Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!onfcanim!dave
From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: the Computer Animation show
Message-ID: <15570@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: 6 Mar 88 06:31:44 GMT
References: <1676@desint.UUCP> <1087@ogg.cgrg.ohio-state.edu> <1685@desint.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Organization: National Film Board / Office national du film, Montreal
Lines: 17

In article <1685@desint.UUCP> geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
>Have you considered
>the amount of tedium involved in *hand*-drawing 24 frames per second of
>Snow White?  Tedium is not the problem, and technology is not the answer.

Have you considered the tedium in hand-drawing animation on a tablet
with a stylus, compared with pencil on paper?  Or trying to draw
something with a mouse?  How about building a 3D model of a house
using a modelling system and tablet, compared to physically making one
out of balsa wood or foamcore?  And how about trying to animate a
"human" figure by selecting the shoulder joint, selecting "Z-rotate",
and moving a mouse, compared with just reaching out and moving a puppet's
arm slightly?

Tedium, poor input devices, and bad user interface *are* problems.  If you
want to get really good animators using computer systems, they have to be
easier to use than the traditional alternatives.  So far, they (mostly) are not.