3d Model of Snail - 3Ds Max Modeling

Age Of 3d Animation

The art of creating and moving images with the use of computer is generally termed as 3D Animation. The era of 3D animation
can be dated back to the early nineties when the first 3D animation film “Toy Story”

was created. With the passage of time there was tremendous transformation in 3D animation and many more movies were created.

The power and effectiveness of 3D animation became apparent when “Jurassic Park” hit the cinema screen in 1993. It really was

wonder created with the help of 3D Animation. The most powerful animal, “the dinosaur” was brought to life. The movie stands

as testimony to the powers of 3D Animation.

The Age of 3D animation has certainly brought about a revolution. There is hardly any area where 3D Animation is not playing

a pivotal role. The popularity of computer animation has skyrocketed in this age of 3D Animation. The superiority of 3D

Animation has several reasons. A few important ones are spelled out in the para to a follow.

In the age of 3D Animation crystal clear images can be revealed in a very short period of time and the impact created is just

unimaginable. It is true to say that concepts and ideas which are not easy to be expressed in words or even through

illustrations can not only be created easily but also analyzed from different perspectives. The dimensional feature of 3D

Animation is where its true power lies and its ability to portray movement is exceptional. A huge amount of scientific data

of movements is combined and presented in a simplistic manner. An advantaged tagged to this attribute of 3D animation is that

it creates a long lasting impact on the memory and the viewer tends to retain the image for a much longer time and that too

with accuracy.

Age of 3D animation brings to light limitless possibilities. It is a fine

communicating tool which offers more information at a faster rate, presents complex concepts in a simplified manner and also

helps turn an idea or even a hint into reality. Recreation of any event, expensive or dangerous to reproduce, is possible in

this age of 3D Animation. Fine examples of this would be an air crash, demolition of buildings and /or creation of colonies.

In the age of 3D Animation photo-realistic effects are possible by using virtual light sources from different angles with a

fine blend of reflection, transparency and shadowing. One big area where 3D Animation is brining about a huge and fast

transformation is Architecture. The 3-dimensional models are more accurate and make it easier to see and study the possible

relationship of the buildings with the environment.

In the age of 3D animation there is no limit in so far as the software packages are concerned. You can find several packages

in the market but the main and only problem that there are far too many and there re endless companies who have created their

own 3D animation packages on the pretext that the ones available don’t suit their purpose. However, there are still a few

standardized ones. The first and the most familiar one that comes to mind is ‘Alias Maya’. It is a software which allows you

to create models, texture and animate, tight them and lots more. Another package which stands a rival to ‘Alias Maya’ is ‘3DS

max’, it is a package with almost the same facilities that one would find in ‘Alias Maya’ its advantage is that it allows you

to from ‘Maya’ to ‘3DS max’ and vice-versa. A few other software packages are Cinema 4D, Bodyshop, Light ware 3D and many

more.

The future of 3D Animation is far reaching there are going to be more and more, different areas where 3D Animation is going

to bring about a radical change. However, one area of challenge for 3D Animation is a photorealistic animation of humans. As

of now animal characters, fantasy characters, robots or cartoon like humans are shown but time is not far off when you will

http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/313637?articleid=313637-Age Of 3d Animation by DEEP RAJ

History of Motion Capture for Computer Character Animation

The use of motion capture for computer character animation is relatively new, having begun in the late 1970's, and only now beginning to become widespread. Motion capture is the recording of human body movement (or other movement) for immediate or delayed analysis and playback. Motion capture for computer character animation involves the mapping of human motion onto the motion of a computer character. To get convincing motion for the human characters, Disney studios traced animation over film footage of live actors playing out the scenes.

This method, called rotoscoping, has been successfully used for human characters ever since.The rotoscoping was invented by max fleischer in 1915.The first cartoon character has to be rotoscope was "koko the clown".He want to use koko to convinced the big studio in the new process for the project.Walt Disney use the rotoscoping technique in 1937 to create motion of human characteristic in snow white.The decision of using rotoscoping technique is realistic human motion. In 1970's it began to be feasible to animate characters by computer, animators adapted traditional techniques,includingrotoscoping.There is several name in the motion capture history;

Pioneers of Motion Capture Eadweard Muybridge (1830 - 1904) - pioneer photographer of the moving image Étienne-Jules Marey - First person to analyze human and animal motion with video Harold E. "Doc" Edgerton (1903-1990) -High Speed stroboscopic photography Max Fleischer (1915) - Rotoscoping Lee Harrison III (1960's) - Scanimation Walt Disney - Multiplane Camera

The motion capture problems The goal of motion capture is to record the movement of a performer (typically,but not always,human) in a compact and usable manner.Computer graphics and computer vision usually abstract the body into a small number of rigid segments that rotate relative to one another.The motion capture problem we consider therefore must have the following form: given a single stream of video observations of a performer, compute a 3D skeletal representation of the motion of sufficient quality to be useful for animation. The specific challenges of animation make the problem even tougher.

- Unlike applications such as recognition and surveillance, animation does care about small details.

- Jitter and wobbles often come from uncertainty in computations,

- The importance of high frequencies means that filtering is not a viable tool for noise removal at video sampling rates.

http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/314423?articleid=314423

Animation Business In China - An Uncertain Outlook

The future for China's animation industry is uncertain.

Since the late 80s, China has been a choice location for outsourcing 2D cartoon series to due to its low cost. But since a couple of years back, the number of outsourced projects to China has decreased, and the future for China's animation industry is uncertain as homegrown animation products are also not bringing in the cash.

At of this moment, the China economy is rising at a meteoric rate and wages are also increasing due to higher standards of living. The higher wages and increasing costs are discouraging some companies from outsourcing their work to China. In the wake of countries like India, Thailand and the Philippines competing for a piece of the outsourcing pie, China struggles even more as it loses some ground due to the language barrier. Most outsourcing companies hail from English speaking territories and the Chinese are more lacking in English than their Indian and Filipino competitors.

Due to this, China animation companies figured that they had to stop depending on outsourced work and start creating their own intellectual property. If the foreigners could make their billions through animation, why couldn't they?

After all, they have the expertise and experience garnered through years of outsourcing work right?

Well, not quite right. The problem is - they are technically sound but creatively weak! 90 that are accepted as the 'cream of the crop', only some are good enough to sell to the rest of the world. And by rest of the world, I mean just a handful of territories.

Enter the Chinese government, who came up with policies to grant monetary incentives to Chinese companies who produce their own original content in an effort to encourage better production quality. But creativity is something cultivated by decades of media exposure and cultural freedom - both of which China is lacking in. It did not help that the Chinese government restricted the broadcast of foreign content on local TV stations, effectively restricting the dissemination of creativity that these foreign content bring. The monetary incentives did encourage more companies to create their own original content, but did little to increase the quality of the content. They could at best sell to China provincial TV stations (which paid very little or nothing at all) and some low-paying countries around the world, hardly recouping their investments.

The animation companies then looked at licensing opportunities for the characters that appear in their cartoon content as a secondary source of income. However, piracy is rampant in China and many manufacturers and consumers do not respect intellectual property rights. With a population of 1.4 billion people, the merchandising potential is enormous if this situation can be improved! Strangely though, they seem to respect foreign intellectual properties much better. Walt Disney, Looney Tunes and some Korean brands are apparently enjoying healthy sales over there.

At this moment, China animation companies are fighting a tough battle for their survival. Many have collapsed amidst failed venture funds and mounting debts. The ones that are surviving are doing just that - surviving. A small handful appear to be doing fine due to a healthy inflow of outsourced work. But how long can the outsourced work keep coming in? And when the tap finally stops flowing, will the China homegrown animation products finally mature enough to make it to the world market and grow secondary income through licensing and merchandising?

Only time will tell.

http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/425149?articleid=425149