray a fast moving action.

Even several years before the computer was invented, men had begun to fiddle with the idea of a rapidly changing sequence of visual images as a form of optical illusion and entertainment. Soon this gave rise to several inventions, like the flip book, the wheel of life, also called the Zoetrope, and many other mechanical animation production toys.

 

However, with the invention of the computer, animators were able to do more. So computer animation can be thought of a bridge between still images and interactive graphics. But notwithstanding, it must be stressed that without the concept of, “THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION”, animation in any form would not be possible. This phenomenon explains that pictures of images captured by our eyes were still retained there for some fractions of a second; even after the images have been taken away. It was on this principle that animators leverage upon; and were able to deceive viewers into believing that those series of STILL images, played in quick successions, produced continuous motion in our vision. So it does not matter whether the images were hand drawn, photographed, CGI or Video recorded, with the concept of the persistence of vision, Animators were able to give our once inanimate objects life! 

 

THE ANIMATION PROCEDURE

There are several articles written on animation in general, from its Principles, History, Types, Software and so on, so I urge you to find out more on the web because I would not be delving too deep into any of these topics in order not deviate from our subject matter. 

It begins with a story. Yes it’s true, animators tell a story, either real or fictional and all rules governing the stories are based on the whims and caprices of the animation director. It does not matter if they make sense or not, they are all subject to his idea and feelings. Tom can hit Jerry with a pan and Jerry can fly as high as 20 story building, the law of gravity does not come to play here, because Chuck Jones, or any other director wants it so.

 

Also on the other hand, based on the script, a director may strive to mimic reality as much as possible. He might decide to use any motion capturing technique and then get the artists to take the key poses and later use those as references for his animation. All the movements done herein must be done in such a way to conform to reality, from the animation of all living things like man, animals and trees to the non-living things like the backgrounds, cars and houses, must painstakingly done by hand and  according to the interpretation of the director. How about simulation?

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