Thursday, September 26, 2013

How are 2D cartoons animated today?

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I understand how 3D images are made, they generate models and send them through animations. However, how do they do 2D cartoons? I asume they don't draw each individual frame anymore. But, backgrounds that don't move do appear to be hand-drawn in some shows. How do 2D cartoons go through animations?


Answer
Depending on the budget, deadlines, technology, experience and preference that 2D animations are made one way or another.

Small budgeted shows, destined for the weekly TV slots are mostly done on Flash these days. Characters are created from simple shapes with movable body parts (mouths, hands etc.) are pasted onto individual layers and animated individually or in concert with the other parts.

The good thing about Flash is that you can position key drawings (important, story-telling character poses of say, a hand) out and the computer will fill in the in-between drawings (all the other drawings between the key drawings to smooth out the movements) automatically. So you can position the hand at one location (a key), and then program the computer to move it to another location (another key) and it will fill in all the in-between drawings by itself (timing is done by the animator). Computers are only good at moving objects around perfectly and stretching/squashing them according to preset rules so you are limited to certain expressions. Of course, complex scenes still need to be animated by hand, but to keep the cost and the time consumed down, animators don't get to do them frequently, if at all.

You can recognize these shows by the extremely smooth movements exhibited by the characters, as well as the bold and uniformed outlines and colors throughout. Backgrounds can be painted by hand, either digitally or on papers( and then scanned into the computer), or created from bodies of static shapes and colors.

Bigger, movie-length animated films use specialized softwares, either developed in-house, or bought commercially like the Toon Boom Animation program. These, however, are almost completely hand-drawn (characters-wise), since you can only create good character animation when you have a feel of the lines and forms of the characters, a thing that is quite difficult to program on a computer.

Some studios use papers and scanners, some use graphic tablets like the Wacoms to imput drawings into their computers. Some parts of a character can be animated while others are put on a different layer and remain static.

You can recognize these films by the slight jittery outlines of the character when he/she/it moves, since each line was drawn to match up with the previous drawings', though never perfectly so, no matter how hard the animators tried. The backgrounds are usually painted by hand (either digitally or manually on papers), or in 3D models that mimic a particular style or both.

Having said all that, yes, most animated shows are still drawn by hand. Some are done on papers and scanners, some are done on computers with Wacom tablets, some combine both in the production process. 2D animation is a craft, and unless computers can draw imaginatively, animators will still have their jobs, drawing them lovingly frame by frame. I hope that helped.

Could you see this machine within the next 75 years?




Qelery


A "Home Diagnosis Machine" that looks like a mini MRI machine in your home that you will use daily. First the machine takes a drop of your blood and saliva as a sample. Then you lay on the machine as it brings into the tube, just like an MRI machine. It scans you body for about 5 minutes, taking 3D images of your body and examining the blood. It would be able to tell you everything from your blood pressure, to cancerous tumors, to what vitamins you lack. Your results will be dispalyed on a touch screen. Everything that needs your attention will be shown to you. It will diagnose you and display what medication, vitamins, or medical attention you need. You select the medication you need to buy and the machine will send it to your local pharmacy.


Answer
Sure, why not? Except that it will probably not look like a MRI machine at all and won't need 75 years to come to market. Like almost any product, this hypothetical device would have to be user friendly as well as have user appeal. That means no big, bulky machines in the house/apartment. I would envision it as more of a solid state scanner that could be placed on the wall, ceiling, shower, door frame or even in your bed frame (basically anything you walk past). Depending on how many points of origin the scanner(s) has (or perhaps it uses some kind of depth sensitive radiation) it can then scan you in three dimensions while you are stationary. There are already consumer available 3D scanners that place objects on turntables and produce a 3D image. So there's the technological component.
I can also see such a device coming to homes due to society's increasing paranoia and obsession with personal health and hygiene (I think this borders on mass psychosis). Basically anything that promises to be of some benefit to personal health will be easily accepted by consumers even if there are other potential drawbacks.
Factors against the invention of such a device would likely have to be economic or political in nature since social acceptance and technology are already in place. Also, a newer and better method might also be discovered in that time.




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