Academic literature on the topic 'Computer-animated films'

In the digital animated films of the U.S.A, the frontier technology is CG (Computer Graphics). This paper, based on the study of American CG animated films, analyzes the unique architectural designs in these films and further points out that CG has brought unprecedented impacts on the traditional animated films. Thus, the architectural designs have been changing in the animated films of the U.S.A..

If an animated film wants to present extraordinary visual effects, the successful use of art colors is the key to the success or failure of an animated film. Although our country’s animated film started a short time ago, its development has been slow. In modern times, it is difficult to compete with excellent animation works of other countries; animation is an art form that requires the combination of modern technology and traditional cultural areas. Chinese cartoons are gradually declining today when the technology is taking off. The reason is that the traditional culture of the country has not been thoroughly explored. In today’s diversified world, if you want to revive the brilliance of Chinese animation, you must deeply and systematically study various elements of national art and form your own creative thinking and creation system. Particularly under computer vision, the gap is very obvious. Under the computer vision, in order to study the characteristics and techniques of the use of fine art colors in animated films, to promote the development of animated films in China, this article analyzes the role of art color in the animation of excellent Chinese and foreign animation works in recent years, through literature analysis, comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis, etc., to study the meaning and application of color symbols, hoping to be a Chinese animation providing useful help for film creation and development. Studies have shown that color has a strong influence on animated films. A good use of artistic color can add a lot of color to an animated film. According to statistics, art colors account for at least 20% of excellent animation works, which can be integrated into animation colors. Animation works with domestic characteristics are easier to succeed. This shows that the use of artistic colors can play a key role in animated films.

The customary practice across both feature-length cel-animated cartoons and television animation has been to cast adults in the vocal roles of children. While these concerns raise broader questions about the performance of children and childhood in animation, in this article I seek to examine the tendency within computer-animated films to cast children-as-children. These films, I argue, offer the pleasures of “captured” performance, and foreground what Roland Barthes terms the “grain” of the child’s voice. By examining the meaningless “babbling” and spontaneous vocalisations of the aptly-named child Boo from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. (2001), this article offers new ways of conceptualising the relationship between animation and voiceover, suggesting that computer-animated films celebrate childhood by emphasising the verbal mannerisms and vicissitudes of the unprompted child actor. The calculated fit between the digital children onscreen and the rhythms of their unrefined speech expresses an active engagement with the pleasures of simply being young, rather than privileging growing up. Monsters, Inc. deliberately accentuates how the character’s screen voice is authentically made by a child-as-a-child, preserving the unique vocal capabilities of four-year-old Mary Gibbs as Boo, whilst framing her performance in a narrative which dramatises the powers held within the voice of children.

After WWII the genre of the animated poster was predominantly presented as advertisment films. The movie posters imagery in the 1950s tended to have an illustrative and spatial-pictorial artistic propensity. Grotesque and satire gave way to the dominance of realistic images, and the artistic design had gained coloration and splendor, creating the image of a cheerful world, affluence and prosperity. Films with propaganda and ideological orientations appeared along with the advertisement films, as the political and social poster developed. A special role in the poster genre development was played by the emergence of television as a major customer and distributor of this product. Unlike Western animation, the production of advertisement and social film-posters in the USSR was a state tool of the planned economy. Animated posters played an important role in the formation of new social strategies, behavior patterns and consumption. As a result, in the animated posters of the Soviet period, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, a didactic tone and an optimistic pathos in the presentation of the material dominated. The stylistics of film-posters changed in the 1960s. Their artistic image was characterized by conciseness and expressiveness, inclination towards iconic symbolism, and the metaphoric and graphic quality of the imagery. The poster aesthetics influenced the entire animation development in this period. The development of advertisement and social posters continued in the 1970s-1980s. The clipping principles of the material presentation began to develop in the advertisement poster, however, in the social and political poster there was a tendency towards narration. Computer technology usage in animation and the emergence of the Internet as a new communicative environment contributed to a new stage in the development of the animated poster genre. Means of expression experienced a qualitative upgrade under the influence of digital technologies in animated posters. While creating an animated posters artistic appearance the attraction and collage tendencies intensify due to the compilation of computer graphics and photographic images, furthermore, simulacrum-images are actively utilized as well. Since the 2000s, digital technologies are actively used for the development of social, instructional and educational posters. The advent of new technologies has led to modifications of the animated poster genre, changed the way it functions and converted its form. Along with cinematic and television forms - new types of animated posters have appeared which are used in outdoor advertising (billboards) as well as dynamic interactive banners and animated posters on web sites.

ABSTRACT Machinima are computer-animated films shot within video games that expose possibilities and pitfalls in the increasing convergence of cinema and video games. By satirically dramatizing the inner lives of video game characters, machinima works Deviation and Red vs. Blue undermine the cycle of combat and death that drives first-person shooters.

Around 2010, the inventor character started to populate animated blockbusters. Computer 3D animated films and their sequels such as Robots (Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha, 2005), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2009), Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, 2010) and Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014) all feature inventors and their extravagant machines. In this article, the author explores the inventive artisan character as a self-reflexive trope of the animator. She expands Crafton’s thesis of the animator’s self-figuration and Tom Gunning’s work on machine comedy and operational aesthetics to further discussions on the animator and thereby the labour of animation. The article seeks to reveal the political agenda in the new animated machine comedy of the 2010s, which not only reflects the modes of production of contemporary animation studios, but also the larger concerns in the post-Fordist mode of production.

Educational animation is an animated product produced specifically for the purpose of learning. Its popularity in helping students understand and remember information presented increased since the advent of computer graphics technology. The lack of an increase in the production of animated short films in Indonesia resulted in at least encountered the works of domestically-made animation education. Stimulation of creation of animated works based on the local culture should be a concern for creators to produce Indonesian animated film. This has encouraged the idea of research and the creation of the works to add alternative work spectacle for children to be more varied. The work produced will be expected to become one of the benchmarks for the creators of short animated films in Indonesia. The short animated film themed character education and have the characterization and design characteristics based on local wisdom is still a little bit. Production work is still dominated by elements that showed the humorous aspects of violence as like a common thing to do. It is extremely dangerous due to the development of the child's personality or character will indirectly entertained spectacle dominated by the less educated. Therefore bring back figures Punakawan as "teacher" character education in the form of short animated films for the sake of growth is necessary to be realized next generation character education in Indonesia.Keywords: educational animation, punakawan, moral educationAbstrakAnimasi edukasi adalah sebuah produk animasi yang diproduksi khusus untuk tujuan pembelajaran. Popularitasnya dalam membantu peserta didik memahami dan mengingat informasi yang disajikan meningkat sejak munculnya teknologi komputer grafis. Kurangnya peningkatan produksi karya film pendek animasi di Indonesia mengakibatkan sedikitnya dijumpai karya-karya animasi edukasi buatan anak negeri. Rangsangan penciptaan karya animasi berbasis pada budaya lokal sepatutnya menjadi perhatian bagi para kreator dalam menghasilkan film animasi Indonesia. Hal inilah yang mendorong ide penelitian dan penciptaan karya guna menambahkan karya alternatif tontonan bagi anak-anak supaya lebih bervariatif. Karya yang dihasilkan nantinya diharapkan mampu menjadi salah satu tolok ukur bagi pencipta-pencipta film pendek animasi di Indonesia.Film pendek animasi yang bertemakan pendidikan karakter dan memiliki ciri penokohan dan desain berbasis kearifan lokal masih sangat sedikit. Produksi karya masih didominasi oleh unsur-unsur humoris yang mempertontonkan aspek kekerasan sebagai layaknya hal yang umum dilakukan. Hal ini sangat berbahaya dikarenakan perkembangan kepribadian atau karakter sang anak secara tidak langsung akan didominasi oleh tontonan hiburan yang kurang mendidik. Oleh karena itu memunculkan kembali tokoh-tokoh Punakawan selaku “guru” pendidikan karakter dalam wujud karya film pendek animasi sangatlah perlu direalisasikan demi pertumbuhan pendidikan karakter generasi penerus bangsa Indonesia dikemudian hari. Kata kunci: Animasi edukasi, punakawan, pendidikan karakter

Contemporary computer-animated films by the major American animation studios Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks are often described as evoking (extremely) emotional responses from their ever-growing audiences. Following Murray Smith’s assertion that characters are central to comprehending audiences’ engagement with narratives in Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (1995), this article points to a specific style of characterization as a possible reason for the overwhelming emotional response to and great success of these films, exemplified in contemporary examples including Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, 2015), Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014) and How to Train Your Dragon (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, 2010). Drawing on a variety of scholarly work including Stephen Prince’s ‘perceptual realism’, Scott McCloud’s model of ‘amplification through simplification’ and Masahiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley theory, this article will argue how a shared style of character design – defined as a paradoxical combination of lifelikeness and abstraction – plays a significant role in the empathetic potential of these films. This will result in the proposition of a new and reverse phenomenon to Mori’s Uncanny Valley, dubbed the Pixar Peak, where, as opposed to a steep drop, audiences reach a climactic height in empathy levels when presented with this specific type of characterization.

AbstractModern computer-aided techniques foster the availability and quality of 3D visualization and reconstruction of extinct and extant species. Moreover, animated sequences of locomotion and other movements find their way into motion pictures and documentary films, but also gain attraction in science. While movement analysis is well advanced in vertebrates, particularly in mammals and birds, analyses in arthropods, with their much higher variability regarding general anatomy and size, are still in their infancies and restricted to a few laboratory species. These restrictions and deficient understanding of terrestrial arthropod locomotion in general impedes sensible reconstruction of movements in those species that are not directly observable (e.g., extinct and cryptic species). Since shortcomings like over-simplified approaches to simulate arthropod locomotion became obvious recently, in this review we provide insight into physical, morphological, physiological, behavioral, and ecological constraints, which are essential for sensible reconstructions of terrestrial arthropod locomotion. Such concerted consideration along with sensible evaluations of stability and efficiency requirements can pave the way to realistic assessment of leg coordination and body dynamics.

The introduction argues for the significance of the computer-animated film by placing this popular media form within its historical, cultural and critical contexts. It charts the rejuvenation of U.S. animation during the 1990s and the broader market response to Toy Story (1995), as well as identifying the global circulation of computer-animated films by establishing the expansion of the international computer graphics community and rise in CG facilities, divisions and subsidiaries beyond Hollywood. The introduction also unfolds its central argument regarding film genre, expounding the evaluative possibilities made available by genre theory to the close examination of the computer-animated film. The main body of writing surveys the critical contexts that have accounted for the computer-animated film’s scholarly place across a multitude of disciplines. Genre is then innovatively positioned as an enabling tool that brings into relief the terms under which computer-animated films can be held distinct from other forms and styles of animation.

Chapter Four presents new research into animated anthropomorphism, and argues that computer-animated films more readily exploit the non-human element of its characters rather than recourse to the humanlike to manipulate virtual space through anthropomorphic subjectivity. Drawing from Sergei Eisenstein’s notion of “plasmaticness” (1986) and Gilles Deleuze’s writing on “gaseous perception” (1986), this chapter explores the molecular, sporadic contact that the digital anthropomorph has with the surrounding virtual cartography and the manner in which they constantly reframe and deform the action through a highly inventive cinematic eye. These new qualities of the computer-animated film anthropormorph permits a Luxo world to be defined as aesthetically and stylistically anecdotal. In comparison to other forms of animated worlds, computer-animated films present a virtual reality that is visually channelled through the anthropomorph’s individual activities, movements and viewpoints within, through and across digital space.

Chapter One maintains the genre narrative established in the book’s introduction, interrogating in greater depth the shape of contemporary film genre theory, and its relationship to the study of digital animation to understand how computer-animated films might be conceptualised in generic terms. The interrelationship between animation and genre is identified as a complex series of engagements and negotiations, and drawing on animation scholarship and theories of film genre, this chapter engages with the problem of generic classification when placed within the specific context of animation. Informed by Paul Wells’ work on animation’s generic “deep structures”, this chapter argues that it is in the process of ‘doing’ recognisable genres (similar to notions of genre parody) that computer-animated films both create and announce their own internal structures and attributes, which will be pursued across the book as a whole. Chapter One also works through technological considerations (including current software packages) to identify the computer-animated film genre as a significant attribute of textual structures that are underpinned by technological concerns. Questions of genealogy and the computer-animated film’s potential influence (live-action cinema; videogames) are therefore brought together in a discussion of the ‘computer-animated film’ as a viable critical label.

This chapter advances the term ‘Luxo’ as a useful descriptor that awards definition to the unique fictional worlds of the computer-animated feature film. The main body of writing in the initial stages outlines how the Luxo worlds of computer-animated films intersect with (and depart from) other forms of animation and digital world construction, situating computer-animated films against scholarship dealing with world creation. Emphasis is paid to the multiplicity of cinema’s ‘computer-animated’ worlds across popular Hollywood cinema, drawing in comparisons with Rotoscoping and the current effects industry via the virtual backlot. A significant discrimination made here is the idea that a Luxo world operates as a computer-animated film fiction achieved through the act of production, not as a fictional world crafted separately in post-production. Animatedness becomes a term that is developed throughout the chapter, invoked to promote the specificities of this new digital cinema and the richness of its film worlds. By exploring the particular “animatedness” of a Luxo world against other types and traditions of animated fictions, this chapter distinguishes the ways in which technology is harnessed through the spectacle of the digital multitude and how computer-animated films operate in dialogue with the formal style of “open world” videogames.

This chapter moves forward by unpacking the generic identity of computer-animated films and examines the journey narrative structure as their prevailing syntax and first line of action. In this chapter, two forms of narrative are established that are widely operational within the genre. The first of these are the “flushed away” narratives that rely upon on abrupt geographical disjuncture, and which often requires the protagonist to negotiate and quickly adapt to a foreign milieu. The second journey narrative form advanced in this chapter is the “over the hedge” narrative, which are voyages signalled as altogether more prepared or expected. This chapter explores in detail how computer-animated films deploy these two forms of journey narrative structure to interrogate ideas of mobility, location, destination and tourism through the virtual experiences they offer of travelled space. Chapter Two concludes by positioning the journey narrative within the context of film franchising and the “sequelled” narrative. Computer-animated films rarely exists in isolation, but are supported by a range of sequels, spin-offs and short films. This chapter identifies how narrative structure can be productively entwined with the wider role of film series and cycles that continues to define the franchise mentality of post-millennial Hollywood cinema.

The conclusion reflects on the meaningfulness of genre analysis as paving the way for more rigorously formalist approaches to computer-animated films, but also as a way of positioning industry, technology and textuality in relation to each other. The conclusion also argues that the features of the computer-animated film identified in the book engage with discourses of juvenile behaviour to stretch the terms of the adult/child distinction, with many computer-animated films demonstrating a notable fascination with the vicissitudes and values of the childhood experience. The narratives of computer-animated films invite a specific consideration of what it means to be a child within contemporary culture. I challenge directly Judith Halberstam’s notion that certain children’s films appeal to the “disorderly child” and instead look to the fuzzy distinction between adolescents and adults engendered in portmanteau terms pertaining to cultural categories such as “kidult,” “manchild” and “adultescents.” The child/adult distinction is thus not fixed or ‘frozen,’ but flowing, and the conclusion identifies how computer-animated films offer future opportunity to examine how, as a genre, they mobilise questions about the cultural experience and significance of childhood, at the same time as their narratives redefine adulthood.

As a way of remedying the wider absence of computer-animated film acting within scholarship on film and animated performance, this chapter makes a significant assertion that, in its production, the computer-animated film genre actually cross-pollinates stop-frame techniques with those associated with marionette theatre as part of its style of performance. In the workable geometry of its virtual bodies (skeletal structure, anatomical coherency, joint segmentation and armature), computer-animated films evoke the wealth of string marionettes (as well as rod or hand puppets) moved within a live performance setting. Such puppet-like forms of acting holds the computer-animated film distinct from performances in popular Hollywood cinema achieved through stop-motion frame-by-frame techniques and traditional hand-drawn methods. However, this analysis not only supports the central concept that puppetry has become a more significant concern of the computer-animated film than in other animated media, but also provides a counter-narrative to scholarship that affords generality to motion-capture as the dominant mode of cyber or virtual puppetry. Puppetry can be understood, I argue, as an altogether more inclusive category, and this chapter promotes puppetry as opening up performance in computer-animated films and revealing the sliding scale of puppet processes involved in its creation of acting.

This chapter argues that mannerism and traditions of mannerist art give greater definition to how computer-animated films playfully dismantle their illusionist activity by making false claims about their relation to live-action cinema. To consider these specific forms of Mannerist humour in the computer-animated film, this chapter plots Mannerism’s cinematic lineage within certain styles and genres (film noir, pop music film, heritage drama, period film and cinéma du look), and notes that despite scholars having employed a vocabulary drawn from European art history to describe the (often digitally-assisted) bravura camerawork of New Hollywood cinema, Mannerism has yet to be employed as a descriptor for digital animation. This chapter therefore re-imagines computer-animated film comedy as strongly Mannerist in its invention, and draws particular attention to their strategies of allusive anti-illusionism. Computer-animated films frequently stage false, illusory discourses of revelation (feigned blooper reels, outtake material, behind-the-scenes ‘actor’ interviews) as a comic flourish that maintains the genre’s illusion. To interrogate the wit of the genre’s Mannerist play, I examine its many trompe-l’œil illusion effects and activities of self-deception.

Abstract As computers grow in ability to access and process ever-larger blocks of data within real-time responses, their ability to generate virtual reality responses has multiplied exponentially. Simultaneously, computer capabilities of using huge data files to control manufacturing processes, create rapid prototypes, augment human senses, and control vehicles and machines have given them the ability to control and even create physical reality. But computers now have the ability to blur the lines between virtual and physical realities in areas which include video manipulation, virtual reality with tactile feedback, and physical training devices such as flight training simulators. This paper investigates types of computer-generated virtual/physical realities and their uses and implications for industry and consumers alike. Examples of research by the authors in video manipulation and training, solid modeling, animated simulation, manufacturing, rapid prototyping, and reverse engineering will be presented, along with data base corruption, and data manipulation methods and problems. Finally, applications and future implications of this technology will be presented.

The objectives of this project were to develop nondestructive methods for detection of internal properties and firmness of fruits and vegetables. One method was based on a soft piezoelectric film transducer developed in the Technion, for analysis of fruit response to low-energy excitation. The second method was a dot-matrix piezoelectric transducer of North Carolina State University, developed for contact-pressure analysis of fruit during impact. Two research teams, one in Israel and the other in North Carolina, coordinated their research effort according to the specific objectives of the project, to develop and apply the two complementary methods for quality control of agricultural commodities. In Israel: An improved firmness testing system was developed and tested with tropical fruits. The new system included an instrumented fruit-bed of three flexible piezoelectric sensors and miniature electromagnetic hammers, which served as fruit support and low-energy excitation device, respectively. Resonant frequencies were detected for determination of firmness index. Two new acoustic parameters were developed for evaluation of fruit firmness and maturity: a dumping-ratio and a centeroid of the frequency response. Experiments were performed with avocado and mango fruits. The internal damping ratio, which may indicate fruit ripeness, increased monotonically with time, while resonant frequencies and firmness indices decreased with time. Fruit samples were tested daily by destructive penetration test. A fairy high correlation was found in tropical fruits between the penetration force and the new acoustic parameters; a lower correlation was found between this parameter and the conventional firmness index. Improved table-top firmness testing units, Firmalon, with data-logging system and on-line data analysis capacity have been built. The new device was used for the full-scale experiments in the next two years, ahead of the original program and BARD timetable. Close cooperation was initiated with local industry for development of both off-line and on-line sorting and quality control of more agricultural commodities. Firmalon units were produced and operated in major packaging houses in Israel, Belgium and Washington State, on mango and avocado, apples, pears, tomatoes, melons and some other fruits, to gain field experience with the new method. The accumulated experimental data from all these activities is still analyzed, to improve firmness sorting criteria and shelf-life predicting curves for the different fruits. The test program in commercial CA storage facilities in Washington State included seven apple varieties: Fuji, Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and D'Anjou pear variety. FI master-curves could be developed for the Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith and Jonagold apples. These fruits showed a steady ripening process during the test period. Yet, more work should be conducted to reduce scattering of the data and to determine the confidence limits of the method. Nearly constant FI in Red Delicious and the fluctuations of FI in the Fuji apples should be re-examined. Three sets of experiment were performed with Flandria tomatoes. Despite the complex structure of the tomatoes, the acoustic method could be used for firmness evaluation and to follow the ripening evolution with time. Close agreement was achieved between the auction expert evaluation and that of the nondestructive acoustic test, where firmness index of 4.0 and more indicated grade-A tomatoes. More work is performed to refine the sorting algorithm and to develop a general ripening scale for automatic grading of tomatoes for the fresh fruit market. Galia melons were tested in Israel, in simulated export conditions. It was concluded that the Firmalon is capable of detecting the ripening of melons nondestructively, and sorted out the defective fruits from the export shipment. The cooperation with local industry resulted in development of automatic on-line prototype of the acoustic sensor, that may be incorporated with the export quality control system for melons. More interesting is the development of the remote firmness sensing method for sealed CA cool-rooms, where most of the full-year fruit yield in stored for off-season consumption. Hundreds of ripening monitor systems have been installed in major fruit storage facilities, and being evaluated now by the consumers. If successful, the new method may cause a major change in long-term fruit storage technology. More uses of the acoustic test method have been considered, for monitoring fruit maturity and harvest time, testing fruit samples or each individual fruit when entering the storage facilities, packaging house and auction, and in the supermarket. This approach may result in a full line of equipment for nondestructive quality control of fruits and vegetables, from the orchard or the greenhouse, through the entire sorting, grading and storage process, up to the consumer table. The developed technology offers a tool to determine the maturity of the fruits nondestructively by monitoring their acoustic response to mechanical impulse on the tree. A special device was built and preliminary tested in mango fruit. More development is needed to develop a portable, hand operated sensing method for this purpose. In North Carolina: Analysis method based on an Auto-Regressive (AR) model was developed for detecting the first resonance of fruit from their response to mechanical impulse. The algorithm included a routine that detects the first resonant frequency from as many sensors as possible. Experiments on Red Delicious apples were performed and their firmness was determined. The AR method allowed the detection of the first resonance. The method could be fast enough to be utilized in a real time sorting machine. Yet, further study is needed to look for improvement of the search algorithm of the methods. An impact contact-pressure measurement system and Neural Network (NN) identification method were developed to investigate the relationships between surface pressure distributions on selected fruits and their respective internal textural qualities. A piezoelectric dot-matrix pressure transducer was developed for the purpose of acquiring time-sampled pressure profiles during impact. The acquired data was transferred into a personal computer and accurate visualization of animated data were presented. Preliminary test with 10 apples has been performed. Measurement were made by the contact-pressure transducer in two different positions. Complementary measurements were made on the same apples by using the Firmalon and Magness Taylor (MT) testers. Three-layer neural network was designed. 2/3 of the contact-pressure data were used as training input data and corresponding MT data as training target data. The remaining data were used as NN checking data. Six samples randomly chosen from the ten measured samples and their corresponding Firmalon values were used as the NN training and target data, respectively. The remaining four samples' data were input to the NN. The NN results consistent with the Firmness Tester values. So, if more training data would be obtained, the output should be more accurate. In addition, the Firmness Tester values do not consistent with MT firmness tester values. The NN method developed in this study appears to be a useful tool to emulate the MT Firmness test results without destroying the apple samples. To get more accurate estimation of MT firmness a much larger training data set is required. When the larger sensitive area of the pressure sensor being developed in this project becomes available, the entire contact 'shape' will provide additional information and the neural network results would be more accurate. It has been shown that the impact information can be utilized in the determination of internal quality factors of fruit. Until now,