Thursday, October 23, 2014

Motion CapturNimation : Understanding the Work behind AVATAR (Pt. 1)


Picture this. There exists a world where fiction meets reality. With the technology we have today, this achievement can be possible.

As technology gets better and better, so do the movies. What I mean is the special effects of the movies (the plot might actually get worse, but who really cares. Wait, don't tell me that you watch Transformers because of the "in depth plot." You know we all watch it for the robots... and Michael Bay explosions.....The newest movie literally spends twenty minutes explaining how the sexual relationship between a minor and an adult was legit. Seriously.) With the advent influx of different types of technology comes different ways to utilize and seize the technology for the benefit of the greater good (so basically, entertainment). The directors use these tools to interpret movies in new and unusual ways to attract an audience's attention. Directors hire special effect artists and with the team of professionals, these people create ideas beyond the realms of human imagination.

In animation, there are movies created with just animated characters and more recently in the current era, movies with the combination of computer animated character and human characters are also becoming a norm (more recently, the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie). The technologies used today have such good special effects, that animated characters have look and become human-like. The highest gross movie of all time Avatar, uses computer animation with a combination of motion capture to bring its characters to life (as well as create an awesomely wicked environment might I add).


This particular film was shelved during the 1990s, by James Cameron (He says it's because technology hasn't reached to its full potential yet to capture the essence of this movie, and also, word on the street is that Cameron is a perfectionist, so if need be, he would've shelved this movie FOREVER. Thankfully the technology caught up, and we were able to see this masterpiece.). Cameron (being the perfectionist he is) saw that the technology available at the time decided to take action and with the current technology of 2005 (this was back in 2005), developed a new motion-capture device, that uses animation techniques to enable a 110% performance capture, rather than 100%.

Performance capture is the technique that drives this force. This technique is another art on its own and there are several subtopics to talk about when mentioning this technique. Until then, we will be discussing and continuing motion capture in the weeks ahead.



"Avatar (2009 Film)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29>.
"James Cameron's Avatar." James Cameron's Avatar. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2014. <http://www.avatarmovie.com/index.html>.

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