h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Computer Animation, or "how the hell did they do that?" - A3292508
Author: georgezilla - U1113807

Believe it or not, I searched the guide before I wrote this to determine there was no viable information on this topic, which, while not quite earth-shattering, is indeed of distinct cultural and artistic relevance. Informative, interesting, relevant, and occasionally gently opined, I think it is worthy of the H2G2 full treatment.

Hi GZ! This is really good! I really enjoyed reading it!

You have done a great job, describing very clearly in a few short paragraphs, how computer graphics for the movies work. Thanks a lot!

If I have any small points you might pay a little bit of attention to your style, particularly in the first few opening paragraphs. There are quite a few interjections in it which makes reading somewhat difficult. On my screen, your first sentence is 5 lines long - and includes two bracketed interjections. Your second sentence has three interjections, as I think the main sentence of what you are saying here is "Thus we have been witness to one of the most remarkable visual feats ever constructed in the form of the LOTR trilogy of movies". Maybe if you could take a look at this overall it might help readability a bit. You can use footnotes if you wish to elaborate on a particular point.

Also, just going down to the fourth paragraph you write in the first person - "as an animator myself"; "I shall attempt". Strictly speaking you need to keep a distance in your entry, and you should describe things which are not necessarily a personal viewpoint but are more factual. Again its just a style thing.

You also have links to a personal site, describing some of your renderings. This might be a problem when it comes to publishing the entry in the edited guide - I'll leave that up to the subs to say more on this.

Can't say I can think of anything else - I love the humour. It works, it conveys your enthusiasm for the subject and it is written in a highly informative way.

Good work!

Woodpigeon

Just a short post this one...

Firstly I'd agree that the first couple of sentences are a little heavy and could do with breaking up a little.

Secondly, whilst not part of the computer process itself, wouldn't it be worth mentioning MOCAP techniques?

And maybe a paragraph about how animation was done prior to computers (Ray Harryhausen's work etc.)

I think Woodpidgeon has said almost everything I would have said, and more. To be honest, the first paragraph made my head spin a bit, but I persevered and thoroughly enjoyed the rest! A few footnotes would be a good way of tidying it up, and style-wise I would make those sub-headers into full headers, too.

Good job !

Very good suggestions, all, and thank you ever so much. I think, this being my first entry into the guide, I was on some level attempting an homage to Mr. Adams, whose artfully long-winded and bifurcated sentences ("The above sentence makes sense. Read it again.") was part of what made his works such a preposterously pleasant roller coaster. However, in terms of readability for an article of this type, brevity is, of course, the soul of wit. I shall set upon reworking the article with all of your suggestions in mind, and thank you again.

Fantastic entry, but just to be an uber-critic, I thought I'd point out this:

>Hollywood has not yet learned the altogether integral truth that just because something looks real doesn't mean that it is believable, or more importantly, worth looking at, and the result has been a dearth of movies (see 'the Day After Tommorrow') with arguably less plot substance than visual wow.

A dearth is a shortage, do you mean an abundance?

You are absolutely and inarguably correct. How this escaped my notice, I shall never be satisfied to know, but rest assured, corrections shall be made and heads, even if it is mine, shall roll! (grin)

Just a quickie comment, more later perhaps:

" 'Jurassic Park', without a doubt the first movie to effectively utilize computer animation technology..."

Is there a reason why you didn't mention 'Terminator 2'? Or 'The Abyss'? Or 'Young Sherlock Holmes'? Or 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'? Or, for that matter, 'Tron'?

Taking them in chronological order:

Tron was actually the first feature film to showcase computer animation technology, for sequences such as the lightcycles.

Wrath of Khan included computer animation of the Genesis device, including the first use of fractal animation techniques to show the formation of natural looking landscapes.

Young Sherlock Holmes featured the first appearance of a computer animated character - a knight made of panels of stained glass from a church window.

The Abyss featured the first appearance in a mainstream movie of the 'morphing' technique later done to death.

And finally of course Terminator 2 featured the T-1000, the first fully realised computer generated humanoid character, and the first seamless integration of computer morphing effects with live action. (And yes, I realise that the amount of time the entirely computer generated T-1000 humanoid is onscreen amounts to probably about a dozen seconds, but hey... it's still a first).

All of these films predate Jurassic Park, so to say it was a first is to rather overstate matters. It was the first film to use computer animation to portray 'realistic' living creatures, although it's instructive to note that one of the main reasons they look so good is that we don't have a real one to compare them to.

H.

Very astute of you to point out the predation of Jurrassic Park by the aforementioned films which did indeed utilize computer animated elements. The reason I chose Jurassic Park as the penultimate example is that it A) made the bold move of utilizing computer animation in a quintessentially integral role in the film, B) used it in a way that was necessarily apparent as what it was (nobody wondered if those dinosaurs were real or not), and C) was extremely broadly seen and therefore accessible to pretty much everybody who hasn't been living in a cave in Siberia with only basic cable.

The movies you mentioned do indeed display some interesting milestones in computer animation. 'Young Sherlock Holmes', in particular (as it is so often missed) is a remarkable and daring example.

Going back even further, one might mention 'The Last Starfighter', which was a blend of live action traditional filming and boldly attempted (I repeat, "attempted") computer generated footage of space battles and scenery. It's worth taking a look at just to see how far the technology has come. One can't help but wonder where we will be 20 years from now.

I agree with H, though, that Jurassic Park's predecessors deserve a mention, eve if it's for no better reason than to avoid smart alecs like H getting all smug when it hits the front page...

Tron in particular deserves a mention, as even non-geeks are going to think 'what about Tron' when they read the enrty.

Hand on, what about Tron? Oh, sorry....

Thanks for the suggestions, peoples. I updated the article now and included much of what you all mentioned (even changing the word "dearth" to "plethora"-- much better). Look it over and see if it is a wee bit more satisfactory. I am NOTHING if not open to friendly ciriticisms. Am I? Oh man I hope so. Sheesh!

OK, george, it's reading better now - how do you fancy looking at the style?

If you go to A264520 you'll find a guide to 'Guide ML', which is basically a series of 'tags' you can put in to make it look nicer. I see you've used some subheaders to emphasise certain parts, but maybe you could use some full 'headers' to break the entry up into logical sections e.g. 'Early Animations', 'The Age of Dinosaurs', and so on. Don't know how keen you are on introducing loads of GuideML, but I think it'll have more chance of getting picked if you do.

I think it's going very well, you know!

The history section really puts Jurassic Park into context nicely.

I agree, although I take issue with:

"'Jurassic Park', (possibly the first movie to be produced which would not have been considered were it not for the potential of CG techniques)"

This is not true. Jurassic Park was greenlit (greenlighted?) on the basis that the dinosaurs were going to be animatronics built by Stan Winston. The only sequence where that technique was felt to be problematical was the gallimimus stampede. Having no idea how that sequence could be realised on screen, Spielberg asked around, and someone showed him some basic computer animatics of flocking behaviour. It was obvious that CGI was the way to go for that sequence, but it also quickly became clear that the technology was good enough to be used for a lot more, allowing a great deal more freedom for the director than would have been possible if the dinosaurs had been entirely animatronic.

Even with the great CGI however, it's sometime not appreciated that there were a large number of "real" dinosaurs on the set - the sick Triceratops and the frilled spitting dilophosaurus were entirely animatronic, the velociraptors were sometimes (in very brief shots) men in rubber suits, and the T-Rex was at the time the largest puppet ever built, significantly larger than the previous record holder, the Alien Queen, and only relatively recently eclipsed by the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park III. The T Rex puppet was used in shots where you didn't need to be able to see the whole creature, CGI taking over only when a full body shot was required.

H.

Greenlighted.

Holy Shlamolies, Hoo mthebelltolls, are you one of those crazy Hollywood insiders I hear so much about? I am completely and frankly amazed that JP was indeed greenlighted based on animatronic and puppet dinosaurs, thus, of course, I did not know that. I shall make adjustments therein. I will also include handu GuideML headers, etc, as suggested earlier. Thanks for the input, all!

Oberon2001

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