Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!xanth!mcnc!spl
From: spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Best of 1989 SIGGRAPH
Message-ID: <5067@alvin.mcnc.org>
Date: 10 Aug 89 13:12:55 GMT
References: <89080823183434@masnet.uucp> <5056@alvin.mcnc.org> 
Reply-To: spl@mcnc.org.UUCP (Steve Lamont)
Organization: Microelectronics Center of NC; RTP, NC
Lines: 50

In article  sarrel@shawnee.cis.ohio-state.edu (Marc Sarrel) writes:
>In article <5056@alvin.mcnc.org> spl@mcnc.org (Steve Lamont) writes:
>   [... other comments about Eurhythmy...]
>   done *real* cinematography or have studied the subject very intently.  Though
>   the dancing figures had the usual computer graphics marionette quality to
>   them, the choreography was still marvelous, as well.  Well done!!!!
>
>
>Well, I've heard Michael Girard give a presentation on the motion
>control software he used to control the figures.  He spoke at an
>animation seminar course I took here at OSU.  He wrote his entire
>dissertation on the subject.  It was _not_ a simple keyframe style
>animation.  The animator specifies where, in general, he wants a
>figure to go, as well as information about the creature's gate and the
>system figures out footfalls and joint angles to satisfy the
>animator's desires.  ...

Very true.  I should have been more specific in my "criticism" (in, I hope the
constructive sense of the word) of the creature's motion.

The motion was certainly the most realistic that one might hope for give
current technology.  Quite convincing kinesthetics, in fact.

What I was referring to was the feeling that however accurate the movement
was, it just didn't seem as if the creature's feet were *actually* touching
the ground.  That's what I mean my marionette quality.  Watch a real foot when
it touches the ground.  It bends and deforms slightly as weight is put on it.
Maybe that's what bothers me about most computer animation:  the characters
rarely seem to have any weight to them.  (Perhaps that's because we spend so
much time and effort generating flying logos and glass balls in space??? :-) )

Again, please don't think I was criticising Girard or his collaborator, Susan
Amkraut.  Their work was excellent.  I just think that we have a lot farther
to go before computer animation catches up with Warner Brothers and Walt
Disney cartoons of the 1940s.  Maybe we can get Al Barr and Michael Girard
together to do some *real* dynamic constraints animation :-).


-- 
							spl
Steve Lamont, sciViGuy			EMail:	spl@ncsc.org
North Carolina Supercomputing Center	Phone: (919) 248-1120
Box 12732/RTP, NC 27709


-- 
							spl
Steve Lamont, sciViGuy			EMail:	spl@ncsc.org
North Carolina Supercomputing Center	Phone: (919) 248-1120
Box 12732/RTP, NC 27709