Rotoscoping
Motion capture (or performance capture) is essentially the digital age version of rotoscoping, where actors movements are recorded and the motion applied to animated characters
In Gulliver’s Travels (1939) rotoscoping was used for the main character
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) also used rotoscoping
Waking Life (2001)
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in conjunction with Pacific Data Images produced a digital version of the Muppets character Waldo, which was controllable in real time
Robert Abel and Associates created a motion capture sequence entitled Sexy Robot (1984)
In 1990, Jeff Klesiser and Diana Walczak created a music video (Don’t touch me) that featured a motion-captured performance of the singer Perla Batalla
Total Recall (1990) was the first failed attempt to use motion capture in a feature film (the mocap data was intended for the walking skeletons through the x-ray scene)
The Lawnmower Man (1991) contained short motion-capture shots, along with Peter Gabriel’s music video Steam (1993) (1mins into video is longest shot)
Games
Video games - the first industry to extensively use motion-capture
The first game was Atari’s 1995 game Highlander; The Last of the McLeods
Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001) was a milestone in graphics and game play. Motion capture was used for the characters
The Last of Us
First feature film to be entirely animated with motion capture was Sinbad: Beyond the Veil of Mists (2000)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) was the first attempt to create a photo real world using mocap characters in a movie
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) with Andy Serkis as Gollum, and Andy Serkis again as Kong in King Kong (2005)
The Polar Express (2004)
Uncanny Valley
A theory by Roboticist Masahiro Mori observes that when robots of human appearance get to the point where they look and act almost like actual humans, it causes revulsion among human observers (The “valley” refers to a dip in the positivity of human reaction to a robot’s closeness to human appearance)
The theory suggests that when a robot becomes identical to a human, the response would become positive again
This is almost impossible due to the human brain being adept at recognising any tiny detail of abnormality, particularly in the human face
Further research by David Hanson found that stylization or adding slight cartoony elements of design to the artificial face, can make the response positive again
Blog Task
Post an overview of motion capture history
1970s-2001: The Early Years
The idea of mapping animation onto actors is almost as old as animated feature films: Disney’s pioneering 1938 film Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs partly utilized a process called ‘rotoscoping,’ whereby artists drew over live-action film frames. This technique was later used in animated films like Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings (1978) and the 1985 music-video for a-ha’s “Take on Me.” Computers pushed the process further: the Rotoshop system used in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006) is something of a primitive precursor to motion capture.
Initially developed by bio-mechanical engineers for motion studies, by the mid 1990s, the technology was being used in video games: Highlander: The Last Of The Macleods and Soul Blade both utilized motion-capture to bring greater realism to their on-screen avatars. It was only a matter of time before fimmakers caught on, although the first movie to be made exclusively with the technology is justifiably forgotten. 2000’s Sinbad: Beyond The Veil Of The Mists, an Indian-made animation featured the voice (but not movements) of Brendan Fraser, which looked like a very creaky video game cut-scene, and made just $30,000 on its brief theatrical release. The following year, big-budget animation Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within also utilized the technology in part, though also flopped at the box office.
1995-2006: The First Motion-Capture Characters
Popular conception has it that Gollum in Lord of the Rings was the first motion-captured character in live-action film, but that’s actually incorrect. The technology was first put to use to create a ‘digital double’ for Val Kilmer in 1995’s Batman Forever, and James Cameron populated crowd scenes in Titanic with performance-captured figures, replicated on a grand scale. And in the summer of 1999, actor Ahmed Best played Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace — he was present on set, but the CGI character, his movements animated based on the capture of Best’s performance on a sound-stage after the fact, was added in his place afterwards.
Jar-Jar was hated by fans, though, and so it’s no surprise that Gollum has the more lasting place in the history books. British stage actor Andy Serkis was hired by Peter Jackson to play emaciated ex-Hobbit Gollum/Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings films, and flew out to New Zealand essentially ignorant about motion-capture. The process wasn’t dissimilar to the one that Best had been through: Serkis would work with the actors on set, another take would be filmed with him just off-screen (during which he’d describe his motions to the other actors). Months later, Serkis would record Gollum’s movements on a special soundstage at Jackson’s visual-effects company WETA Digital, in front of a camera setup called The Volume. The basics of the technology weren’t all that different to how it works today: an actor (usually clad in a tight-fitting unitard) wears a series of sensors around their bodies. Multiple cameras are placed around the performer, which allows a computer to replicate a 3D model of the movements, which can then be exported into animation programs.
Find an example of “uncanny valley” and post your views on it’s effect
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