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