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Despite major advances in stunning visual effects for blockbuster movies, high-quality computer animation is still labour-intensive and expensive. A minute of on-screen animated action can cost around EUR 1 million on average.
This is unsustainable in the long term, especially with the expected growth in realistic animation and visual products thanks to a wider range of products and applications like interactive graphics, computerised training and simulation, serious games for health, and innovations in entertainment.
“We are approaching a point where a technological breakthrough is needed in digital creation and design,” says Jian Chang of Bournemouth University, UK. “Industry wants more realistic visual artefacts and dynamics, immersive experiences, sophisticated interaction and complex models to handle and manage increasing data storage, and it wants all this at a lower cost!”
The EU-funded AniM project he is leading jointly with Jian J Zhang has developed design tools, data management systems and shared best practices for the next generation of computer animation techniques.
Hosted by the National Centre for Computer Animation in the UK, AniM’s research team has delivered smart solutions to tackle data-management challenges in computer animation production, and improve both the designer and user experience. AniM used Chinese marionette puppetry as a test medium to demonstrate the interactive software tools and other innovations to reproduce stylish cultural content in animated forms.
A golden era for animation
Computer animation marries art and design with mathematics and computer science. Though recognised as the machinery behind Hollywood blockbuster films, interactive games and 3D virtual reality, its contributions in other fields, such as manufacturing and design, science and cultural heritage, are also worthy — and potentially lucrative — applications.
Unique in its ability to visually communicate complex ideas and unseen worlds, animation is ubiquitous in the creative industry and data-rich fields. “It has really been a golden era for computer animation, which is constantly evolving and being reshaped thanks to novel hardware, gadgets and techniques developed or adapted from other disciplines,” says Zhang.
Chinese puppet carving is a 2000-year-old craft with well-defined artistic traditions which are complex to reproduce digitally. Developed as a cultural heritage case study, AniM’s marionette head-modelling work is a unique blend of ancient and modern.
“Our method for marionette head carving by first digitalising the heads with a novel mathematical modelling technique using ordinary differential equations (ODEs) has been specially tailored to accurately preserve the shapes,” explains the team.
The researchers also used motion-sensing technology to animate storytelling for young children, promoting creativity, collaboration and better cognition in learning environments. For this, AniM used human-computer interaction (HCI) together with an innovative single or multiplayer system (Puppet Narrator) that combines oral and physical storytelling. For this children can use hand gestures to manipulate and interact with a virtual puppet.
These tools, part of the project’s ‘AniC’ suite, can handle complex physical motion and interaction between the characters. The package is complemented by the project’s ontology-based data visualisation and management prototypes (iMCA) which are cleverly designed so professional designers and industry can easily use them.
A platform with a mobile application has also been created to bring all the components —data, designs, clients and collaborators — together during sometimes long and complicated animation projects taking place in different locations around the world.
Art, science, business…
In addition to benefiting the creative industries, AniM’s data management solutions, which have been shared with industry and academia through leading publications and events, can also help to preserve cultural heritage by digitalising content in animated form.
Through the professional exchanges and collaboration between China and Europe the project has also promoted technological advances in cloud-based data-sharing and more ‘open’ production methods in the computer animation world.
Although the team says data security issues and intellectual property rights during animated productions are proving to be a great challenge to wider take-up of the innovations in data sharing and management services.
AniM was funded through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie international fellowship. On top of the practical outputs, the project has been a valuable learning and knowledge-sharing exercise between European and Chinese researchers. The project resulted has published four research papers in top journals and made six presentations at international conferences.